Blair Witch – coming to a roof near you

They don’t scare easily at TBWA GGT Simons Palmer.

Determined to capture the creeping menace of The Blair Witch Project for the latest John Smith’s No-Nonsense Man ad, copywriter Simon Hardy led a nervous team of followers in the doomed footsteps of the three student film-makers who disappeared in Maryland’s forest.

Actually, Hardy and company stood around on the roof of the TBWA building in Whitfield Street until it got dark and filmed the ten-second spoof with a Panasonic digital mini camera.

The intrepid team did encounter some drama, however. Liza Kendall, John Smith’s account manager at TBWA, says: “It was freezing cold and there was a police raid going on in the background, so we had to stop filming until the helicopter went away.” Blimey. Easily scarier than the actual film.