Wheels, Friends and Cultural Commentary: VCCP's Dave Masterson

For years I fastidiously packed stuff into scrapbooks, a weird sticker from a lamppost, or something torn from a magazine. Ephemera. Many of them have found their way into ads in due course. 

So even though I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by brilliant people showing me interesting things every day, that mentality lives on in the ragtag folders on my laptop, packed with screen-grabbed oddities, and clips, a reservoir of interesting things to use one day. 

Cycling through London


I’ve always cycled to work. 

London traffic being what it is, if your eyes aren’t wide open, you’re in trouble.

Back in the day it was along the canal to DDB in Paddington. 

Or through Regents Park to get to Fallon, BBH, or VCCP.

And now back in town with our swanky new Berners Street gaff.

I’ve witnessed accidents, phone thefts and full nudity, but it also allows your mind to drift and reorder the things you’re processing. A podcast in one ear. The real world around you. It’s a great combination. Good ideas are often two unrelated things clashed together. And that juxtaposition is happening all the way home. 

Mates that don’t give a monkey’s about Adland

It’s both a sobering reminder and incredibly inspiring. 

Our success can reasonably be measured by how far our ideas get into culture, and I don’t mean the LinkedIn echo chamber. The enthusiasm friends talk about what’s made them laugh, or cry recently, be it telly, podcast, or in their feed, is priceless. 

It’s like a daily reminder that we only have to say, or do, something people care about, in a bold enough way, and it will live, rent-free, in people’s minds.

The strange reciprocation thing between music and pictures

My music taste is ridiculously eclectic.

Let’s put to one side, for a moment, choosing music for commercials and think of it purely as a source of inspiration. The Velvets and Pixies have both helped me out of tight spots in the past, but then again, so has some crackly Al Bowlly vinyl and a bit of long-lost Vashti Bunyan.

The way music inspires images, and images inspire music is magical.

There are legends about songs being written after seeing certain pictures and the reverse is definitely true.

I don’t think I have synaesthesia, but jumbling up our senses a little, is good for the soul and good for our work. 

Anyone who’s ever made a commercial has got to love the moment where you sit down with your rough cut and try a bunch of tracks on there. In a matter of minutes, you can turn your funny film cool, or your shallow film deep. 

The one thing I know for sure is time spent gathering is rarely time wasted. So may your mental scrapbooks be overflowing with wonderful things.