Good Luck.

"connect with consumers' - Geez Dave, you're starting to sound like an adman - something that would have horrified you only 3 years ago!!! Good luck!

Back & Bowman, a bloody awesome team. Smart move by Saatchi!

Big Bad Backy is my hero.

Did anyone ask Monty about this?

From the little I know of Dave, his earlier work for Glue was spot on. But in the latest Tooheys work, I detect a New York flavour not entirely appropriate for an Australian audience.

So when Steve Back. says "the experience he has gained working on major campaigns in New York is very evident," I'm not entirely sure it's all been to the benefit of his latest work.

If ever a beer and a brand needed an Aussie sense of humour, it's Toohey's New.

God help us if Droga's new VB campaign benefits from all that Noo Yoik sophistication as well.

Nobby et al, make it FUNNY and AUSSIE, and be true to the brand. Please.

Yeah. Cause I'd hate to see New or VB go broke in place of nicer beers like Coopers or Lovells.

It's mass market piss, improve the product and people will drink it no matter what the ads are.

Well done Dave, I've looked up to you the whole time I've been in advertising. Doesn't help that you're such a tall bastard. In my mind the best stuff you did was worth the pain, but they're all favourites of mine.

A Question for someone at Saatchi .

Firstly, not trying to be a cock. And secondly I can't spell or do grammar.

So here we go.

Was just wondering how the idea for Tooheys worked when both the introduction ad and follow up were basically shot at the same time and the production of the relay ad was in conjunction with the launch ads (this is a fact)? The idea that "This campaign allows consumers to decide how Tooheys are going to spend their ad budget.", is not really true then. Isn't it?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but wanted to know how that legally worked. Do you legally have to say 'this is a sham' in small print so people don't register? Isn't it ILLEGAL? I really want to know.

And the another thing. When you enter this into integrated awards and you have to put together one of those annoyingly boring films to explain the idea will you say " the web went wild with thousands of people deciding the next ad" or " we pretended like they had a say, but due to budgetary constraints and directors timings ( I notice it was credited to Gary Freedman and not the glue society), we found it logistically and finacially easier to shoot it all at one time).

Doesn't it feel kind of evil. That we praise these people saying they are revolutionising how ads work by creating a dialogue with the consumer when in fact we just do what we want anyway?

Not having a go.

Thanks very much

well done dave, but it's sad you've joined a falling star. Sorry plummeting...

'Right now I'm going through my "connect with consumers phase", not that i've ever met one.'

Ha ha ha.

Well done Dave.
Good man, good talent.
Now that you have a title and some power, don't let utter crap like the new "New" work ever happen again.

5.01

Is there not an argument for portraying the aussie bloke slightly different these days?
Isn't the aussie bloke a bit tired of the old 'Davo' cringe culture? As one myself, and a piss head at that, I reckon we've moved on a bit from the old one liner, taking the piss by shaving the old eye brow off or getting one over the wife.

I mean, that Tooheys work aint Carlsberg, but I reckon it's going in the right direction.
So, in one sense I disagree with you 100%.

You can still be aussie and funny without being stuck in worn out type cast. At least, I hope so.

He is so handsome when he's serious!! Great use of folded arms and spectacles in moody lighting.

Onya dude!

Dave-o,

Just had a few schooners with Don down at the Doncaster, and by his own admission he's absolutely chuffed. I did notice that the little wheel he has instead of a foot was spinning so fast it scorched a groove in the lounge bar carpet! So me, Twitchy, Ross Peterson and Skullo all chipped in some gold coins just to smooth things over!

cheers matey!

1:28, I wasn't suggesting that VB or for that matter New ought to resort to cliche, I just think it's important to recognise that we Australians have a unique, dry sense of humour when we're at our best, and that's an essential part of an icon brand, particularly a beer such as VB. New York has its place, but not in Australian beer advertising.

Love, 5:01.

7.35pm - If you listen to the ad again you'll hear that it actually asks for people's thoughts not for their vote.

Congrats Dave, my girlfriend thinks you are so hunky, Josh

Smile your on candid camera.

Good luck to him. He is clearly talented and going places, but I have a problem with these kinds of posts. I hate reading the naff quotes from agency insiders. Tell me the guy's name, where he's headed and what he's worked on. The quotes do no-one any favours. The most powerful advertising doesn't tell people what to think. Show the product and let it speak for itself.

It's been a while since you stood over me, all stern, your arms folded like that, with a disappointed look in your eye...

Well done.

Bungle.

Will all you fuckers bagging Dave and his work remain annonymous when sending him your book for a job?

While David's advertisements will undoubtedly cause this readership engorgement, be assured, it is the revealing of his well-turned lower shins that will result in a most stimulating leave of our senses.

I was at the pub yesterday with some mates when the Tooheys New ad came on. They looked at the ad,looked at me and asked, " Who the fuck does that shit? "

Bloody hell, that's a brilliant idea 8:41. If nothing else, it'll prove that you're no traditional hack!

Thank fuck the typical aussie male tit-and-fart-joke humour in beer advertising is dying. We've had our head so firmly up our own cultural ass that we've not even been aware of what self-indulgent crap we've produced in the past. Here's to a new era lead by the Big Ad, the Boony Doll, Missing Glasses, and DNA. Thank Chirst.

"This campaign allows consumers to decide how Tooheys are going to spend their ad budget."

That's from the Saatchi press release.

Except consumers didn't decide how Tooheys were going to spend their ad budget. Not in the slightest.

bullshit is still alive and well in the industry.

7:35,
If you listen to the VO in the first commercial he tells the consumer

"We might completely ignore it but tell us what you think"

They weren't asking the consumer to choose but rather asking them what they thought and whether or not they had a better idea.

5:01. Do you detect a NY flavor because the ad was shot in NY?
Will you also say that you detect a Spanish flavor when the torch reaches Spain or a Lebanese flavor when the torch reaches Lebanon?
Shit you're smart. Can I come work with you?

Dave started, if I'm not correct, in about 2002 at whybin/lawrence when it was still run by decent creatives. That means in under 6 years he has done more with his career than any of the new drinking poofters on this blog. I've met him once, he's a bloody nice and funny guy. He's also good mates with a mate of mine who doesn't work in advertising and he thinks he's a funny guy. I respect my mate and I respect Dave.

I can't understand how any of you wankers can bag him out, unless you suffer from short man CD-envy.

To ad to that, while new isn't his greatest hit, when was the last time you got anything up? And where is it?

12:08.

If you ever reach a stage of maturity which allows you to respond to someone else's reasonably expressed opinion - and it's only an opinion - with something other than abusive sarcasm, you may also develop the ability to differentiate between comments that got to style, and those that refer to location.

Even the nicest and most talented bloke in the world of advertising - whoever that is - should not be beyond criticism when it comes to their work. Sorry.

congrats dave

3:31 – I made another point to that as well.

What the hell have you done recently cause I sure as hell haven't seen anything decent up here?

Congrats Dave. Knock 'em dead. The ones who know you, know you will. Just what Saatchi needs.

aaah the heady days of whybin being any good. All that great playstation work. Couldn't they just do with someone like Dave now...

There is a difference between cretiquing and criticising.

I'm not going to dignify your spelling with a comment cretin.

Just looked at the new stuff from the spanish stage of the tooheys stuff. I have to say, pretty funny. Guy is like the latin answer to the 40 year old virgin.

1:28 says we've moved beyond 'Davo' culture cringe. He/she may be right BUT................you can hardly call Big Ad, Skydroop, all the Toohey's crap, Hahn, the Cascade rubbish, the Heineken garbage, the Empire shit etc., as being 'Davo' ads, The closest any beer ad has come to the dreaded 'Davo' culture cringe is BMF's XXXX Beach cricket campaign. And guess what? Its probably the most successful of the lot. Has anyone ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, the majority of beer drinkers prefer to have a beer with Davo' than with the bunch of metrosexuals featured in 99.9% of Aussie beer ads nowadays.

What happened to the Bonds rubbish?

Amen, 8:16.

And further to your agreement with my earlier assertions, what brand property underpins the current/recent work? The short answer: none.

In the attempt to be cleverer/more extravagant/more 'contemporary' not only are we doing ads for metrosexuals, we are failing to base these ads on any solid platform to take forward into the next ad, and the one after that and the one after that. It's what used to be called thinking in campaigns and building brands. Not just thinking about what will impress a bunch of metrosexual creatives on an award jury next year.

can we have a new story now please?

The reason creatives don't give a fuck about building brands is because they only stay at a place for 3-4 years. So lets write a small silly campaign that makes us famous, kills the brand then fuck off to the next jaunt.

Very self indulgent, very irresponsible to the company.

Having said that, Bowman has done a lot of good shit, especially for virgin.

It may not be brilliant, but KWP! Adelaide have been doing good, solid Coopers ads for years and years. Yes, the first ingredient for great advertising is a great product -- which Coopers definitely is -- but their communications, year after year, are a case study in beer brand-building.

Disclosure: Yes, I'm a Coopers devotee. And South Australian.

Next topic please

1:49, I reckon brand managers are there for even less and accordingly give even less of a fuck. If that is the case, what hope is there for a brand? To me, this belies a bigger problem. Companies are led by CEOs, CFOs, strategists and the like who have no understanding of arguably their biggest assets, their brands. They couldn't give a fuck about them and wouldn't know what to do with them even if they did. So before you start slagging off creatives, have a good long look in the mirror (suit, brand manager, strategist, whoever the fuck you are). But before you do, maybe extract your head from your arse. You'll get a better view.

!:54 You'll note I didn't knock the Coopers stuff. Its honest like the beer. Not lime all that other crap.

Cheers 8:16

8.16 is probably correct. Maybe the beer drinkers are all Davo types.

But QLD is a little bit different. Fore example, there is no city in QLD, unless you count Rockhampton.

1:49 Thank you for that I just extracted my head from my arse and have seen the light with CFOs Strategists and CEOs who don't know what the fuck they're doing. Very insightful.

I'm a creative. And not really a fan of the whole 'us and them' bullshit that really went out in the late 90s (yes I was working back then too).

I'm not slagging off creatives, it's the industry and the way it's done now – you want the dollars, you need to win awards, short term gains in terms of creating small, award winning campaigns VS 20 year long strategic campaigns seems to be the way most CDs want to run things in Australia these days. And why not, lets go where the money is.

What I think would be a better idea for brands is to look at the great brands from overseas that are loved, and win awards. The slag of all snack foods. Axe. Bud light. Tango, the gentlemans crisp et all.

These are big, 20 (ok maybe 10) year campaigns. The creatives come up with different ads within these great strategies until it gets to the point where the executions can take the piss out of the campaign, it is so well known.

I just honestly can't remember a long, worth while campaign to come out of Australia in a long, long time. Maybe I should head back overseas and quit my whinging. But my point simply wasn't to take the piss out of creatives, it was to point out how damaging this stuff is to brands when people come up with a new strap line every 3 months.

Say 'Real men of genius' to a yank and everyone has a laugh and knows what you're on about. Say 'For the love of beer' to an Aussie and.... well.... point made.

Dave's great. And despite what most jealous fuckers are saying the Tooheys ads are great!
I've just seen the latest one on the tooheys website. They seem to be getting funnier. The fat guy is hilarious.

I'm not going to bag the campaign out but it could have been funnier if they got a comedian to write it. The gag about 'pull the socks up... socks and pants are the same, the higher the better' just seems a little contrived and high school / the wedge kind of level of humour.

The spanish stereo-types are pretty naff as well. Great idea, but with plenty of underpaid out of work comedians out there spread the funds around please.

1.34 you should send your stuff into the boys and offer to help out

1.34
Take it you're an out of work comedian - and judging from your comment, I see why.

What happened to the Bonds blog??

2.31pm
Why.... they will just rip it off.

9:19pm, wondering the same thing. Perhaps Palace wasn't happy with the comments? Perhaps Campaign Brief realised it was boring fodder?