O&M realises the old songs are the best

Patrick Collister, creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, believes it is better to use original songs and music in advertising than choose material that is already famous.

Patrick Collister, creative director of Ogilvy & Mather, believes it is better to use original songs and music in advertising than choose material that is already famous.

However, the Diary can think of few great original songs which have been created by the ad industry. “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” and “Anytime, anyplace, anywhere” (the old Martini ad) just don’t match up to Dinah Washington singing “Mad about the boy” (Levi’s), or Louis Armstrong singing “All the time in the world” for Guinness.

But Collister admits that when the idea of using All the Time In The World was first suggested for Guinness by O&M creative team Simon Learman and Brian Fraser, he opposed it. He says: “I’d only been there three months, and I thought we could do better with our own song. They persuaded me I was wrong.”

Was it a look at the sales for Guinness that changed his mind? No – it was when the duo not only won a yellow pencil from the D&AD for the ad, but also received a gold disc for the song which reached the top ten in the pop charts.