Spooner on… who wins when GenAI takes on Spooner?
“Spooner! You worthless slubberdegudgeon!” I hear the words but whence do they emanate? “Spoooner! You pretentious popinjay! I need another column…
Lovin’ Spoonful
Spooner on…a love letter to the humble direct mailshot
This week’s St Valentine’s Day was, alas, another day that, as ever, cruelly and truthfully reinforced my endless solitude. Eheu!…
Spooner on…C’mon pop pickers, it’s the Xmas countdown
A silence as deep as the Mariana Trench has fallen over the lofty, snow-capped towers, battlements, crenelations and machicolations of…
Spooner on… the real reason us oldsters don’t like ads
Having already written fifty (50!) columns for Lord McKelvey’s prestigious and monumental organ, Decision Marketing, the premier source of news…
Spooner on… are we to blame for the climate crisis?
Pocketa-queep! Pocketa-queep! Pocketa-queep! Pocketa-queep! (Sound effects with thanks and respect to the immortal James Thurber.) What on Earth can this…
Spooner on…should copywriters worry about ChatGPT?
The wind screeches along glamorous, crack-dealer haunted, downtown Blank Street BN1, stirring the skittering skeins of tangled paper and plastic,…
Spooner on… It’s bleak enough and now it’s Christmas
Life is cruel, relentless and bitter. Despite our many privileges, we suffer according to our stations. I am cold. Lord…
Spooner on…IMHO does WFH really scupper creativity?
AN APOLOGY: My last column, number 46, Spooner on…creatives at risk of burnout, my arse!, was generally well-received, garnering dozens…
Spooner on…creatives at risk of burn-out, my arse!
“Wake-up call as burnt-out creatives threaten exodus” trumpets the headline to an illuminating, recent article in Decision Marketing – the…
Spooner on…how brands can survive cost of living crisis
Secure as he is, luxuriating in his Western fastnesses among the water meads and vineyards and lily-ponds, sheltered by the…
Spooner on… where on Earth will the Metaverse go?
No time today for the now-traditional introductory remarks about the miseries of my life in servitude to that charismatic brute,…
Spooner on… The Ghost of Christmas Overdone, 2021
Imagine my delight when I was invited by the jovial, debonair Lord McKelvey to ‘sit in the servants’ kitchen and…
Spooner on… The importance of good manners for all
A terrible scrabbling and clattering woke me at first light this morning. Throwing back the ragged, moth- and rat-eaten curtains…
Spooner on…The benefits of signing the woke pledge
I am worried about Lord McKelvey. Whilst draining the moat of the smaller Bavarian Castle Folly at his vast Sussex…
Spooner on…Covid Christmas is turning us all Crackers
Waitrose & John Lewis & Partners, Adam & Eve/DDB I have a lot of sympathy for Waitrose and John Lewis…
Spooner on…why it’s good to talk during troubled times
Well, well, well. As I write this, my 39th column for Lord McKelvey’s proud and prestigious organ, we find that…
Spooner on…is copywriting dead or just out of fashion?
My tiny, rented hovel in the filthy heart of Brighton is on a street that can only be, at best,…
Spooner on…The opportunity for direct mail in lockdown
Hello fellow prisoners! How are we all getting along? Gone quite mad yet? Lord McKelvey, of course, has the run…
Spooner on… It’s the end of the world as we know it
“But what does it mean, the plague? It’s life, that’s all” – Albert Camus, The Plague. So, the omni-benevolent, balti-fed,…
Spooner on…The biggest Xmas TV ad review of the year
It is that time of year again. A heavy, all but palpable, sense of doom hangs over the neatly appointed…
Spooner on…how to attract young talent to the industry
Polymath, world-renowned chicken-breeder, lacrosse-captain, Gaelic-dancer, Lord McKelvey is many things, but one thing he is not is patient: “Spooner, you…
Spooner on…the harrowing demise of direct marketing
“Bangtails! BANGTAILS! The Johnson Box! THE JOHNSON BOX!!! Self-mailers! Call-to-action! CTA! CTA! Coupon! Coupon! Coupon! It’s the ******* cash-register! Make…
Spooner on…how to bring back trust in advertising
“Hither cur!” The familiar words bring me instantly to heel, quivering with anticipation, at the side of Lord Charlie McKelvey,…
Spooner on…what’s in store for us in the year ahead?
Scurvy. That’s what 2019 probably has in store for us. SCURVY. Given that most of the UK’s fresh fruit and…
Spooner on…this year’s Klorinated Kristmas Krackers
Ah! Xmas! The filthy, numbed, cracked and swollen fingers from harvesting hundreds of thousands of sprouts in the frosty fields…
Spooner on…so farewell then Tod Norman, one of a kind
“Change has never in history happened as fast as it is happening today; and it will never happen this slowly…
Spooner on…the early retirement of Sir Martin Sorrell
It is with great trepidation, a fluttering heart and trembling knees that I mount the huge curving staircase that leads…
Spooner on…where have all the old creatives gone?
Onward I trudge this bitter morning, knee-deep in the thick snow, stumbling, flailing, striving onward onward towards the cruelly-early-morning locomotive…
Bah humbug Spooner on… this year’s Christmas ads
The rain is lashing against the windows like a punishment here at Montpelier Heights, the classy, new, cosmopolitan nerve-centre of…
Spooner on…JSYK the world of co-creation is well sick
#TotesOMG!!! In a radical departure that has caused consternation within the vast, echoing halls and galleries of the exquisite Palladian…
Spooner on…Xmas, DMA Awards and bah humbug
Merry Xmas to all my readers…Those of you who have had the social misfortune to have worked with me during…
Spooner on…the lessons of a move to Shoreditch
So the fabulous, shiny, new Signal agency (in which I am a small yet not entirely insignificant cog) has moved…
Spooner on…isn’t it time we all upped our game?
Happy Xmas from <insert brand name here>! Is that the faint aroma of rotting pumpkin? Is that the haunting-yet-slightly-nauseating trilling…
Spooner on…let’s fix the TPS for the sake of us all
Ineluctable: unable to be resisted or avoided, from the Latin ineluctabilis; ‘in’ as in ‘not’ and eluctari, to ‘struggle out’…
Spooner on…ad-blocking and the creative malaise
There is no finer source of information, opinion and, indeed, salacious gossip, than this, Charlie McKelvey’s enormously vivacious online organ,…
Spooner on…the stark reality of the Brexit vote
It is only in the past few days that Lord McKelvey Of That Ilk, editor of this classy, online organ…
Spooner on…are you content with your content?
Good lord! There is a tremendous schemozzle around ‘content’ these days isn’t there?! Every industry publication is crammed full with…
Spooner on…memories of the unique Jeremy Shaw
I am writing my latest, irregular column on the train between Tangible’s eccentric and characterful London HQ and our sleek, modern…
Spooner on…Craig Joubert and the DMA judging
Dark and bitter times for the Celtic Fringe where, despite my ‘hairstyle’ (see above), I feel that I belong –…
Spooner on…Marketing permissions
THIS WHOLE GHASTLY PERMISSIONS THING WON’T GO AWAY SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? EH? Now you…
Spooner on…The Private Life of Mail
‘THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL’ (IMAGINE IT VOICED IN A WHISPER BY DAVID ATTENBOROUGH CROUCHED IN A BUSH IF YOU…
Spooner on…the Hegarty data rant
Sir John Hegarty appears to think that data is not the answer. Now, what was the question? Imagine the devastating…
Spooner on…the brave new world
Tangible’s chief executive (the dynamic, fragrant, polyglot, Karen Trickett) and I often find ourselves politely disagreeing about political matters and…
Spooner on…demise of ‘the suit’
As I write this irregular column for that incomparable genius loci of the marketing world, Charlie McKelvey, I am gazing…
Refresh, re-jiggle, rebrand… repeat
As many of you will realise, I’m sure, rebrand projects require positively South American levels of enthusiasm, combined with meticulous…
Anyone ever die over a deadline?
I’ve had enough of living in terror of editor Charlie McKelvey and his chickens and am now using the virtual…
Do finance brands work on Twitter?
Lord Charlie McKelvey (of That Ilk) appears to be retreating further and further away into the remote, digital fastnesses of…
Do creatives need a degree? Maybe
“A degree is now going to cost at least £27,000. Do you really need one to be a creative?” These…
Do finance brands work on Facebook?
Dawn barely touches the Sussex sky, somewhere an owl hoots mournfully, the battlements of Lord McKelvey’s enormous pile rear up…
Why I’m a cock-a-hoop creative
Special dispensation from Lord McKelvey of That Ilk saw me spared a long night with the Fighting Kazakhstani Cocks and…