The accidental adman

Once upon a time in advertising - Episode 1.

In episode one a chance encounter in a smoky pub in Manchester, England launches a 30-year career in advertising for Rick Blears.

Once upon a time in advertising is a memoir podcast by Rick Blears.

Hear Rick’s remarkable and hilarious stories about the advertising business in the 1970s and '80s before the internet, social media influencers and Google Ads.

Now in his early 80s, Rick retired recently after a long career in advertising and PR.

His career began in the 1970s as an advertising copywriter at Royds in Manchester, England. He went on to run his own agency before becoming the group creative director of Rex Stewart in the mid-1980s. More recently he’s worked alongside his partner Ruth Shearn at RMS, her PR and marketing agency.

You can also find the Once upon a time in advertising podcast on Anchor.

Find Rick on Twitter, the podcast is produced by Steve Blears.

Rick Blears

The accidental adman - Transcript

A smoky pub in Manchester, England. It's the mid-1970s seventies. A chance encounter is about to launch a 30-year career in advertising for Rick Blears.

I didn't intend to get into advertising, but I went out for a pint one lunchtime and met a bloke in a pub called Terry.

In this episode, Rick gets a trial as a copywriter

That's someone who writes the words that go into ads. But can he sell trousers?

The active man about town and disco goers will love these slim-cut four-pocket two buttons, three zip navy, you know, you're very clearly there!

Coming up, he accidentally becomes part of the furniture at Manchester's biggest advertising agency.

I got called into the creative director's office, and he said, If you don't mind me asking, who actually hired you, then the next thing you get a salary check!

Well, the way I got into advertising was that I went to the pub at lunchtime in Manchester, and unbeknown to me, it was one of the pubs where advertising people went.

There were perhaps 20 advertising agencies around Manchester

There were perhaps 20 advertising agencies around Manchester and they had their own pubs where they would go.

I didn't know it was an advertising pub, but I ended up chatting with a bloke called Terry, Terry Critchley.

And Terry Critchley was the copy chief, the copywriting chief of an agency which was called Royds at the time. It's now called McCann Erickson. So it was a big agency. I mean, the most substantial agency in Manchester.

I met Terry in a pub, I was talking about the things I've been up to and he said, well, can you write a bit? And I said, Well, yeah, I've done my fair share of, you know, writing bits of copy for film posters and that sort of stuff.

He said could you write about trousers?

I said yeah, so he told me to come into the office tomorrow. We're doing a mail-order catalogue, 2500 items in it, and they all have to be described. You know, gloves, knickers, underpants, socks. I mean, they all have to have a 10 to 15 word description, he said. I've been doing it for weeks. I'm sick to death of keep taking it home.

We've got another 2500 descriptions to do so. Do you want to come in and do it? I'll pay your freelance rate?

So, as I didn't have any other source of income, I thought, might a well go into the heart of Manchester's biggest advertising agency?

So this is the mid-seventies you're talking about?

In the mid-seventies when mail-order was king, the amazon of its day

I guess in the mid-seventies when mail-order was king, I mean John Moor's catalogue, British Home Stores catalogue. These were, you know, huge, huge enterprises the Amazon of their day, I mean, you know, everyone had a mail-order catalogue. They were like telephone directories, and the huge sections of the population bought everything on credit through the mail-order catalogue.

So you could buy everything, you know, crockery, homewares, bedding and anything that would go into department store were in these mail-order catalogues.

Littlewoods was the big one. They were all based in Liverpool or Manchester, and they were huge businesses, you know, monumental, monumental businesses of their day, the Amazons of their day.

So I started writing about trousers, you know, and found out you sell 10 times more trousers if you have them in a walking shot than if you have a stride shot. Yeah, amazing facts about mail order that only they knew.

You know, if you had three pairs of knickers on one shot, you only sold half as many as if you had five pairs of knickers on one shot. All different colours. I mean, there were all these things that only people who've been in mail-order their entire lives knew.

So how did you go about writing 10 words for 2000 pairs of underwear and stuff? Did they give you kind of a briefing on it?

No, you just looked at the photograph and said is that twill? Is it wickerwork? What are they made of and how many buttons? Oh, it's a six-button three pack double pockets in the back pocket in buttons or zip back pocket.

Give me a line of what you would write.

Um, the active man about town and disco goer will love these slim-cut four-pocket two buttons three zip, no turn-up, side hemmed, bell-bottomed twill navy. You know you're very nearly there!

So I felt like, you know, I found I could do this. You basically looked at the photograph and described what was in the photograph. So, Terry kept saying, Do you want to come and do a few more tomorrow? Do 10 today, 15 tomorrow, 20 the day after, you know, time went by and the freelance rate kept ticking up.

I thought you know, this is going to feed my children if I keep it going. And so I kept on going into the copy department and there was a desk, a spare desk, which which became my desk, it was my hot desk, as it were.

So Terry kept going, we're doing raincoats today or, you know, we're doing overalls or we're doing golf clubs. These things had everything in them. At one point, he said well, you seem to be quite good at this, you know, writing about stuff, things.

So we carried on doing it. I think Terry mostly kept me because he wanted to want to go for a pint with him at lunchtime to tell stories. Terry was an encyclopaedic container of stories.

Anyway, it was three weeks when someone from the production department came by. These were people who monitored the workflow through the agency and made sure everything was being charged for and made, uh, you know, made certain that everything was being charged. I had to do little forms to fill in for this production by the production guy.

And he said how long have you been? How long you've been working for us now?

So I said, well, three weeks, he said, well, right. Okay. I'll speak to him upstairs, so I have no idea what he was talking about and carried on for a few more days. And I got called into the creative director's office and he said, If you don't mind me asking who actually hired you?

I said Terry the copy chief. He said oh, well, I'd better tell them in accounts. Then the next thing I got a salary checked it up in the post! I though well, I'm not saying anything!

So you got all 2000 trouser socks and underwear ads written then and you accidentally got yourself a job?

Well, a few more days went by and, uh, a chap from the HR department came around and said, I hear you now. work here now. I said glad to hear that!

He said, what salary are you on? So I had to think very, very quickly. And remember, these are days when you could buy a house for £3500. So I picked a figure. I can't remember what it was. I picked a figure out the air. £2200 or something that sounded right, £2250 a year.

Well, it sounded convincing, and he said, All right. Okay. Then wrote it down. I was there for four years and, uh, at one point the creative director said who did actually hire you? And I said I sort of slipped in!

Once upon a time in advertising is produced by Steve Blears.