17631: On Complaints, Crisis Management, And Conversations.

 

Advertising Age published a thoughtful perspective on cultural cluelessness, unintentionally underscoring how bias can come from the offenders and offended alike.

A complaint about your ad is information—it is not a verdict

By Stephen E. Terrell

In the fall of 1994, I put a naked man on a billboard in Fort Lauderdale. He lasted six days.

In fairness, he had already lasted 158 years. He was the young man seated by the sea in a Hippolyte Flandrin painting from 1836 that hangs in the Louvre, where to my knowledge nobody has ever called 3M about it.

The board was for Page & Associates, a Cleveland company that bought life insurance policies from people who were dying, so they could have the money while they were still alive to spend it. In 1994, that mostly meant gay men with AIDS. The copy ran five words: “Terminally ill ... there are options.” Then a phone number. No logo the size of a Buick. No starburst.

I chose the painting because my audience already knew it. For years, a print of it on a gay man’s wall was a signal flag hidden in plain sight. Any other gay man who walked into that home knew exactly what it meant. Everyone else saw a nice museum reproduction. I took the flag off the living room wall and ran it up a billboard. A man driving past did not need a headline to tell him who the board was for. The same ad had been running in gay magazines. Companies like mine were buying so much space there that Ad Age covered it that May. The billboard was that magazine ad with the volume turned up. The University of Miami Business Law Review later recorded it as the first billboard for a company in that business.

The location was not an accident, either. I put my boards in the gayest neighborhoods I could find. This one was aimed across four lanes of highway at the Copa, the biggest gay disco in South Florida. You find out where your audience dances, and you face the board that way.

It also happened to stand directly above a sports bar.

The owner complained. He told the local paper that the message was one thing but the naked man was tasteless. 3M, which owned the board, took it down six days into a 60-day contract.

Today, that is where the story ends. The brand posts a statement. The creative disappears. Somebody junior gets blamed, and everyone is at lunch by noon.

Here is what happened in 1994. The board went back up the next day. Nobody apologized. Nobody painted on a fig leaf. The company’s attorney made a call, and then a 3M representative did something radical. He sat down with the bar owner and explained what the ad was for. According to 3M’s spokesperson at the time, the owner had not fully understood it. Once he did, he agreed to have it back.

One conversation, 24 hours, same naked man.

That bar owner taught me three questions I still ask before anybody touches a campaign.

Who is complaining? The man downstairs was not my audience. My audience was across the highway, in line at the Copa.

Do they understand it? He saw a nude. He did not see men in his own city who were out of money and out of time. Somebody told him, and he changed his mind. People do that more often than a crisis plan assumes.

Is the audience you built it for complaining? Because when they are, you pull it, and you say thank you. I have done that, too. Years later I tested a Betty White radio spot on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” It delivered 20-30 solid leads every time it aired. Then her fans started calling with one question: “Does Betty know?” I pulled it. The numbers said stay. The audience said go. The audience outranks the numbers.

Treat those two complaints the same way and you will kill your best work and keep running your worst.

Brands spend years and millions asking people to trust them. Then one stranger raises his voice and the brand drops its own work like a hot casserole. The audience notices. If you will not stand behind your ad for 24 hours, why would anyone stand behind your brand for 24 years?

The painting, for the record, is still in the Louvre. Still naked. Still up.

17095: Building Inclusive Communities—Or Op-Eds—Via AI…?

 

Advertising Age published yet another DEIBA+ LGBTQ+ perspective—that’s two in one week (or one Pride Month)—emphasizing the imperative for inclusion. It’s virtually a carbon copy of the other one—albeit taking an experiential angle—churning out the same suggestions to create authenticity.

 

At this point, it would probably be easy to devise an algorithm so these Op-Eds could be generated via AI.

 

5 ways to build inclusive communities that actually work

 

By Rudy Blanco

 

Marginalized communities have been pushing back against corporate activism for years, and I can understand why. I’m a gay Dominican from the Bronx, but that’s not the only part of me that needs recognition.

 

So, when companies hit me up in June like I’m a seasonal subscription, it’s hard not to feel like a diversity Groupon. And audiences of these pony shows can see the inauthenticity.

 

As someone who plans community events for private agencies, nonprofits and gaming, I know that no one gets “credit” for attending. So, if it doesn’t land, they just close the tab. After three years of testing ways to honor culture, heritage and identity in ways that feel real, here are five ways to build truly inclusive communities:

 

Stop scheduling people’s identities

 

Pride in June. Black History in February. Women’s History in March. Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian Heritage Month in April—you’ve seen the calendar.

In my many roles, these cultural or identity events were a core part of my work. For years, I followed the traditional calendar structure. It made planning easy, but the engagement was surface-level at best.

 

However, most of those events don’t encourage engagement, so we started celebrating identities outside their assigned months. A women’s entrepreneurship event in April. A Black art showcase during Pride. If the only time someone’s story is told is when the calendar says so, that’s not inclusion—it’s programming.

 

This doesn’t mean we should stop celebrating heritage months. But we must celebrate with more care and intention than simply following a schedule. That’s when people will feel the difference.

 

Design with, not for

 

In the past, I designed every event on my own, especially in spaces that were predominantly white, wealthy or outside of the identities being celebrated. The work of my one-man shop came from a good place, but when you’re not part of the identity being celebrated, even your best ideas can miss the landing.

 

So, I started co-creating. I asked for feedback from peers and friends I trusted within the circles being celebrated, while being careful not to tokenize. Whenever we plan something around a specific culture or identity, I invite two people to help shape it: one from inside the community, when possible, and one from outside it.

 

The goal isn’t just representation, but a collaboration. It’s real-time, mutual learning, where people with different lived experiences build something together, so the result feels layered, intentional and real. And remember to reward them. Pay them, shout them out, give them something meaningful. As a former teacher, I’ll tell you: Intrinsic motivation matters, but appreciation matters more.

 

Move from panels to practice

 

I’ve planned the panels, sat through the town halls and booked the “DEI speaker.” I’ve been the DEI speaker. Sometimes panels work—but more often, they land like a corporate memo with better lighting. People don’t change from watching. They change from doing.

 

Instead, try everything but a traditional panel. Try an “un-panel.” Rotate speakers between small groups. Have them play a game—anything that makes the audience part of the moment, not just witnesses to it.

 

I create spaces for participation instead of consumption. One month, we set up a “smell table” tied to cultural food traditions. Another time, we offered teas from different countries, each with a short story or history attached.

 

The more people get to create—even in low-stakes ways—the more they feel like they belong. When you swap panels for practices, you stop performing culture and start experiencing it. That’s when it becomes real.

 

Let people do their own work

 

When I had just come out to myself and the world, I loved being the explainer. I was the helpful token gay kid—the one who answered every question, no matter how wild. I regularly fielded questions like “What’s it like being gay?” “Is saying ‘no homo’ offensive?” “Can I wear a rainbow flag if I’m straight?” Or my personal favorite: “Which one of you is the man in the relationship?” ... Cringe.

 

At the time, I believed answering those questions was activism. And for where I was in my journey, it was. But eventually, I got tired of being the spokesperson. I realized that constantly educating others about my identity and others’ wasn’t sustainable, and it definitely wasn’t fair. Especially in professional spaces, where the people doing the “learning” often had more pay, more power and more protection than those doing the explaining.

 

These days, I’ve set a boundary: Do your own work. People are more capable than we give them credit for. They’ll watch the doc, read the book and follow the creators. What they need isn’t handholding—it’s accountability.

 

If you want your workplace culture to grow, stop asking marginalized folks to carry the emotional weight of your curiosity. Build systems where the responsibility to learn falls on the asker—not the one being asked. Because culture doesn’t deepen when people ask better questions. It deepens when they stop expecting someone else to answer them.

 

Track the right data

 

We don’t always say it out loud, but whoever’s funding your culture work is expecting ROI. Usually, that means engagement numbers compared to dollars spent. But the way we define impact needs to shift. If your only success metric is how many people showed up, you’re measuring the wrong thing.

 

Don’t define what success looks like for a group you’re not part of. Define that with them. Let them tell you what matters. And then, as the culture builder, work within those parameters.

 

In spaces where no one’s required to attend, engagement looks different. I track who lingers, who volunteers, who says, “I didn’t know that,” or who makes new connections outside their usual circle. I’ve run events with barely any attendance, then watched the follow-up Slack thread blow up with the deepest conversations we’d had all quarter. Or seen a self-identity art-making session spark a new cross-team workshop two weeks later. Those are receipts.

 

Track the aftershocks, not just the RSVPs. That’s how you know the culture is real.

17093: PriDEI Perspective.

 

Advertising Age published yet another DEIBA+ perspective—presumably to celebrate Pride Month—authored by a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

 

The content regurgitates all the standard DEIBA+ drivel—sans any references to George Floyd—opining on the popular imperative to prioritize the “I” in DEIBA+.

 

The piece closes with five ways to foster inclusion, replaying common suggestions that the ruling majority continues to ignore.

 

Expect the Op-Ed to be ignored too.

 

Why inclusion is the part of DEI we can’t afford to drop

 

By Alan Brown

 

We’re in a moment of cultural contradiction.

 

Corporate DEI efforts are being scaled back. Budgets are shrinking. The language of inclusion has become politicized. Some companies have quietly dropped their diversity statements, while others are publicly abandoning entire initiatives that, just a few years ago, were treated as non-negotiable.

 

And yet, we’re also in the middle of Pride Month, a time that’s meant to celebrate visibility, equity and belonging for LGBTQ+ people. Rainbow logos without meaningful commitments and public statements without internal culture to back them up are impossible to ignore.

 

What’s missing in most of these conversations—what’s been undervalued, even by well-meaning advocates—is the “I” in DEI.

 

Inclusion isn’t about having the right language in your press release. It’s about how people feel when they walk into your office, sit in your meetings and pitch ideas in your brainstorms. It’s about culture, not just optics.

 

And for me, inclusion has always been personal.

 

I grew up in the Midwest in the 60s and 70s—a time and place where fitting in mattered more than standing out. I wasn’t out as gay back then. Honestly, I didn’t even know what being out looked like.

 

What I did know was that being different, if you were too sensitive, too artistic or quietly queer, made you a target. I was always the last picked for sports teams. That small rejection taught me a bigger lesson: Don’t make yourself too visible.

 

That early sense of exclusion stayed with me well into adulthood. When I started my own agency years later, I was still in the closet at work. I was proud of the work we were doing, but I wasn’t fully showing up. The risk felt too high.

 

Coming out at work in the early 2000s—after I had already built a career and reputation—was terrifying. But it also changed everything. For the first time, I was bringing all of myself to work. And that unlocked a kind of leadership and creativity I hadn’t known was possible.

 

I, along with my partners, have tried to build a different kind of agency—one that reflects the world, not just markets to it. We’ve brought in diverse voices, made room for emerging talent and put people first. DEI wasn’t a strategy deck. It was just how we worked.

 

But today, DEI is under pressure. There’s fatigue, there’s backlash, and in many cases, a retreat. Companies are dropping the language, scaling back commitments and saying less. What gets lost in all of this, ironically, is the part of DEI that matters most: inclusion.

 

Inclusion isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about creating real space for people to show up as themselves and be part of something meaningful. It’s not just about who gets hired, but who gets heard, who gets promoted and who gets the benefit of the doubt. It’s not just about diversity on paper, it’s about culture in practice.

 

This isn’t abstract for me. I know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. And I also know what it’s like to finally be included—and how powerful that shift can be.

 

This Pride Month, I’ve been reflecting on that journey. The LGBTQ+ movement has always been about fighting for space—for visibility, yes, but also for belonging. From Stonewall to marriage equality to the present day, the push has always been for inclusion, not just to be seen, but to be valued.

 

If you work in advertising, media or any creative field, you already know our job is to connect and to resonate. And we can’t do that unless our teams reflect the full spectrum of the culture we’re trying to reach.

 

So, here’s the question: how do we make inclusion real, especially when it’s no longer the trend?

 

Here are five ways to make inclusion stick:

 

Start by listening

 

Really listen, not just in meetings, but in one-on-one conversations. Create space for people to tell you how they’re experiencing the culture of your organization and be ready to act on what you hear.

 

Diversify decision-making, not just hiring

 

Bringing in talent from different backgrounds is only step one. Inclusion means giving that talent real influence on creative, strategy, hiring and leadership.

 

Watch for subtle signals

 

Whose ideas get credited? Who gets interrupted? Who’s always “not quite ready” for promotion? These are cultural cues that shape people’s sense of belonging.

 

Don’t wait for Pride or Black History Month to show up

 

The work of inclusion happens every day. And if your only moments of visibility are calendar-based, people notice.

 

Be okay with discomfort

 

Inclusion sometimes means hearing things you don’t expect or disagree with. Growth happens when you stay in the room and keep listening.

 

Inclusion isn’t soft. It’s strategic. It makes our work better, our teams stronger and our companies more resilient. And as someone who spent years hiding in plain sight, I can tell you this: Inclusion can change a life.

 

This Pride Month, I’m not just looking back at how far we’ve come. I’m thinking about how much further we can go if we stay committed to building places where everyone gets to belong.

16342: LGBTQIA+Doritos…?

BBDO Guatemala is behind this patronizing Pride campaign for Doritos that proclaims, “Never square minded”—playing off the brand’s triangle logo. Okay, but triangles have straight sides.

 

16297: WPPride Or WPPrejudice Or WPPatronizing…?

 

Ogilvy Italia and WPP produced this patronizing Pride campaign that declares, “Where others see only colours, we see the fight.” Feigning a colorblind perspective is typical bullshit delivered by the culturally clueless and deceptively racist. Also, save for one potential Puerto Rican, the advertisements lack LGBTQIA+ individuals of colour.

 

16289: Pride & Presidency & A Cup Of Joe.

 

Show your support for LGBTQIA+—as well as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris—with a Pride Aviator Mug…? Gimme a coffee break.

15888: LGBTQIA+Patronizing With Pride.

 

Muse by CLIO published a peeved perspective from Medley Brand Director Arielle Egozi, who took offense to all the patronizing Pride promotions and propaganda pooped out by major brands last month. It’s literally and figuratively a rainbow of cultural cluelessness. Egozi went so far as to request that advertisers hire LGBTQIA+ creatives for such projects to help ensure authenticity and competence.

 

Okay, but Pride campaigns are still waaaay better than Black History Month advertisements—at least they aren’t forced to use royalty-free stock photography of rainbows.

 

Sorry, but in Adland, Pride trumps Black pride.

 

Rainbow-Washing Isn’t Just Hurtful. It’s Bad Creative

 

We need your support, not your terrible ads

 

By Arielle Egozi

 

As Pride 2022 winds down, walking down the avenues of New York City it’s impossible to miss the flags, the subway ads, the window decals on every mega-corp chain—from Chase Bank to AT&T. Digital feeds are bursting with colors, drag queens and “YAAAS QUEENS.” And most of us queers aren’t happy about it.

 

Aren’t we greedy?

 

Maybe not. I mean, by all means “Yay for representation!” But representation where? In the last few years, as social justice has become its own twisted brand of virtue-signaling in this late-stage capitalism, we’ve watched hashtag campaigns and dark squares take over our feeds. We’ve watched the exclusion of bodies and identities reconfigured and dialed all the way up, into the territory of tokenism. We’ve watched the life-and-death debates happening on the streets turn into unconscious performance that—besides being outright flat and one-dimensional as creative—actively undermines and invalidates the communities it’s purporting to support. (One more shout-out here to Kendall Jenner and Pepsi.)

 

As we near the end of this prismatic season, surely there’s a lesson in all this. So let’s take a second to ask: What’s wrong with the rainbows, from a creative standpoint?

 

Well, nothing—if you’re a queer-owned business, a business who supports safe spaces for the queer community, or a business that actively affirms, hires and supports its queer employees. But if you donate millions of dollars to anti-gay legislation (like AT&T, Home Depot, Comcast, General Electric, Pfizer and Verizon do), your rainbows feel like a slap in the face. Rainbows aren’t going to keep us safe on the streets or get us gender-affirming healthcare or provide us housing and resources. Your rainbows are tarnished, harmful and unwelcome.

 

I mean, that’s fair, right? Companies that condone and support our oppression financially shouldn’t be allowed to promote themselves as supportive. OK, so on a less intense side of the scale: What about the companies that aren’t trying to kill us, but just want us to buy a sandwich, or a burger? Maybe some good ‘ol mouthwash?

 

And this is where it gets weird, folks.

 

There’s this Marks & Spencer-rebranded BLT sandwich. Whaaaat?

 

  

And this infamous, magical Listerine mouthwash that isn't any different from its regular mouthwash except … there’s a rainbow on the package.

 

And of course, this year’s Burger King Austria campaign featuring two top buns and two bottoms buns. The internet especially loved this one.

 

Even though Johnson & Johnson and Burger King both donate to LGBTQ+ organizations, that’s not necessarily enough to lead with the rainbow. It’s wildly obvious that any queer creatives and executives in the rooms that produced these campaigns (if there were any at all) were certainly not leading the discussion. The above examples aren’t just low-key offensive based on how little the teams here even tried, but are rendered completely unsuccessful in terms of speaking to their target audience.

 

• How does colorful packaging connect to me as a queer person?

 

• How does renaming a sandwich support me?

 

• How is an ad blatantly shouting that they know nothing about queer sex meant to represent me?

 

Where’s the strategy in that?

 

This isn’t even about politics anymore. This is about good creative.

 

Good creative not only knows its audience, it speaks to them. It inspires them to pay attention and to take action. It moves them. (All of the above got us to take action, but most of that action was trolling them back on the internet. That doesn’t count.)

 

Rainbow-washing isn’t trendy or cool or supportive. It’s creatively embarrassing. Awkward. Infuriating. Makes brands look bad. Reminds us how little brands actually care about the nuances of our culture or struggle. How little some of them try. How some of them don’t hire us or promote us. How many of them don’t even send out surveys to get our feedback.

 

Brands that speak to us do exist—ForThem, Lex, Ilegal Mezcal—and it’s no coincidence they’re either queer-owned or -operated. They hire queer production teams and have queer executives. They partner with queer artists and pay them. They create for the community and give back to it.

 

We don’t want to be spoken for. We can speak for ourselves.

 

So if you’re a brand manager, a CD at an agency, or a brand exec: Very intentionally hire queer folks to produce your Pride campaigns. Pay them well. Put them in a position to have the last say. On matters of our community, defer to them always. You don’t know what we want; we do.

 

THIS is your brief, for the months between Rainbow 2022 and Rainbow 2023.

 

Collaborate with queer artists. Partner with queer-owned brands. Move over and give them access to your platform, and pay them for the work they do. Promote the queer folks in your company. Create teams that are led and inspired by a diversity of perspectives.

 

Because we don’t want your rainbows. We want your support.

15867: Pride, Parade & Postage.

 

Royal Mail will issue stamps commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first Pride rally in the UK. Amazingly, the responsible creatives didn’t make references to ‘lick’ and ‘package’ in the work.

 

13746: Absolut BS From BBH.

Campaign spotlighted a new Absolut advertisement—created by BBH London—that really underscores how Absolut has gone from iconic, breakthrough advertising to awful bullshit. Absolut Global Communications Director Gaia Gilardini explained the campaign launched with Pride in London, but its message goes beyond LGBTQIA acceptance and inclusion. “We wanted to bring to life one of our core values and beliefs, which is that everyone should be free to love who they choose,” said Gilardini. “It uses a kiss as a metaphor for this expression of acceptance. But it’s a broader idea of acceptance—it’s not just tied to sexuality. Freedom to love who you choose goes further than just sexual preference.” Huh? To declare the vodka brand’s core values and beliefs include “that everyone should be free to love who they choose” sounds like, well, not sober thinking. The sentiment certainly isn’t among the values stated at the company website. And, sorry, but the orgy-like behavior depicted in the video makes the characters look as if they’ve had one Absolut Vodka Martini too many. Drink responsibly, but feel free to engage in irresponsible, unsafe sexual behavior. What makes it all even more obscene is that the “free to love who they choose” concept is reflected by BBH London in ways that run counter to the Absolut spirit of acceptance and inclusion. That is, BBH London exercises its right to freely choose whom to love by exclusively hiring a specific type of people. White people, that is. Acceptance and inclusion are MIA at BBH.

13639: Scarcity & Scarier.

Digiday interviewed Karmarama Chief Strategy Officer and PrideAM Founder Mark Runacus, who stated, “…People often fear the bigoted minority who will create a backlash.” Okay, but the scarier problems usually come from the bigoted majority. Digiday also pointed to research indicating LGBT people constitute only .06% of people in ads. Not sure how the figure could be valid, as commercial actors are not typically required to supply such personal data. Wonder how the true percentage compares to similar stats for racial and ethnic minorities underrepresented in adverts.

Agency exec on scarcity of LGBT people in ads: ‘People fear the bigoted minority’

By Grace Caffyn

As Kendall Jenner’s ad catastrophe at Pepsi illustrates, those who hitch their wagon to socio-political causes (however vague) can, and do, get burned.

Agencies’ fear of this, according to chief strategy officer at Karmarama and PrideAM founder Mark Runacus, is what’s holding the industry back from better representing its audiences, including those lumped together in the LGBT umbrella: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and other variations of sexual and gender identity.

Case in point: According to research from Lloyd’s Banking Group, which examined 1,300 ads from 40 top-spending brands, LGBT people make up just .06 percent of people in ads.

We spoke to Runacus about his thoughts on the issue. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

You’ve said previously that agency planners are holding back representation of LGBT people in advertising. Tell me more.

It comes from both sides, but agencies are more often the blockage than the client. This happens for two reasons: ignorance and fear. First, there is an expectation you only include LGBT content if you’re targeting the so-called “pink pound.” But the community doesn’t like being ghettoized, and that term is actually offensive. We don’t think of ourselves in that way. Second, people often fear the bigoted minority who will create a backlash.

Give me an example.

They know who they are, and they’ll have heard my comments. Hopefully they have managed to work through that ignorance.

So some planners still see LGBT audiences as niche?

Often it’s because they think their brand isn’t relevant to LGBT audiences. It’s right that as planners we should think of how to target and better communicate with an audience, but it’s wrong to only include LGBT content if you are targeting LGBT people. We know that 49 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t identify as straight or gay; this is part of everyday life for them. So for modern brands with purpose, it’s important to use this diverse content to create better engagement.

What are the challenges for agencies wanting to get this right?

The main challenge is understanding how to communicate without falling into stereotypes. But LGBT people don’t always have to be front and center, just part of real life. When it’s done well, like the recent Lloyd’s Bank advert, it’s fantastic. It can be done.

Does a lack of diversity inside agencies make this harder? You’ve mentioned before that the ‘scariness’ of making inclusive ads is amplified by agencies that aren’t diverse.

Agencies are still not inclusive enough. There are leaders in the advertising community who are predominantly white, middle-class men. It’s proven that when you remove homogeneity, you create an environment that’s more creative. If we’re reflective of our target audience, I’m confident we’re much less likely to witness this fear and ignorance I’ve talked about.

How so?

Agencies should challenge the existing recruitment process, for example, by reviewing CVs anonymously and doing one-on-one interviews. Young people aren’t convinced in you saying you’re actually doing it; they want to see it. For instance, does your website look inclusive? Do you have gender-neutral toilets? This all shows you’ve paid attention to the detail. However, I’m optimistic as I’m surrounded by young people who believe we have to change.

Do brands care enough?

There are loads of people who want to do this because trust in advertising is at an all-time low. Brands are vying for attention, and if they do this authentically and sensitively, they will connect better with consumers. But brands aren’t challenging agencies enough to accurately reflect their current and aspirational audience with an understanding of how progressive the U.K. population is today. In their briefs, brands need to include a challenge. Agencies will then be empowered to respond.

What’s your advice to brands?

It’s important that you’re authentic, which starts by looking within. If consumers can see that the brand’s external manifestation is a genuine representation of what happens inside its walls, they shouldn’t be fearful. If companies have an LGBT network, they should ask how they want to be portrayed and use them as a powerful insight and advocacy tool. Then, in an unlikely event of a backlash, they’ll have ready-made supporters.

13114: Nepotism Trumps Diverted Diversity.

Campaign spotlighted an ad campaign jointly created by Sir John Hegarty and his son. The diversity advocate is essentially a nepotistic asshole. Oh, and their commercial sucks too. It’s patronizing pap probably produced to pander to PrideAM Award jury participants. The entire scenario is a bizarro blend of nepotism trumps diversity and diverted diversity. Give the Hegarty clan credit for originality in perpetuating exclusivity.

Watch: John Hegarty and son’s first joint ad campaign for men’s fashion service

By Omar Oakes

John Hegarty and his son are today unveiling their first joint ad campaign after writing an inaugural spot for a men’s fashion service.

The ad, by Hegarty’s incubator business, The Garage Soho, has been written for The Chapar, which aims to provide an alternative to the “torture” of shopping on the high street with the help of a personal stylist.

After curating a selection of premium items to suit the shopper’s own personal taste and body shape, The Chapar then delivers a bespoke ‘trunk’ direct to the customer’s home or office.

The 60-second spot was written by John Hegarty and directed by Elliot Hegarty through Royle Productions. It was art directed by Rosy Thomas.

The ad is being launched on cinema and will be unveiled by Picturehouse Central in London this afternoon during an exclusive movie screening of Hail, Caesar!, the new movie by the Coen Brothers.