The Work That Made Me: Jamie Fleming

Jamie Fleming is head of copy at Purple Creative, an independent creative agency in London. He has specialised in the alcohol industry (good gig, huh?) for the last decade or so, writing about beer, liqueurs and luxury global spirits.

He loves nothing better than diving deep into the fascinating histories of brands, interviewing craftspeople, thinking up change-making ideas, creating distinctive tone of voices and teasing out the story that will be shouted to the world. Yes, he knows a lot about booze. Yes, he has a well-stocked drinks cabinet. Yes, he can get a bit boring talking about fermentation. 

LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…

Jamie> We only had four channels when I was growing up, so adverts were just as much part of the entertainment as the programmes themselves. Loads of memorable ones spring to mind. Trio (“triiiiiiiii-ooo”) and Um-Bungo became anthems in the playground. Carling Black Label and Castlemaine XXXX beer ads made us all laugh. The Yellow Pages ads got us out of all our scrapes. Nescafe Gold Blend ads had us hooked on long-running love stories. 

LBB> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…

Jamie> I’m a writer, so I’ve always been drawn to clever word play. The most inspirational ads for me were probably the long-running series of The Economist ads. Bold, funny, thought-provoking, sophisticated, intelligent, recognisable and consistent. Still love reading them today.

Going more lowbrow… the Peperami strapline, ‘it’s a bit of an animal’, always impressed me too. Making a stick of meat jerky a must-have lunchbox item is some creative brief – and to give it personality and make it funny is genius! 

LBB> The creative work that I keep revisiting…

Jamie> I still get giddy over all the Sergio Leone spaghetti Western films and will watch them anytime they’re on. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly is the pick of the bunch. There’s something mesmeric about them. Breath-taking cinematography, riveting characters, incredible soundtrack, unusual camera work, including super close-ups, and a dialogue that’s almost taken a vow of silence, always leaving you wanting more. Epic at every level.

Watch any Tarantino movie, especially the westerns, and you’ll see where he got a lot of his inspiration from.

Book-wise, it has to be '100 Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Part family saga, part fantastical journey, part political exposé, part emotional rollercoaster. Every word is deliciously crafted. I reread it often. It’s a thing of profound beauty.

LBB> My first professional project…

Jamie> Goodness, it was a long time ago… I seem to remember writing a lot of naughty and risqué puns for Club 18-30 holidays *blushes*, a lot of which didn’t make the final campaign for being “inappropriate” and “for heaven’s sake, these are unprintable”. 

LBB> The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…

Jamie> Perfume ads. Anyone else? No real story. Or product benefits. Just scantily clad celebs earnestly whispering something pseudo-deep into camera. I don’t get it. Yes, they’re uber luxe and evocative, but it feels so style over substance. And why are they all the same, just swapping a desert for a chateau for a beach for an urban rooftop? Drives me nuts. They’ve become a parody of themselves, an advertising meme. (Thanks for letting me get that off my chest LBB!). 

LBB> The piece of work that still makes me jealous…

Jamie> There is an endless stream of good work, so I’m constantly jealous and inspired. Current faves are the series of Yorkshire Tea ads – with Sir Patrick et al – in the Where Everything’s Done Proper campaign. Lovely stuff.

In the alcohol industry, where I tend to specialise, I’ve always been green with envy over the decades-long Absolut ads, and the Keep Walking creative platform from Johnnie Walker.

Oh, as a quirky leftfield choice, I also really like the new Hennessey versatility campaign. Stylish, absurdist, intriguing and witty.   

LBB> The creative project that changed my career…

Jamie> I used to work on the below-the-line comms for Marlboro cigarettes. It was a great creative greenhouse, big budgets, big ideas. I was lucky enough to win some copy awards and the confidence clicked in.

The most memorable was when I had to write the ‘backstory’ to a load of epic images from Marlboro Country, the fictional place set in the desert states of the USA. I wrote it like a series of hardboiled classic Americana short stories, most just a few sentences long. All with references to certain Marlboro merch, of course.

I just remember properly immersing myself and spending hours crafting every word. Pre another competition, my friend Adam bought me a 7” vinyl of ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet and left it at the reception of Tequila, the agency I worked at. I won silver that night, so he came back and Tippex-ed ‘silver’ onto the record instead. Genius. 

LBB> The work that I’m proudest of…

Jamie> I’m proud and grateful for so many things in my career, some of which are a bit more intangible than others. Building deeper, long-term relationships is important to me, especially in such a famously ephemeral industry. I’ve worked on a lot of my brands for many years, often over a decade (Glenfiddich, Courvoisier, Pilsner Urquell…) which I hope says a lot about the passion, trust, knowledge and fresh thinking I try to bring to every project.

On the brand building side, I love crafting verbal identities, whether new or evolved, diving deep into history or interviewing craftsmen to get a new perspective and ensuring they’re differentiated and capture a brand’s personality perfectly.

LBB> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…

Jamie> This is a mean question! There have been a few projects, pitches and client meetings that still haunt me. Oof, I get chills thinking about them but my mouth is zipped shut. 

LBB> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…

Jamie> The Kraken Black Spiced Rum TV ad… I got to write an 19th century seafaring adventure film involving a mythical sea monster and a spiced rum. What more does a writer want?