David Abbott (advertising)

Together with Alfredo Marcantonio and John O'Driscoll, David Abbott authored a book about the history of Volkswagen advertising entitled 'Remember those great Volkswagen ads?', which is comprehensive account of the most influential campaign in the history of advertising. His first novel, The Upright Piano Player, was published in 2010 by MacLehose Press. John Burnham Schwartz the author of Bicycle Days and Reservation Road called Abbott's debut novel 'a wise and moving debut, an accomplished novel of quiet depths and resonant shadows.'

Admittedly, it took some while to complete his first work of fiction, but in 2010 Abbott's debut novel ‘The Upright Piano Player’ finally hit the shelves. It was clearly a labour of love as every line has been so carefully considered and honed. Lines like this: 'Designer gowns from a former era, lovingly preserved in polythene, hang uneasily on bodies that have had no such luck.' The book is peppered with such lines, yet the narrative is brisk and not the least bit laboured. And, of course, there's that sharp perceptiveness about human nature and the little observations that lift the writing to another level. We also get a real feeling for the characters themselves through Abbott's ear for dialogue.

The One Club for Art and Copy inducted Abbott into its Creative Hall of Fame in 2001 three years after he retired. Abbott was the second Briton, after David Ogilvy, to be inducted into the hall of fame.

In 2000 David Abbott wrote an open letter to Campaign Magazine in response to the publication awarding FCUK their advertiser of the year accolade. The letter to the publication read:

Abbott retired from advertising in October 1998 at the age of 60 to concentrate on writing his first novel.

In 1998, he announced his retirement from the agency he founded in order to take up a new career as an author. Of course, other advertising copywriters before him had successfully taken the plunge. Though it is fair to say that none of them had received the kind of industry recognition that Abbott had. There had been Fay Wheldon ( ‘Go to work on an egg’). There had been Peter Mayle (‘Nice one Cyril’ for Wonderloaf bread). And there had been Salman Rushdie (who readily admits to penning ‘naughty but nice’ for fresh cream cakes).

David Abbott was D&AD President in 1975 and President's Award Winner in 1986.

At Doyle Dane Bernbach, Abbott was taken under the wing of Bill Bernbach, the visionary creative director of DDB. In 1971 he returned to the UK and founded French Gold Abbott. Then in 1977 Abbott co-founded Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO alongside Adrian Vickers and Peter Mead in 1977, having first met Vickers at Oxford University in 1959. The agency's clients included Volvo, Sainsbury's, IKEA, Chivas Regal, The Economist, Yellow Pages, and the RSPCA. In 1991, BBDO acquired a stake in AMV and appended their name.

Born in Hammersmith, west London, David Abbott won a scholarship to read History at Merton College, Oxford but left before graduating to nurse his sick father who was ill with cancer and who later died. Abbott started as a copywriter working in-house at Kodak after discovering a book at a market stall about advertising on Madison Avenue. In 1963 he then moved to the Mather & Crowther agency before moving to the Manhattan-based Doyle Dane Bernbach 1965.

David John Abbott (11 October 1938 – 17 May 2014) was a British advertising executive who founded Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. He was one of the most celebrated advertising executives in the world and regarded as the greatest copywriter of his generation. Highlights of his career include the creation of the J.R. Hartley television commercial for Yellow Pages as well as work for Volkswagen, Volvo, The Economist, The RSPCA, Sainsbury's Supermarkets and Chivas Regal.