‘I’ve always been proud to be in the advertising industry!’ Mick Mahoney on why advertising is not a dirty word

What ad made you realise this was the industry for you?

It was for Radio Rentals, by Collett Dickenson Pearce, and it was the ad where the TV engineer (back when people rented their TVs) and the whole thing was around how you should have gone to Radio Rentals. You always saw TVs breaking down, which was what everyone was worried about, and they did this thing where all these guys are in a submarine and the engineer comes around. You saw his screwdriver go through the back of the TV, pierce the submarine and it started to fill up with water. It was the first time I'd seen an ad where they had taken a really creative and lateral concept of an idea. It was brilliantly written. It was like a mini feature film and completely different to all of the other ads.

What ad that you’ve been involved in that most exemplifies the power of good advertising?

I don't think anyone that's any good in this business is ever happy with anything they've ever done. I really struggle with that. I'm always happy to be really blown away by somebody else's ads and disappointed with my own. One of my favourite things I’ve ever done was a campaign for Stella Artois. Creatives always like to do the opposite of what anyone hopes we're going to do. For Stella, it was to launch the brand on a bottle. The brief said we had to show the bottle. So we thought, ‘let's not show the bottle then’. We did a campaign that just showed the bottle top. All you saw was the bottle opening on really expensive things, because in those days the line was ‘reassuringly expensive’. We had the bottle open on the side of a Ferrari, a Gibson guitar, an expensive chair… those kinds of things. We were pleased with that because it subverted the norms of press advertising at the time. Everyone did long copy but this was purely visual. It only had the tagline.

How do you explain what you do to a taxi driver, a hairdresser etc?

It doesn't matter whether I’m a copywriter or a creative director or an executive creative director or a chief creative officer – I make ads. Everyone gets that. And if people ask what sort of ads, I just say ‘any sort of ads’. Then if they ask what ads have I done that they've seen it starts getting difficult. You just sort of claim all the really good ones.

And what is your message to anyone who considers advertising a dirty word?

I've never really understood that. I've always been proud to be in the industry. At its best, it's just brilliant. I've met so many smart people. Every day there's so many interesting conversations, so many great problems to solve. The thing that gives advertising a bad name is bad work. At the moment we're not getting as much work coming though as we might have done in the past. There's all sorts of reasons for that and hopefully it will change. Only the work undermines the name advertising.

The finalists for The Drum Advertising Awards have already been announced - so get your tickets here. To coincide with the awards, the December issue of The Drum magazine will be dedicated to debunking the idea that ‘advertising’ is a dirty word. If you’re not already a subscriber to The Drum, you can sign up here.