My buddy Brian Campbell, who has died aged 56, was an artwork director and inventive director within the promoting trade who gained awards for his campaigns, together with for Smirnoff and Sony Ps.
His work for BT, whereas artistic director at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, alongside his accomplice Phil Martin, was massively profitable. Their Adam and Jane TV marketing campaign, which debuted in 2005, noticed a bumbling Adam (performed by Kris Marshall) start an on-off relationship with Jane (Esther Corridor). The marketing campaign ran for six years and the 40 mini-dramas that had been made had been typically higher written and acted than the TV reveals they interrupted. They developed their very own following, and the characters joined the ranks of the Oxo household and Renault’s Papa and Nicole as TV promoting icons.
Later within the marketing campaign, the general public had been inspired to vote for his or her most well-liked storylines. In 2010, 1.6m votes had been forged on their BT Fb web page, with 70% voting for Jane to be pregnant. The commercials ended the next 12 months with the couple lastly offering us with the wedding ceremony all of us craved.
Brian was born in Hackney, London, to Eamonn, a transport and export supervisor at Jaeger, and Margaret (nee Donaghy), a nurse. In 1972 the household, together with Brian’s older brother, Tony, moved to King’s Lynn, Norfolk, the place Brian went to King Edward VII grammar faculty.
A voracious TV viewer, by the age of 12 he was already a seasoned critic, nevertheless it was at Nice Yarmouth College of Artwork, the place he took a category in promoting, that he discovered his vocation. He was accepted at Central Saint Martins in London, however quickly dropped out after securing an internship on the advert company Nonetheless Worth Lintas. Different placements adopted – all unpaid, whereas he was on unemployment profit. However he was decided to get into promoting and, in 1991, was employed by Saatchi & Saatchi as a junior artistic.
The next 12 months he moved to Lowe Howard-Spink, the place, as artwork director, he started the profitable “by means of the bottle” marketing campaign for Smirnoff – two of his posters are actually a part of the V&A set – and he gained a Cannes Lion award in 1995 for Duck. From 1999 to 2005, he was artistic director for the company TBWA, successful a D&AD pencil award for the Chasing Rabbits marketing campaign for Ps in 2002, after which labored at Abbott Mead Vickers from 2005 till 2018.
In 1994 he married Lizzy Aghadiuno they usually had two daughters, Hannah and Eve. The wedding led to divorce in 2011.
Devilishly good-looking, humorous, beneficiant and proficient, Brian was the golden boy, however privately he had his personal demons, and despair and habit lastly took their toll.
He’s survived by his daughters, his father and his brother.
