Beanz slogan creator called up by Brighton granddaughter (From The Argus)

Beanz slogan creator called up by Brighton granddaughter

1:35pm Saturday 25th August 2012 in News

He is the man behind the greatest advertising slogan in history.
 

But now Maurice Drake is coming out of retirement to use his “genius with words” to help his granddaughter’s fashion company.
 

Mr Drake, who spent decades thinking up advertising slogans for some of the world’s biggest brands, is working with his granddaughter’s fledging fashion brand, Anna Chocola.
 

The 84-year-old worked for a range of top American advertising agencies conjuring up slogans for international companies including Heinz, Unilever and Flora.
 

Mr Drake, of Upper Station Road, Henfield, said he came up with ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’, which has been voted the world’s top slogan, in a pub after three months of hard work.
 

The grandfather also worked with English comedian Arthur Haynes and Bruce Forsyth, who became the star of a Maxwell House coffee advert after Mr Drake had approached Tommy Cooper, Groucho Marx and Bob Hope, who had requested a Rolls-Royce on permanent stand-by when he was in London.
 

He also can lay claim to being the last person to film on the famous Hollywood cricket pitch, which had hosted Errol Flynn, Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier, for a Flora campaign.
 

He said: “One of the campaigns I’m most proud of is the CDM campaign for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.
 

“We put brown paper up in our office and wrote down every idea we had.
 

“No idea was a bad idea.
 

“I noticed the abbreviation CDM and it struck me it was like giving out a medal.
 

“We got the public to nominate people for a CDM, including one for someone who taught their budgerigar Arabic.”
 

Mr Drake said he is dismayed with the majority of modern adverts and said his career in advertising was very different to the life portrayed in hit TV show Mad Men.
 

He said: “Mad Men is about as close to advertising as Coronation Street is to a back street in Manchester.
 

“I was always told the product should be the hero but nowadays people see an advert and wonder what they were trying to sell.”
 

After a long and distinguished career Mr Drake retired in the mid 1990s but continues to advise his granddaughter Anna Michalak, of Islingword Road, Brighton.
 

She said: “He is a genius with words.
 

“He’s been helping me every time I go to see him every couple of weeks with different slogans such as ‘Christmas is in the bag’ or ‘There’s a growing taste for Chocola’.
 

“I didn’t realise quite how big Beanz Meanz Heinz was because I was brought up in France but when I moved back to England six years ago to be closer to my grandparents I realised how incredible it was.”
 

For more information visit annachocola.com.