Bartle Bogle Hegarty opened its doors in 1982.Eight years later, Campaign voted them the agency of the decade.Why?Their work was considered, intelligent, and, in a decade often referred to as style-obsessed, BBH was the most style-obsessed.But they also had something few agencies have today; swagger.They had the confidence, or is it arrogance? to cut their own path.Refusing to do creative pitches, turning down business and making challenging creative calls few agencies would make.For example, on Audi, the created an end line only 5% of the population could understand – Vorsprung Durch Technik.For a desperate to become relevant to a new generation Levi’s, they soundtracked their ads with music their parents would consider old-fashioned.(Normal now, unusual then.)And on the subject of female sanitary protection, which everyone knew had to be dealt with delicately, like defusing a bomb.They risked it all, by boldly talking to women like human beings.Their Dr Whites ads ditched metaphors, blue liquid and any mention of roller-skating.Not only were these choices counterintuitive, they sold.As they put it in their AAR reel ‘We don’t sell (fade to black) We make people want to buy’.It was true, it was like they knew something others didn’t.Brands that chose BBH in the eighties were sprinkled with some kind of fairy dust that made them desirable and often fashionable.Since their launch, and for most of its first decade, John Hegarty worked writer Barbara Nokes.Together, they created the three campaigns above.The foundations of the agency. And one of their ads, Levi’s Black Sheep (below), remains as their logo and philosophy.We cover this in the second part of my chat with Barbara.Hope you enjoy it.

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