Derek Day, Part 1.

Being one, I'm very aware of my fellow double d's out there in advertising.Dave Droga - met once, gave him a lift after judging D&AD together.Donny Deutsch - never met, seen him on Morning Joe though.David Denton - did a few ads with him at BMP, did Cointreau 'Ice melts', amongst many others.Don Draper – never met, seems cool.And Derek Day - less known than the first three, but well worth checking out.I'd hear his quotes on a regular basis back in the early nineties.My then writer, Mike McKenna, had worked for Derek twice, first at Ted Bates, then Butterfield Day Devito Hockney, and would regale me with 'war' stories.I was new to the business, so ate them up, desperate for clues on how it worked.Mike's most repeated was a version of this - "I showed him our campaign for (insert various campaign names here)...Derek pulled a face, like a bulldog chewing a wasp, pull a face, then said (insert various clever critiques here)... and the scales fell from my eyes”.In a sea of dumb, crass ads, Derek's work always seemed clever and considered.Often not criteria that wins big awards.They tend to go to flashy and different.If I had a brief and wanted to win an award, quite a few writers spring to mind, if it needed help to my family business grow, Derek's would spring to mind.Looking at his career, there's a whiff of Zelig* about it. (*You’ll have to google it, soz.)Hired by Alan Parker to work at the best shop of the sixties - Collett Dickenson Pearce.Hired by John Webster to join arguably the best shop of the seventies - Boase Massimi Pollitt.(In part 2, we find he was also hired by David Abbott to join arguably the best shop of the eighties - Abbott Mead Vickers.)Then onto Doyle Dane Bernbach.Smith/Greenland in America, under futurist Faith Popcorn.Back to Blighty to become Creative Director at 25.Setting up a Cramer Saatchi-like creative consultancy for seven years, earning a ‘Seymour’ when Geoffrey was still in short pants. (Again, I refer you to google.)Then taking a 75% pay cut to join new agency Wight Collins Rutherford Scott in an attempt to win creative awards.And that’s just part one.We had a great chat, hope you enjoy it.