The Work That Made Me: Kevin Chesters
Kevin Chesters is a strategic consultant and speaker (and former CSO of W+K, Ogilvy & Dentsu).
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Kevin> Great storytelling stays with you forever. Jennifer Aaker at Stanford worked out that you are 22 times more likely to remember something if it’s told as part of a story.
So, it’s the brilliant '80s Yellow Pages ones – perfect narratives captured by 60” of world-class editing – that I remember. Especially JR Hartley.
For pure incredible and delicious weirdness, I’ll give a special mention to that lunatic Imperial Leather family who lived their life in the bath – as a kid, this seemed to be the absolute height of aspirational luxury.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Kevin> Easy. Levi’s ‘Creek’. So perfect.
I haven’t got enough words to explain everything I love about it.
The BBH Levi’s work from the '80s/'90s is the masterclass in everything from script, to casting, to editing, to music selection. A lot of agencies these days talk about influencing culture, but they rarely get close to what this stuff did in mass culture. Being on a Levi’s ad could propel anyone to the top of the charts, even clowns like Babylon Zoo.
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Kevin> The first film I ever saw at the cinema was Star Wars: A New Hope, and it’s still my favourite film. I re-read 1984 about once a month.
Album? Probably ‘Coming Up’ by Suede. All killer, no filler.
An ad I watch again repeatedly for tips is ‘The World is Just Awesome’ from the Discovery Channel. Perfect case of how to do product and brand in the same execution.
My first professional project…
Kevin> It was at a regional agency for the West Midlands Health Authority to get people to sign up to CPR courses. My massive contribution involved some photocopying and asking a lot of annoying questions. I had spent a lot of my time at Uni defending my choice of ‘pointless’ career so it was nice that my first project could shut up a few naysayers because it LITERALLY saved lives!
Since then, I’ve been lucky to work on projects for Amnesty International, Time to Change and Suicide & Co that have made me feel just as useful. Not as often as I’d like though.
The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Kevin> I genuinely don’t get angry at adverts. What the point? They’re not important enough. I do get irritated in all areas of my life by things that are disingenuous or deceptive. I don’t like liars. Our industry sadly has a few of those.
But I tend just to get a bit sad when I see bad adverts, mostly for the people who wasted their money running them!
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Kevin> Skoda ‘Cake’ from Fallon.
I have been lucky to work on the car account (Honda) that won Campaign ‘campaign of the decade’ in the same period, but I never got close to doing anything this good on it. A perfect piece of emotional storytelling without the need for KPIs or mountain roads. Sick with envy. Second would be Cadburys ‘Eyebrows’ (same agency, God they were good back then)
The creative project that changed my career…
Kevin> ‘Old Lions’ at Saatchi & Saatchi for Carlsberg.
This was the first time I did something that everyone talked about (even my mates in the pub in my hometown) or that ended up on the news or the tabloids. It was the first time something I did crossed over from paid media to properly ‘viral’. Dave & Rich did some belting work on that account. The ‘wallcharts’ print we did won D&AD too.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Kevin> It’s either the Sarsons print ads we did at mcgarrybowen that ended up winning D&AD, or the Weedol TV we did at the same agency that won a Cannes Lion. We weren’t a fashionable agency and neither of those accounts had won awards before. Sometimes it seems in our industry that the same campaigns on the same accounts from the same agencies get given the same awards year after year. Winning a Cannes Lion for Honda at mcgarrybowen meant ten times more than winning one for Honda at W+K for that reason. It felt harder earned. What Angus & Paul achieved at that agency in those couple of years was remarkable. It didn’t happen before and hasn’t since.
I was involved in this, and it makes me cringe…
Kevin> Ha! It’s a TV ad we did for the Big Cheez Dipper at Saatchi back in the noughties.
It was so bad it deserved to be imprisoned. All I can offer in my own defence is that I remember writing 'I think this is Turkey of the Week' on top of the script when I was first shown it by the account director (it did get TOTW).
I think I’ve got PTSD from this ad. I suspect the client has too.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Kevin> For me the most exciting project is always the next one. I’ve always been like that since I was a kid. I set up on my own as a consultant in the summer and I’ve done strategy projects for an American gym chain, a Kiwi bank, Marks & Spencer, and I’m about to start one for a premiership football club. Whatever I’m doing today and tomorrow excites me; it’s what keeps me interested at my age!
