Agosto

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Chris O'Shea, who died at age 75 on the 29th of June 2022. O'Shea was a Black Pencil-winning creative known for his campaigns with Dell, Hanson Trust and Cow & Gate. Here, Copywriter Paul Hodkinson reflects on their years working together.

It’s hard enough finding the right words and avoiding the obvious cliches when someone dies. But when that someone is a writer you’ve admired, a person who you’ve known and worked with for many years, and a bloke you’ve highly respected, then it’s all the tougher.

So I’m imagining Chris O’Shea right now, quietly poring over these paragraphs, scratching his beard and asking me — with a gentle suggestion or two — to maybe do another draft.

That was the Chris I experienced as Creative Director and Head of Copy. Restlessly rooting out tired phrases. Weeding out hackneyed words. But always ready with advice on how to make it read better.

For — and please forgive this one cliché — Chris was a writer’s writer. Forever crafting his own copy. Cutting the fat. Polishing it until it shone. Until the work, when it was finished, felt like the man who wrote it: honest, unfussy, completely authentic.

The day after he died, a WhatsApp thread filled and multiplied with heartfelt sentiments testifying to Chris’ many other qualities: his selflessness, his lack of ego, his innate modesty.

He was, quite possibly, advertising’s least likely adman.

This was the guy, after all, who having tired of Grosvenor House glamour, famously left D&AD early to catch the last train home and so missed out on picking up an award that night (only a Black Pencil for copy.)  This was the person who, having early in his career kept company with Abbott, Arghyhrou and other creative luminaries, dropped out of the business in the 80s to drive a bread van because, as he told it, he “couldn’t bear agency politics”.

We were oh so glad he came back.

To show us how to argue your client’s case like you were Atticus Finch in the courtroom (Dell, Hanson Trust, Cow & Gate).

To show us how to refresh a beer campaign with a rogue TV announcer and some judiciously misplaced lip sync (Heineken).

How to skewer the essence of a brand in an unforgettable four word headline (Stella Artois).

And how to sell ‘quality food, honestly priced’ without needing to show the food (Waitrose).

Perhaps above all, Chris reminded us how to remain unassuming and unfailingly kind to people in the industry even when your name is above the agency door (Bank Hoggins O’Shea).

He never needed to big up his own work because it spoke for itself. And in his own quiet way, he gave a leg up to many of us younger creatives and showed us by example that you could do great work and achieve ad fame without indulging in the hard-drinking, hard-bragging lifestyle we thought was obligatory at the time.

With his self-deprecating, reasonable manner, Chris demonstrated that you didn’t have to be mouthy or flash or eccentric to get ahead in advertising. You could earn the respect of account people, planners and clients by whispering, not shouting.

When he finally retired from the world of madmen, success never once having gone to his head, I was knocked out that Chris asked me to take his seat in the chair opposite his long-time partner, close friend and brilliant art director, Ken Hoggins. He even left me his laptop and I wish I could write on it half as well as he did. 

He also left us all this quote:

“I saw advertising as a normal person does and it made me realise that as an industry we spend too much time agonising over the little things that people don’t notice.”

Chris O’Shea, RIP.