Arabica...Lola...and Brand on the run...

The year was 1966 and I was 15 years old.

I was fresh out of Glasgow. New into London. And I had about as much idea of heritage as a trod-on chip has about a deep-fried Highland Burgundy Red spud.

It was the year I heard The Kinks singing their new single, “Dedicated follower of fashion” for the first time.

I liked it then…and I still like it now, over half a century later.

My idea of culture or brand involved the whisky that my father drank, the tartan cap that my uncle wore, and the expensive scent that my mother received every birthday and Christmas.

I was a bit of a blank slate.

I knew I liked music. But I also knew I was eclectic. I was a dedicated follower of nobody. Kinks, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Ella, Sinatra, Dusty, Nina, Bach, Ludwig Van, Van Morrison, Dvorak, that Wolfgang guy…they all went in the pot. They all got stirred around.

I liked mooching around Carnaby Street when it was Carnaby Street. But it didn’t make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end with all the sound and colour of a changing world.

I didn’t consider myself a Scot…a Brit…or a European. The fact that my heritage played second fiddle to my world view didn’t really come into the equation. I was a global citizen. It was what it was.

When it came to music, I loved Brand Britain only slightly more than I did Brand America. When it came to style (in early adulthood), I loved whatever looked good and I could afford. Blue jeans. White tee-shirts. Black cowboy boots.

When it came to literature…good words were good words were good words. Still are.

The length of the hair on my head followed no style or pattern. My preference for no preference would constantly piss off my peers.

When it came to computers, one fruit has always fed my appetite. And when it came to religion, one God (excluding Clapton, of course, as spray painted on a wall in Islington underground station in the mid-60s) has always been preferable to a few. Or a lot. Or no God at all.

That was then. This is now.

Between my existence as a blank slate and my life as a brand gipsy, one thing has stayed constant. One thing has endured.

My love of black, hot, roasted, Arabica coffee.

My mother would turn in her grave.

I come from a long line of tea drinkers.

Which probably makes me a bit of a family rebel.

Even when I was being raised with a cup of PG tips in one hand and a chocolate digestive in the other, my mind and my taste buds were elsewhere.

Sneaking a sly gulp of delicious bean juice when nobody was looking.

Many years later, when I could drink coffee without feeling like a traitor to my Glasgow heritage (the non-alcoholic one), I even wrote a book about the fictional goings on in a city centre coffee shop.

The fact that I named the book Love & Coffee speaks volumes.

In my callow youth I spent quite a few summer holidays in Spain, at least part of the time sitting in coffee bars, watching the world go by. Drinking copious amounts of the dark stuff.

As well as a fair bit of what they called back then “Cuba Libre”. Rum and Coke to the uninitiated.

Spain was, and still is, a coffee drinking nation. It doesn’t have a great tradition of tannin sipping.

But tea is a determined bugger…and doesn’t give up any fight easily.

In February (2018), the Madrid office of ad agency Lola MullenLowe beat off strong UK competition from adam&eve DDB, Ogilvy, and Mother (who pulled out in December 2017)…to win Unilever’s PG Tips business.

The biggest selling tea brand in the UK.

The significance here isn’t so much that little guys of Lola Madrid beat the shit out of the big guys of everywhere else. Although that is bloody significant.

It’s not so much that the little guys in question were multi-cultural all the way up the wazoo.

And it’s not so much that between them, DDB and Mother have handled the PG Tips account for the past half a century. Here in the UK.

The real significance is that this was the first time in its long history that the brand had worked with any agency outside of the UK.

The first time it ditched its nation of cuppa drinkers in favour of a coffee loving nation living somewhere warmer on the other side of the English Channel.

It really is true what they say.

No matter how long you stay with your parents, there comes a time when you simply have to sever the umbilical cord.

And move away from home.

The day I heard LML won the account, I smiled quietly and thought of my mother. And the loose PG tea leaves she used to infuse. Peter Pan McCartney came to mind singing Brand On The Run.

Then I made myself a strong black Arabica espresso and wished Lola well.

Lo lo lo lo Lola MullenLowe.

For me, brands are exciting but ephemeral. Impressively memorable one minute, and entirely forgettable the next.

There is no loyalty. They come and go like so much foam on a seashore.

Like a beautiful sunset over Waterloo station.

But what lies behind the brands lives on. And on. And on.

Dammit. Now I can’t get the bloody Kinks out of my head.

I wonder if Ray Davies drinks coffee…

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The above is an extract from Ad Infinitum. It's the sequel to Ad Hoc and it's still in the melting pot. Ad Lib (the first in the trilogy) and Ad Hoc (the second) are now both available from Amazon.

They're all very similar but completely different. You'll find Ad Hoc here: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8. You'll find Ad Lib here: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.

Grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.

Then grab a copy..