Apart from their notoriety of having the same name as a well known Hairdressing salon, Tony & Guy have gained a great deal of acclaim for their creative work over careers spanning almost three decades.
Having established one of the longest running creative partnerships, starting their careers for Saatchi and Saatchi and J, Walter Thompson respectively, they are approaching their silver anniversary of 25 years (yes, comparisons to a marriage are relevant having spent more time together than they have with their spouses).
Having both gained higher diplomas in advertising and an SIAD in design from Hounslow Borough College (Tony) and Doncaster College (Guy), they eventually linked up at Leagas Delaney where they worked on and off for six years with an interval of 9 months where they joined Yellowhammer before being tempted back (or was that press-ganged) by Tim Delaney. Regarded as one of the toughest environments to work in, they learnt their trade of solid copywriting and art direction over years where working through the night and weekends were the norm.
Cutting their teeth on brands like Tetley Bitter, 3M, Mobil, Nationwide Anglia, Philips, Philip Morris, Hennesy Cognac and Prudential, they won their first D&AD silver award with many entries into the D&AD Annual.
They were tempted by the prospect of working for a new start up called Still Price Court Twivy D’Souza and had a successful spell working on Virgin Airlines, Red Mountain Coffee, Pepperami, Nuttall’s Mintoes and The London Association for the Blind for which they won a D&AD Silver Nomination. Whilst there, they were filmed throughout the process of putting a TV ad together for Pimm’s in a programme called ‘Making the Break’.
Still Price merged with Lintas, propelling Tony and Guy onto the board at the tender age of 24 and 25 and the title of Group Heads. More success followed as they worked on high profile accounts for Abbey National, Birds Eye, California Raisins, Impulse and Batchelors. Whilst there, they were voted one of Campaign’s ‘faces to watch’ for 1990.
Having worked on some of the nations biggest brands, they moved to the smaller boutique agency of Simons Palmer Denton Clemmow and Johnson. In the short space of 18 months they gained entry into D&AD with campaigns for Drambuie, British Heart Foundation, The Sun Newspaper, Nike and The Terrence Higgins Trust.
Their success was recognised by CDP who offered them their first post as Creative Directors, where they oversaw all work on accounts for Honda, Gallagher (B&H and Hamlet), Scottish and Newcastle Brewers, Switch, Royal Palaces, Hovis and Ryvita. Whilst here they helped return CDP to former award winning glory with triumphs at Campaign Poster Awards for Newcastle Brown and Switch and Gold and Silver at Cannes for Hamlet.
Lured back to Simons Palmer, they set to work on Nike, Goldfish and Sony Playstation and were responsible for the highly acclaimed ‘Shapes’ campaign for Playstation and the renowned Parklife film for Nike (which claims 15th spot in the Daily Telegraph’s greatest adverts of the 20th Century and a place in the documentary ‘Ads that changed the world’). On one night they picked up four silver awards at D&AD for their work on Nike.
Simons Palmer merged with TBWA where Tony and Guy took sole Creative Directorship roles overseeing all creative output and extended their responsibilities to become European Creative Directors on both the Sony Playstation and Nike accounts. They helped the agency to become No2 in the most awarded agency of the year, trailing only behind the prolific BMP/DDB.
Following a further merger, they moved on to join the hallowed ranks of the creative elite at Abbott Mead Vickers. Whilst there, they produced award winning work for The Economist, Guinness, WH Smith and Howies (the urban sportswear manufacturer). Their commercial for WH Smith was voted ad of the year by the readers of TV Times with Nicholas Lyndhurst picking up the award on their behalf on TV.
In the new millennium, they achieved their long standing desire to run their own shop by setting up the agency Malcolm Moore Deakin Blazye. Within a year they had gone from a standing start to a six figure turnover with accounts including Accurist Watches, British Bakeries, MTV and VH1 channels, Howies, Room2 Home Furnishings, Upmystreet web-site, In2Film (a film magazine) and Lime Green Jewellers. Naturally, they pitched for and won the Toni&Guy account (well, they had to eventually).
They extended their offering North of the border by accepting a buy out deal from Fauld’s of Edinburgh who handled the Bank of Scotland and Kwik Fit accounts amongst others.
After spending six months commuting from London to Edinburgh, they decided to leave the agency for family reasons and were re-united with Nike and Honda at Weiden and Kennedy London.
In 2004 they were offered the post of Creative Directors at Leo Burnett to work on accounts including Fiat, Heinz, McDonald’s, DCLG (Dept for Communities and Local Government) and Eblex. They also oversee all work on the Dft account for Child and Teen Road Safety and the Anti-Drink Drive campaigns. In 2006, they pitched for and won the Learning and Skills Council account to implement the governments biggest ever campaign to improve the nation’s skills and qualifications. The ‘Our Future. It’s in our hands’ campaign now extends to Train To Gain, Education and Maintenance Allowance, Adult Learning Grants, Skills For Life and Apprenticeships.
Tony is a lifelong fan of Fulham FC and the External Assessor for the MA Advertising course at Falmouth University and has recently rowed the Channel. Guy is a keen Golfer, sits on the board of The Creative Circle and has recently finished a Raindance Directing course learning the skills required to make short films.