It’s one thing to do an ad for a client with all the proper corporate
messages and nice product shots and stuff. But it’s a different kettle
of fish to cast yourself in it.
That is what Matt Head, an art director at Bates Dorland, did. He and
his copywriter, Giles Horton, wrote a press ad for Compaq’s Netelligent
8500 Router (sic) that features shots of an old-style 80s office,
complete with filing cabinet and stinking ashtrays, and a sleek, hi-tech
office of the 90s.
Matt is in the top right-hand corner of both pictures, with Sophie
Hector, a Dorlands art buyer.
In the first office, Matt is wearing a particularly unpleasant brown
suit and has his sweaty paws all over Sophie’s backside, while in the
next she’s got her hand planted firmly on his rump (being a Career Girl
and modern and everything).
Apparently, there was a bit of a scramble to audition for Matt’s female
counterpart, given that he bears a striking resemblance to Oasis’s very
own Liam Gallagher (who, strangely, is a bit of a pin-up down at
Dorlands).
‘Sophie won the part because I’ve got a very specific hand-span and I
had to find the perfect bottom that would match it,’ he ventured,
cheekily.
Fortunately, there were no problems with his girlfriend. He’s just
glossed over what he’s been doing at work recently - plus the ad’s only
running in the computer press. Enough said.
