A tribute to the legendary John Cheese

Digital production house The Office of John Cheese has resurrected the work of one of the industry’s great ad men, legendary productioneer John Cheese.

This includes a selection of ads from John Cheese’s groundbreaking “How to” campaign, which was published in the trade press in the ’50s, along with a famous interview by the author Marshall Miller, which first appeared in the American edition of The Gentleman Magazine (apparently some people did, in fact, buy it for the articles).

“We decided it was high time we gave the industry some insight into thehistory of our organisation,” said James Hawkes, Managing Director ofThe Office of John Cheese. “Obviously there has been some confusionover the business’ name with many assuming that I am in fact JohnCheese. The re-publication of this work hopefully goes some way toclarifying things.”

“A lot of people have forgotten that John Cheese was one of the mostinfluential figures in the global advertising scene. We hope topreserve some of his knowledge so it’s not lost to youngergenerations,” says James, adding, “I think it is vitally important thatthe real history of this industry isn’t lost.”

The reissues were originally created to grace the walls of The Officeof John Cheese in West Perth but have since created a small followingin the digital world. This has prompted John Cheese to start Twitteringsporadically (twitter.com/MrJohnCheese).

“Of all the intelligent and insightful things that have ever been saidabout the industry, I’ve said most of them,” said John Cheese from hisbeloved Châteaux d’Prix, overlooking Cannes, where we has been livingand breeding rare pygmy goats since his retirement in 1989. “And who amI to deny a new generation of advertising professionals this knowledge?”

Despite his fame, John Cheese has always remained an enigma. Rumour hasit he began his career in the French Foreign Legion before selling lintremoval systems door-to-door in East Lothian, Scotland. This experienceproved invaluable when he opened his first digital production shop inthe British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Following the success ofthis operation, he opened his first Madison Ave outpost in 1954.

The work has already been preselected for the upcoming edition of Lürzer’s Archive.