DAVE DYE
Dave Dye is Commissioning Editor of DHM, London. He talks to Lürzer's Archive Online about his dream collaborations, what inspires him first thing in the morning and the first time he showed John Webster a script.
DHM, London for the Economist. Read more
At the moment I am working on...
A very interesting brief for Google+.
The best piece of creative work in advertising at the moment is...
The Old Spice work continues to be good. Wieden+Kennedy have taken an aftershave that was ultra-Grandad-naff when I was a teenager to ultra cool with my teenage boys. It's a modern day miracle.
For work, I take inspiration from...
Wow! It could take me weeks to answer that, so I'll just have to say a few things I've seen recently: the David Byrne bike racks in New York, the Danish TV series 'The Killing', a book of Charley Harper's animal drawings and a blog called 'How To Be A Retronaut'.
The first work related thing I do in the morning is...
Wake up. Sounds flippant, but as a creative person you are absorbing things 24 hours a day (well, maybe 17). Some of it you don't realise will be useful, some of it you do. Yesterday we were looking to open up a pop up cupcake shop for one of our tech clients. This morning on the way into work I read a piece in the Guardian about a machine just launched in New York that prints 3D cakes. We're now looking into a pop up shop that 'prints' 3D cakes of your design.
The advertising festivals I'll make sure I attend this year are...
Cannes and D&AD - they're the best ones?
What caught my eye at the last festival I attended was...
To be honest it all blends in nowadays. Ten years ago there were particular weeks in the year when creatives would be exposed to the year's best work. At the beginning of the year you were judging awards, the middle of the year - you were at an awards ceremony, at the end of the year the annuals were published. So you tended to have very clear chunks of work categorised by year. Now most people take in work from blogs more than awards. One can access work from any country or time period in seconds, so the years tend to blur.
The best era to be a creative was...
CLICHÈ ALERT! CLICHÈ ALERT! - Now. Advertising used to have more influence. Agencies used to have more influence, and be better paid. Creatives used to have more influence, and be better paid. But, in terms of being creative, I think we have a better chance of using creativity to help businesses than we ever had. Agencies are now producing packaging, store designs and even products. It's the equivalent of a carpenter who owns just a hammer and chisel being given a big box of tools. That must mean.
The next big thing in the world of advertising will be...
No idea. Oh, Google+ is going to be big. I know I'm really going out on a limb there! Ha ha.
A piece of work I think I could have done in a better way is...
The one that springs to mind was a call for entries ad for The British Television Craft Awards. We had a really good line: 'CRAP AT IDEAS?', but unfortunately instead of just keeping it simple I over-thought it and tried to make it by making it over crafted, like some vacuous, nice looking print ads. I succeeded - it looked like a crap idea and was ignored.
You can view Dave Dye's work featured over the years in Lürzer's Archive here.
Not already subscribed? Subscribe now.
A piece of digital work that makes me think: "I wish I'd thought of that!" is...
The BBC iPlayer site.
Who would you want to play you in a film?
Erm, tricky one. A question designed to make the interviewee look like a bit of a dickhead...
In my industry the person I admire most is...
Over the years you see people become hot for a few years, then live off it for the rest of their career. John Hegarty on the other hand has influenced our business every single year since about 1967. A 45-year run - unbelievable and unprecedented.
My dream collaboration is...
AD: Dave Dye, CW: Dr Seuss.
Or AD: Dave Dye, CW: Woody Allen.
Or AD: Dave Dye, CW: Jerry Seinfeld.
To be honest, I could write these all day, but they were the first ones that sprang to mind.
In up an coming talent I look for...
The biggest thing I look for isn't a skill, it's an attitude. I like our creatives to be curious, clever, positive and nice.
A piece of criticism I received...
The first time Sean Doyle and I showed John Webster a script. We sat anxiously, handed him our Alliance & Leicester script and surveyed his awards-clogged office. He started reading. He smiles (good start). He reads a bit more. He chuckles (looking good). Nearly at the end, he throws his head back and lets out a big laugh! We thought: "BINGO! We're in dreamland, bring it on JW and we'll pretend to be modest!" He then followed with: "It's very derivative, I'm not sure it's right".
The digital piece of work I am most proud of is...
We produced a Live Advent Calendar for Google at Christmas that was cool. People who signed up were sent clues at 12 o'clock which would take them to within a few hundred yards of a location. They would then have to use an app that would show hotter/colder - like the game you play as kids - to find a Google-branded door, which contained presents like an android tablet.
The role that digital has to play in advertising...
At DHM we tend to split media into two groups: public and private. Public media: if you are a buying a luxury brand for example, you want other people to know it's a luxury brand so you need media that everyone sees. Private media: if on the other hand you are selling house insurance, a one-to-one dialogue would be more effective, so digital may be a better option. But they are not mutually exclusive as 50 per cent of people watching television are also online so using them in tandem is good, but we find it useful to define what we expect from each media or channel.
The last song I listened to was...
Something by Nightmares on Wax.
