In this episode of the 360 interviews, we have decided to focus to chat with Domeble’s very own Dave Cloke.

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY IN THE INDUSTRY TO DATE AND HOW YOU GOT HERE?

I did double-art at school, triple whenever I could blag my way out of sports. I did art, technical drawing and photography a-levels, an art foundation in Southampton and advertising in Bournemouth. I did a work placement at BMP (where, I slept under my desk for two weeks to save money – it wasn’t so bad, back then everyone had an office, ours had a tv and a coffee machine but no en-suite). Larry Barker and Rooney Curruthers, two of the nicest blokes in the industry taught us how to work hard and play hard. I did a placement at CDP, our first day was Graham Fink’s last, so drinks were planned. And CDP had its own pub! Result. Two students, free beer and no closing time. Our second day at CDP wasn’t great. We did a press ad for Reebok, the image was to be shot from ground level on a running track. You could see those Reebok soles running away ahead of you. Our headline was ‘Our soles to the competition’. Neil Godfrey looked at me as I sat there all proud of myself in his dentist chair (yep) and said, after a long, thoughtful pause…..‘it’s almost as if you’re saying arseholes to the competition’. Never felt so small. Neil (The God) Godfrey and Indra Sinha taught us not to be smart arses. My first actual job was a gift. Bournemouth called saying DMB&B was looking for a team. The thing is, I had no partner. So I phoned Pete, a Cornish lad who’d been on my course (he had also spent the entire summer on beaches and in pubs…it was September and we were both starting to think that sometime soon we’d have to start working for a living). We arranged to meet on Friday in Hyde Park, we merged our books so it looked like we’d been working together for a while, went to the interview and started work on Monday. The next 30 years were DMB&B, EHS, BBH, OGILVY and AMV (oh, and a year in Jeddah where the diving was great and I did the first Direct Mail campaign in the Middle East…not bad for a country with no letter boxes).

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE AN ART DIRECTOR?

I’m not sure I ever wanted to be an art director and all the while I was one, I hated the title. It didn’t describe my job. ‘You’re an art director, can you draw?’ The drawing bit was 5% of the job. If that. I got more joy from writing headlines and scripts. I preferred to describe the frames of a storyboard rather than draw them. So, what was the alternative? Creative? That just sounds wanky.I loved cracking briefs. I loved seeing the newspaper inserts I’d crafted, blowing in the breeze on the underground. I loved the first screenings of cinema ads, sitting there wondering what we could have done better, while the audience stuffed their faces with popcorn, not even watching.

WHAT KIND OF CLIENTS HAVE YOU WORKED WITH AND ANY MEMORABLE CAMPAIGNS YOU’VE WORKED ON AND ANY ANECDOTES?

BMW. British Gas. Audi. Selfridges. Land Rover. Olivio. Jaguar. BT. Charities. Private Banks. Tena. Mercedes. Sainsbury’s. Uncle Ben’s. Sensations. And quite a few others. The best work comes from the bravest clients. Audi let me launch the A4 using a photographer that had never shot a car before. It was their first car launched entirely by Direct Marketing. The photographer and I didn’t realise until we were on our way to the shoot (on the Isle of Skye) that we’d studied at Bournemouth at the same time (at opposite ends of the building). That same photographer went on to shoot a mountain of Audi and Barclays work for me. (Oh yes, and Olivio, which we shot on a farm in Siena and I married the farmer’s daughter.) This was around the time when digital took over from film. It didn’t happen overnight, but those who embraced it first reaped the rewards. Carl (yes Mr Domeble) sold all his film kit and purchased some stupidly expensive digital gear. He forced himself to dive into digital head first, while other photographers dilly dallied. He became one of the great car photographers. We shot Audi on a frozen lake in Norway (crashed the hero car shipped over from the UK), we closed a park in NY (Bowie, the Rolling Stones and a goat). A mountain top in Canada (nearly deported). Chased an oil tanker in the Atlantic and a Hawaiian surfer in the Pacific. The list and the memories go on and on and ‘The Haggis Brothers’ (first shoot in Scotland) remain great friends to this day. Sainsbury’s let me use a ska track on their back to school spot. Probably my proudest moment. BT Mobile was the smoothest production ever. Three ads are written with my feet up on a WFH day. Scripts, storyboards and an Ian Dury soundtrack. They slipped through the production process without a glitch. Destined to be shot in LA (of course the scripts relied on sunshine), but we took the gamble of shooting in Ealing and Richmond in the week leading up to Christmas. The weather was glorious. Jaguar wanted a Valentine’s Day press ad. I retouched a library shot, wrote a 5-word headline and it ran the following day.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE UTILISING CGI?

The frozen lake in Norway. We shot from a cherry picker high above the ice. It was minus 30 up there, but no room for me so I had to watch from below (in the heated Winnebago). We needed the spray from the car to look like exhaust fumes from a rocket. It was the early days of CGI, but it worked a treat and opened up a world of possibilities.

YOU’VE WORKED ON A HEAP OF CAR CAMPAIGNS, HOW DO YOU THINK CGI HAS CHANGED THE CREATIVE PROCESS?

There used to be big budgets and all the time in the world. Now clients want the job done tomorrow for peanuts. How many times have I said…‘you mean we can’t shoot it?’ and how many times have I heard ‘the client has a library of press shots they’re sending over’?CGI and photogrammetry have changed the goalposts. I could shoot the Audi on the ice without taking the car there (and certainly without crashing it!). I could present a script to a client where we open on a car speeding through the streets of Siena, cut to the same car on the Pacific Coast Highway, cut to the same car on a snowy mountain road, cut to the same car driving through a bazaar in Marrakech….without any fear of the client asking me if I’m taking the piss. It’s an exciting time to be advertising cars.

YOU’VE JOINED THE DOMEBLE TEAM OVERSEEING THE CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION PROCESSES, A NEW CHALLENGE FOR YOU, TELL US ABOUT  IT?

Yes, 30 years of refusing to use stock shots and now I work for an image library! The last few months have been a steep learning curve for me and I’ve one hell of a long way to go. It’s fascinating and terrifying. Tech is developing at a furious pace and with it are the possibilities, the areas we’re exploring are mind-blowing. If you can think of it, it can probably be done. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day…and I’m feeling good. 

Written By David Cloke @ Domeble.