He had been ill for some time and suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Petworth, Sussex, yesterday.
Arden spent 14 years as executive creative director at the Charlotte Street agency where he inspired memorable work for British Airways, Anchor Butter and InterCity.
His famous slogans included "The car in front is a Toyota" and "The Independent - It Is. Are You?"
In 1983 he introduced the famous Silk Cut concept in which no copyline was used, only a still-life photographic image in the brand's signature purple.
In 1993 he set up the film production company Arden Sutherland Dodd.
His first book, "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be", a quirky combination of wit and wisdom, sold more than half a million copies.
Bill Muirhead, the former Saatchi & Saatchi chairman and a founding partner of M&C Saatchi, said: "Paul was a giant in terms of his contribution to the agency. He work was always fresh, deceptively simple and strikingly graphic."
Do you remember Paul Arden, or did you work with him? What influence did his work have on the UK ad scene?
Leave your tributes below.
Arden pictured at his desk at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1988
Comments
Considering I am still only 20, I never had the pleasure of working with or meeting the great Paul Arden, but still his influence has been great on me; 'It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be' is quite possibly the only book I can admit to reading cover to cover more than once and finding it more interesting, stimulating and damn right clever the more times I read it.
Arden was not just a creative genius, but a talent who defied the laws of complexity and simplified everything he touched, whilst still encouraging a brilliantly intellectual outcome.
As a human being I am sure he will be missed greatly, as a writer and inspirer his presence will probably never disappear.
I've never been told off for not listening by a greater man. And believe me, I've not listened to some of the best of them.
A true talent.
I saw Paul Arden years and years ago at an IPA evening where top creatives presented their favourite ads. Paul Arden hardly spoke. He just showed slide after slide of amazing photos of mud men with purple silk. It was one of the best moments of my career in advertising. He was a genius.
I had the pleasure of working for Paul for 3 years when i started as a runner in the industry. The occasions he was in the office were always unpredictable in the best way. He spoke his mind and opened my eyes!!
very sad day..i worked with Paul at Ardens , and he taught me a huge amount of knowledge, he trusted the young and listened to the underdog...he was charming, and bright, eccentric and ballsy...we need people like him right now...he will be very missed.
I was Paul's PA in the golden years from 1986-92 until he left Saatchis - he was a one off, an irreplaceable genius and the best boss I ever had. He started so many CDs on their careers and taught so many people so much. Advertising has so much to thank him for. More than that he was someone I was privileged to call my friend and godfather to my daughter. We do indeed need people like him yesterday, now and always.
Jeanette Nielson (formerly Marshall)
As a young traffic manager at S&S in the late 80s I accompanied many quaking creatives to his weekly agency creative reviews. I always remember his constant entreaty "Be brave. Be brave. Be brave."
Very sad news.... Paul was great and great to have around.. if he was involved in anything, you knew the one thing it wouldn't be was boring... he was incisive, quirky, original, subversive, naughty and cheeky, often all at the same time. He also always had the courage of his convictions (not such a common trait in his line of work). He was only 67 so even when he died he was ahead of his time.
I got a phone call today from my mate Ajab today to tell me that Paul had died. I was driving home from a bookshop in a daze just thinking of all the stories. One time he gave me $500 to go buy some interesting books when I was in New York. We spent an evening going through them when we got back. He was always so hungry to learn, to see new stuff.
I can see him now packing his canvas bag with books to read that night and waddling off to his car with them. I count myself lucky to have shown him work. To have learnt from him. Sure he was difficult. But no grit. No pearl.
We were discussing some work in Paul's office. A young account lady joined us. She was wearing a suit with a startlingly large hounds tooth pattern, which sort of 'preceded' her. After the meeting was over, Paul, in a very earnest manner, leaned across his vast desk and said to her "Did you really mean to buy that suit?"
Most people would have been mortally offended by the question, but having worked with the great man for some time, she understood that he was genuinely concerned.
This was what endeared Paul to those who worked with him. Honesty. Simplicity and directness.
Having been fortunate enough to have worked with him for many years, I know how much the industry lost when he retired from agency life. I now beginning to realize what I have lost as a friend and mentor. Digby.
For those of us who knew him, were trained by him, and who worked under his hands-on regime as struggling young creative people, he was more than an inspiration. Anyone who knew him can testify to his single-minded demand for quality, both in ideas and execution, and he transformed Saatchis' work practically singlehandedly, giving it a look and feel it had never had before.
At a personal level he was quite often insane, impossible, ruthless, scary even.
But many of us owe our careers to him. People who trained under him simply couldn't have been trained any better, and this applied as much to writers as art directors.
The stories about Paul are like the stories about no other people - they really are true.
A remarkable and utterly unique man.
Simon Carbery
I never had the pleasure of working with Paul (though my twin brother did) but he inspired a generation (or two) with his values. His influence was still evident at Saatchi's long after he'd gone. His books were great too.
A great inspiration. A great loss.
It was a shock to hear about this. I remember Paul at Saatchis in the 80's. He was the only creative who wore a suit! He will be remembered for his unique influence and much more.
I remember Paul being called upon to make a spontaneous speech at some birthday drinks in the agency. He said
"I've only got two things I want you to remember. The first is 'Happiness is the best revenge'. The second is... I can't remember the second."
Which meant, of course, I've never forgotten the first.
Classic Paul. Memorable. Pithy. Funny. Wise. Daft.
He could never remember our names yet he never forgot a silk cut poster concept we did for him.Paul's love was the work his creative department produced.And what a creative department it was.
Canna Kendall and Adrian Holmes have passed on the message that Paul's wish was that there shouldn't be a funeral, but Christian and Toni Arden have suggested that people who want to celebrate Paul's life might want to go to the new exhibition at Paul's gallery in Petworth on Sunday 13th instead.
I had the pleasure of working with Paul a few years back at Arden Sutherland Dodd (freelance) and I can safely say he was one of the most interesting, passionate and creative people I have met either on the Agency or Production side. My thoughts go out to his family, friends and all who have learnt or been influenced by him through all his creative work. He remembered by name each time we met and some would say that was quite a priviledge from Mr Arden.
I worked for Paul when he was a Creative Director and he worked for me when he was a Commercials Director.
In both roles I found him to have more passion, courage and energy than almost anyone I know.
He wasn’t a loon. But he played the nutter perfectly. He was smart enough to know precisely how to behave to get precisely what he wanted.
Someone once said of Paul: “He has a whim of iron”.
He certainly did change his mind a lot.
But boy did that teach you never to presume that what you have in front of you can’t be made better.
I'll miss you Paul.
It was 1994. I was the executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi Amsterdam at that time. Our biggest client, Rabobank, wanted me to work with someone from the London agencv. I talked to Jeremy Sinclair about this and to my surprise he suggested Paul Arden. Paul had already left the agency to set up his production company but he was still on the Saatchi paylist.
That is how I met this incredible, inspiring man. Yes, he could be very difficult, acting like a little boy. But that made him so special. On one occasion he explained his behaviour to me. “It’s more fun”, he said.
I treasure the moments I've spent with him.
One thing Paul was adamant about (and there were many!) was how quickly fashionable things go out of fashion...."The more classic looking you can make something the longer it will last", he'd tell us.
Paul was a truly classic guy in every sense of the word, his legacy will absolutely last for ever.
In a few years of working with him he taught me so much about advertising and life....what a legend, what a loss...
Paul was God and The Devil to 'us suits' back then - and you could walk on water with him.
I can't claim to have been a friend of Paul's but I did work close to him in the early 90's at Charlotte Street. I was PA to David Kershaw and Pete Watkins and sat next to his PA Jeanette (great times). The creative teams used to quake in their boots as they waited to show Paul their work and always asked us what kind of mood he was in. Such a perfectionist was he that it was common place for creative ideas to be literally destroyed on presentation. I think it's a shame that there is so little of this kind of passion left in the business - Paul used to say to the creatives Be Brave. He also tap danced on my desk to entertain us all on a quiet morning. I remember him very fondly and am very sad to know that he's gone.
I worked with Paul from 1986-7 - not a long time, but in some ways they were the most extraordinary years of my career. Paul's approach to idea-generation was unlike any other I'd come across. We'd be in his office trying to do an ad for Anchor Butter or Babycham, and suddenly he'd sit bolt upright and shout out "giraffes...that's it, giraffes!" It had absolutely fuck-all to do with the job in hand, but the weird thing was that in trying to steer Paul gently away from the giraffe angle, we'd trip over a really good idea that would never have occurred to us otherwise.
One day we were walking back from lunch and passed a small roadworks in Charlotte Street - corrugated tin shelter, chugging concrete mixer, wheelbarrow full of gravel, the whole assemblage neatly railed in with red-and-white poles. Paul stopped to look at this thoughtfully, puffing on his ever-present cigar. "Excuse me" he said finally to the bemused workman sitting there with his tea, "but is it possible to buy this?" What Paul saw wasn't Camden Council fixing a water main, but some kind of art installation that belonged in the Tate Modern.
And who can forget Paul's presentation at a posters industry conference? All he did was to stand up with this huge folded piece of heavyweight stock and slowly unfold it, saying "The...thing...I...love...about...posters...is...that...
they're...so...BIG". End of speech, with Paul swamped beneath acres of 16-sheet.
Paul was a brilliant original, with an incredible sense of style. He was never boring to be around - sometimes a little unnerving, in fact. But beneath the Condé Nast suit-and-cigar image, there was a mischievous kid with a huge sense of fun. And beneath the mischievous kid beat the heart of a genuinely nice man. Such a terrible shame it's stopped.
I was lucky enough to work with Paul both as a young account man and as a copywriter from 1984-87...
Whilst briefly acting as both on the Argyll bid for Distillers he finished reading a piece of copy I had agonised over for days and winked his mischiveous wink..."set it ", he said... "and don't tell the account man"...
In recent years I have shared his wonderful books with young creatives in Warsaw, Dubai and Brussels and with friends and family too... and allways to the same delight and amazement...
The 13th in Petworth is a date, Simon... I wouldn't be anywhere else...
I told paul at the end of last year how I felt the luckiest girl to have spent the first six informative years of my career under the rather unorthodox mentorship of both Paul and Nick. I also reminded him of the fun, the tears, the wine, the trepidation and the insults he encouraged in the office, not knowing which I would pluck from the mix if I could only have one.
His secret little wink reassuring you he knew he was misbehaving made you feel part of his mischief.
Just 2 years ago, after a dinner paul insisted on continuing the night with us all dancing and drinking in Shoreditch until the early hours. So much fun.
It's a sad day to have lost Paul from our party. Jax.
I was a suit who worked pretty closely with Paul at Saatchi. My favourite Paul memory was to do with a Courvoisier film. Twice Paul had changed his mind about location or studio. After a two day (location) shoot with Howard Guard, Paul threw everything out, asked Howard for another half day, and worked on.
We (Paul, John Sharkey, Moray Maclennan, and self) took a private jet to Bordeaux airport, as you did, and turned up at the Courvoisier chateau at the appointed hour, Paul constantly that irritating, child-like, 50 yards behind as he smelt the flowers along the way.
Patrick Moran, the client, watched the film 3 times and said, after a long pause, "Is it me, or is at least half of this film out of focus?"
There were some exceptional suits there, and me, but it was entirely Paul who convinced Patrick to run it.
On the way home, we were getting pissed at Bordeaux airport, and asked each other what could be the greatest gift you could give your children. Moray and I gave some kind of inane account-man answer - "Ferrari", I suspect. Paul's answer was "a sense of wonder."
Two footnotes to this story. Patrick told me later that he would have fired us had it not been for Paul, and a few years back and at least 10 since the Courvoisier spot, when I was in the process of dying at JWT, some reels came in for an irredeemable 30 seconds of tosh. One was Howard Guard's. First on the reel - the Courvoisier spot.
Comments
TIM HARVEY - 03/04/2008
Considering I am still only 20, I never had the pleasure of working with or meeting the great Paul Arden, but still his influence has been great on me; 'It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be' is quite possibly the only book I can admit to reading cover to cover more than once and finding it more interesting, stimulating and damn right clever the more times I read it. Arden was not just a creative genius, but a talent who defied the laws of complexity and simplified everything he touched, whilst still encouraging a brilliantly intellectual outcome. As a human being I am sure he will be missed greatly, as a writer and inspirer his presence will probably never disappear.
Richard Worrow - 03/04/2008
I've never been told off for not listening by a greater man. And believe me, I've not listened to some of the best of them. A true talent.
Susan Imgrund - 03/04/2008
I saw Paul Arden years and years ago at an IPA evening where top creatives presented their favourite ads. Paul Arden hardly spoke. He just showed slide after slide of amazing photos of mud men with purple silk. It was one of the best moments of my career in advertising. He was a genius.
Mark Jenkinson - 03/04/2008
I had the pleasure of working for Paul for 3 years when i started as a runner in the industry. The occasions he was in the office were always unpredictable in the best way. He spoke his mind and opened my eyes!!
dan dickenson - 03/04/2008
very sad day..i worked with Paul at Ardens , and he taught me a huge amount of knowledge, he trusted the young and listened to the underdog...he was charming, and bright, eccentric and ballsy...we need people like him right now...he will be very missed.
JEANETTE NIELSON - 03/04/2008
I was Paul's PA in the golden years from 1986-92 until he left Saatchis - he was a one off, an irreplaceable genius and the best boss I ever had. He started so many CDs on their careers and taught so many people so much. Advertising has so much to thank him for. More than that he was someone I was privileged to call my friend and godfather to my daughter. We do indeed need people like him yesterday, now and always. Jeanette Nielson (formerly Marshall)
Simon Chapman - 03/04/2008
As a young traffic manager at S&S in the late 80s I accompanied many quaking creatives to his weekly agency creative reviews. I always remember his constant entreaty "Be brave. Be brave. Be brave."
alan curson - 03/04/2008
Very sad news.... Paul was great and great to have around.. if he was involved in anything, you knew the one thing it wouldn't be was boring... he was incisive, quirky, original, subversive, naughty and cheeky, often all at the same time. He also always had the courage of his convictions (not such a common trait in his line of work). He was only 67 so even when he died he was ahead of his time.
david hieatt - 03/04/2008
I got a phone call today from my mate Ajab today to tell me that Paul had died. I was driving home from a bookshop in a daze just thinking of all the stories. One time he gave me $500 to go buy some interesting books when I was in New York. We spent an evening going through them when we got back. He was always so hungry to learn, to see new stuff. I can see him now packing his canvas bag with books to read that night and waddling off to his car with them. I count myself lucky to have shown him work. To have learnt from him. Sure he was difficult. But no grit. No pearl.
Digby Atkinson - 04/04/2008
We were discussing some work in Paul's office. A young account lady joined us. She was wearing a suit with a startlingly large hounds tooth pattern, which sort of 'preceded' her. After the meeting was over, Paul, in a very earnest manner, leaned across his vast desk and said to her "Did you really mean to buy that suit?" Most people would have been mortally offended by the question, but having worked with the great man for some time, she understood that he was genuinely concerned. This was what endeared Paul to those who worked with him. Honesty. Simplicity and directness. Having been fortunate enough to have worked with him for many years, I know how much the industry lost when he retired from agency life. I now beginning to realize what I have lost as a friend and mentor. Digby.
Simon Carbery - 04/04/2008
For those of us who knew him, were trained by him, and who worked under his hands-on regime as struggling young creative people, he was more than an inspiration. Anyone who knew him can testify to his single-minded demand for quality, both in ideas and execution, and he transformed Saatchis' work practically singlehandedly, giving it a look and feel it had never had before. At a personal level he was quite often insane, impossible, ruthless, scary even. But many of us owe our careers to him. People who trained under him simply couldn't have been trained any better, and this applied as much to writers as art directors. The stories about Paul are like the stories about no other people - they really are true. A remarkable and utterly unique man. Simon Carbery
Chris Arnold - 04/04/2008
I never had the pleasure of working with Paul (though my twin brother did) but he inspired a generation (or two) with his values. His influence was still evident at Saatchi's long after he'd gone. His books were great too. A great inspiration. A great loss.
Claire Myerscough - 04/04/2008
It was a shock to hear about this. I remember Paul at Saatchis in the 80's. He was the only creative who wore a suit! He will be remembered for his unique influence and much more.
Mary wear - 04/04/2008
I remember Paul being called upon to make a spontaneous speech at some birthday drinks in the agency. He said "I've only got two things I want you to remember. The first is 'Happiness is the best revenge'. The second is... I can't remember the second." Which meant, of course, I've never forgotten the first. Classic Paul. Memorable. Pithy. Funny. Wise. Daft.
greg milbourne - 04/04/2008
He could never remember our names yet he never forgot a silk cut poster concept we did for him.Paul's love was the work his creative department produced.And what a creative department it was.
Simon Carbery - 04/04/2008
Canna Kendall and Adrian Holmes have passed on the message that Paul's wish was that there shouldn't be a funeral, but Christian and Toni Arden have suggested that people who want to celebrate Paul's life might want to go to the new exhibition at Paul's gallery in Petworth on Sunday 13th instead.
Jo Rae-Chodan - 04/04/2008
I had the pleasure of working with Paul a few years back at Arden Sutherland Dodd (freelance) and I can safely say he was one of the most interesting, passionate and creative people I have met either on the Agency or Production side. My thoughts go out to his family, friends and all who have learnt or been influenced by him through all his creative work. He remembered by name each time we met and some would say that was quite a priviledge from Mr Arden.
DAMON COLLINS - 04/04/2008
I worked for Paul when he was a Creative Director and he worked for me when he was a Commercials Director. In both roles I found him to have more passion, courage and energy than almost anyone I know. He wasn’t a loon. But he played the nutter perfectly. He was smart enough to know precisely how to behave to get precisely what he wanted. Someone once said of Paul: “He has a whim of iron”. He certainly did change his mind a lot. But boy did that teach you never to presume that what you have in front of you can’t be made better. I'll miss you Paul.
Wim Ubachs - 04/04/2008
It was 1994. I was the executive creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi Amsterdam at that time. Our biggest client, Rabobank, wanted me to work with someone from the London agencv. I talked to Jeremy Sinclair about this and to my surprise he suggested Paul Arden. Paul had already left the agency to set up his production company but he was still on the Saatchi paylist. That is how I met this incredible, inspiring man. Yes, he could be very difficult, acting like a little boy. But that made him so special. On one occasion he explained his behaviour to me. “It’s more fun”, he said. I treasure the moments I've spent with him.
Rowley Samuel - 04/04/2008
One thing Paul was adamant about (and there were many!) was how quickly fashionable things go out of fashion...."The more classic looking you can make something the longer it will last", he'd tell us. Paul was a truly classic guy in every sense of the word, his legacy will absolutely last for ever. In a few years of working with him he taught me so much about advertising and life....what a legend, what a loss...
Mark Cunningham - 04/04/2008
Paul was God and The Devil to 'us suits' back then - and you could walk on water with him.
Steph Smith - 04/04/2008
I can't claim to have been a friend of Paul's but I did work close to him in the early 90's at Charlotte Street. I was PA to David Kershaw and Pete Watkins and sat next to his PA Jeanette (great times). The creative teams used to quake in their boots as they waited to show Paul their work and always asked us what kind of mood he was in. Such a perfectionist was he that it was common place for creative ideas to be literally destroyed on presentation. I think it's a shame that there is so little of this kind of passion left in the business - Paul used to say to the creatives Be Brave. He also tap danced on my desk to entertain us all on a quiet morning. I remember him very fondly and am very sad to know that he's gone.
ADRIAN HOLMES - 05/04/2008
I worked with Paul from 1986-7 - not a long time, but in some ways they were the most extraordinary years of my career. Paul's approach to idea-generation was unlike any other I'd come across. We'd be in his office trying to do an ad for Anchor Butter or Babycham, and suddenly he'd sit bolt upright and shout out "giraffes...that's it, giraffes!" It had absolutely fuck-all to do with the job in hand, but the weird thing was that in trying to steer Paul gently away from the giraffe angle, we'd trip over a really good idea that would never have occurred to us otherwise. One day we were walking back from lunch and passed a small roadworks in Charlotte Street - corrugated tin shelter, chugging concrete mixer, wheelbarrow full of gravel, the whole assemblage neatly railed in with red-and-white poles. Paul stopped to look at this thoughtfully, puffing on his ever-present cigar. "Excuse me" he said finally to the bemused workman sitting there with his tea, "but is it possible to buy this?" What Paul saw wasn't Camden Council fixing a water main, but some kind of art installation that belonged in the Tate Modern. And who can forget Paul's presentation at a posters industry conference? All he did was to stand up with this huge folded piece of heavyweight stock and slowly unfold it, saying "The...thing...I...love...about...posters...is...that... they're...so...BIG". End of speech, with Paul swamped beneath acres of 16-sheet. Paul was a brilliant original, with an incredible sense of style. He was never boring to be around - sometimes a little unnerving, in fact. But beneath the Condé Nast suit-and-cigar image, there was a mischievous kid with a huge sense of fun. And beneath the mischievous kid beat the heart of a genuinely nice man. Such a terrible shame it's stopped.
peter russell - 07/04/2008
I was lucky enough to work with Paul both as a young account man and as a copywriter from 1984-87... Whilst briefly acting as both on the Argyll bid for Distillers he finished reading a piece of copy I had agonised over for days and winked his mischiveous wink..."set it ", he said... "and don't tell the account man"... In recent years I have shared his wonderful books with young creatives in Warsaw, Dubai and Brussels and with friends and family too... and allways to the same delight and amazement... The 13th in Petworth is a date, Simon... I wouldn't be anywhere else...
jax evans - 08/04/2008
I told paul at the end of last year how I felt the luckiest girl to have spent the first six informative years of my career under the rather unorthodox mentorship of both Paul and Nick. I also reminded him of the fun, the tears, the wine, the trepidation and the insults he encouraged in the office, not knowing which I would pluck from the mix if I could only have one. His secret little wink reassuring you he knew he was misbehaving made you feel part of his mischief. Just 2 years ago, after a dinner paul insisted on continuing the night with us all dancing and drinking in Shoreditch until the early hours. So much fun. It's a sad day to have lost Paul from our party. Jax.
William Burdon - 08/04/2008
I was a suit who worked pretty closely with Paul at Saatchi. My favourite Paul memory was to do with a Courvoisier film. Twice Paul had changed his mind about location or studio. After a two day (location) shoot with Howard Guard, Paul threw everything out, asked Howard for another half day, and worked on. We (Paul, John Sharkey, Moray Maclennan, and self) took a private jet to Bordeaux airport, as you did, and turned up at the Courvoisier chateau at the appointed hour, Paul constantly that irritating, child-like, 50 yards behind as he smelt the flowers along the way. Patrick Moran, the client, watched the film 3 times and said, after a long pause, "Is it me, or is at least half of this film out of focus?" There were some exceptional suits there, and me, but it was entirely Paul who convinced Patrick to run it. On the way home, we were getting pissed at Bordeaux airport, and asked each other what could be the greatest gift you could give your children. Moray and I gave some kind of inane account-man answer - "Ferrari", I suspect. Paul's answer was "a sense of wonder." Two footnotes to this story. Patrick told me later that he would have fired us had it not been for Paul, and a few years back and at least 10 since the Courvoisier spot, when I was in the process of dying at JWT, some reels came in for an irredeemable 30 seconds of tosh. One was Howard Guard's. First on the reel - the Courvoisier spot.