How to get ahead in advertising

There’s a saying in the advertising industry: “Don’t tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I play piano in a brothel.” For Nick Kelly, this phrase has a certain undeniable resonance.
You may remember him as the lead singer and songwriter of The Fat Lady Sings, or know him from his own critically acclaimed solo efforts – last year’s superb Running Dog was shortlisted for the IMRO Choice Music Award. But there are a number of other strings to Nick Kelly’s bow that you may not know of.
Aside from music, Kelly has dabbled in the art of writing (his short story Expect Jail was a winner of the Ian St. James Awards, the largest UK awards for short fiction, in 1995), film-making (Delphine, in 2003, was shown in every cinema across Ireland before Jack Black’s School Of Rock), and, perhaps the least known of all his talents, copywriting!
It is this, his very successful venture into advertising, that took him to Kinsale – yes, Kinsale – to be a judge at the 44th Shark Awards Festival.
The Shark Awards Festival is an international advertising event that celebrates the best in broadcast advertising internationally. It is among the top advertising festivals in the world.
Or, as Nick explains, “It’s basically for people who write ads to come on down and have a look at what other people who write ads do.”
The list of past jurors reads like a who’s who of advertising giants and this year was no different. On the judging panel along with Nick were Gerry Farrell, the creative director of The Leith Agency; John Hegerty, chairman of BBH; Mike Hughes, president and creative director of his own Martin Agency; Alan Kelly, a former Grand Prix winner at the Sharks in 2004; Berkhart von Scheven, chief creative officer of Saatchi & Saatchi in Frankfurt and John Moore, a former ad man who has emerged as one of Ireland’s leading film directors, responsible for Behind Enemy Lines and the Oscar-nominated short, He Shoots He Scores.
Nick was in good company, then.
“Yeah, the judges were just really top, top international players. I was surprised to be picked.”
Well, he’s the only one who is. Nick’s own career in advertising began with a bang – and he hasn’t stopped making noise since. “The very first thing that I did was write these nursery rhymes for Hibernian,” he recalls, “and that was hugely successful, so suddenly I had a career.”
Since that first campaign, he has made some of the most impressive advertisements on television, including the Guinness ad that rocketed Mic Christopher’s ‘Heyday’ up the charts. He worked for Irish International BBDD in Dublin for seven years, making ads for the likes of Aer Lingus, Dell, Walkers Crisps and Opera Ireland, and, in 2003, he set up his own copywriting and creative consultancy.
“The funny thing is that I just stumbled into it.” Nick begins, “After the band, I made a list of things I thought I could do. I thought, ‘OK, maybe I could work in PR, which, I have to say, a very short interview later I realised I would be terrible at. Or maybe I could work for a charity. Maybe I could teach. Or, possibly, I could write ads.
“So I just went round and had lunch with people who did those things and said, ‘Tell me what your job is like’. I found work for a few days in different companies for no money. Eventually I was kept on temporarily and, quite soon afterwards, I was doing well.”
So, as a man in the know, and a judge at one of the most respected advertising award ceremonies, pray tell us what makes a good advertisement?
“Really good ads can shift perceptions. They tend to be very clever or very funny or both. They reward you for watching them and they’re over really quickly. You actually want to watch them.”
No surprises then that MJZ won the Grand Prix, as well as a wealth of other awards, for the Sony Bravia ‘Balls’ advert (memorably featuring José González’s rework of ‘Heartbeats’).
That’s not to say that the competition wasn’t tough. This year saw a record number of entries. There was plenty there to impress Nick. “Basically, we got to watch the funniest, cleverest, most thought-provoking kind of work from all over the world, all weekend,” he says.
The Sharks also host a number of presentations and talks from various speakers – both in the industry and peripheral to it.
Take for example Mike Scully, one of the producers of The Simpsons. Those lucky advertising scamps got to witness an intimate address by Scully – who, into the bargain, raffled off five scripts and challenged the 300-strong audience with some Simpsons trivia... in Kinsale Town Hall, of all places!
“He was like a stand-up comedian,” Nick says, “but the best stand-up comedian you ever saw.”
Like Ridley Scott (Kingdom Of Heaven, Gladiator, Blade Runner) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Human Nature) before him, Nick Kelly has developed from copywriting into the realm of movie-making.
His 2003 offering, Delphine, about a young girl learning how to play the electric guitar, was shown in 11 countries, as well as across Ireland.
His latest movie, Why The Irish Dance That Way, has just been screened in Montreal at the World Festival Of Film and should go down a treat at the up-coming Cork Film Festival.
“There’s not that much difference between trying to get an actor to say something on set and trying to get a guitar-player to play something in the studio,” he says.
And finally, if he had to choose between all his talents – music, writing, copywriting and film – where does his heart truly lie?
“Music,” he says. “It would have to be music.”