POSTER OF THE CENTURY
Title: Labour isn’t working
Year: 1978
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Client: The Conservative Party
Art Director: Martyn Walsh
Copywriter: Andrew Rutherford
With this poster, the Saatchi brothers changed the rules of elections by
introducing aggressive marketing techniques into party political
campaigning.
The poster is often cited as having been instrumental in the fall of
James Callaghan’s Labour administration and the coming to power of
Margaret Thatcher. Its stark depiction of an unemployment office queue
and the copyline - with its clever double meaning - was aimed at
traditional Labour supporters who feared for their jobs.
SECOND PLACE
Title: Lord Kitchener wants you
Year: 1914
Agency: Caxton Advertising
Client: Parliamentary Recruiting Committee
Artist: After Alfred Leete
Copywriter: Eric Field
This depiction of Lord Kitchener commanding young men to sign up has
become one the century’s great iconic images. The now famous line, ’Your
country needs you’, was used as part of the same campaign.
THIRD PLACE
Title: Pyramids
Year: 1977
Agency: Collett Dickenson Pearce
Client: Gallaher/Benson & Hedges
Art Director: Alan Waldie
Copywriter: Mike Cozens
Photographer: Brian Duffy
In pioneering the use of surreal imagery, this famous Benson & Hedges
campaign marked a turning point in tobacco advertising and was widely
imitated thereafter. Forbidden to say anything about the product, the
agency chose to do away with copy altogether and created a new kind of
art form.
