Saturday 5 April 2008

Paul Arden


Very sad start to the day for me today, having just heard about the passing of one of my advertising heroes - Paul Arden.

Fourteen years as ECD of Saatchi's London.

One of the brains behind the legendary Silk Cut campaign.

Author of the wonderful It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be.

And yet, despite all of his many achievements, searching for Paul Arden on Google brought the advertising industry into perspective.

Almost all of the Arden related pages in a Google search link to one of his books.

There were no links to news of his death.

He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

And yet he was one of the most important creative figures in our industry.

I'm currently putting together a presentation for a talk I have been asked to give to writing students at Melbourne University. Here's some wisdom from Paul that I'm using to put my talk together.