From Preston to Great Pulteney St. How Creative Circle helped me get my first job at BBH.
- UK Creative
- Jul 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 7
Jo Moore
Executive Creative Director
Tuesday 1st July 2025
It rains quite a lot in Preston, well it definitely did in the mid 80s. So when I went up there to study graphic design I knew I’d probably be going to cheap cinema a good few times a week to escape the weather.
Lancashire was a long way from home which was the outskirts of London for me but the course had such an amazing reputation - every year it scooped up a ton of student awards and in the blurb it said you could ‘specialise in Design or Advertising in the final year’.
This excited me. I liked doing design but loved doing ideas and loved ads more. Not that I knew the first thing about getting a job in an agency.
I was getting to see a load of great cinema advertising at Preston Odeon, avoiding those rainy afternoons - the infamous BBH Levis campaign being right up there for creativity. We art students would all cram in one row - watching in awe at the big screen, tapping our black doc martins on the scuzzy cinema carpet to the beat of Marvin Gaye. How cool was that ad? Levi’s Laundrette - Great story. No voiceover just a brilliant music track. Cool cast (RIP Nick Kamen) and location (I naively believed it was shot in LA not at Shepperton studios in darkest Surrey).
'Creative Circle was running a student competition to win a six months fully paid bursary'
Then one day in Yr2 a tutor casually came in the art room and said an organisation called Creative Circle was running a student competition to win a six months fully paid bursary to work and learn in top Ad agency creative departments in London. All the design students turned their noses up and went back to hand drawing their Helvetica. But I thought - yep, I fancy that - I’ll give it a go.
The Creative Circle brief was to make a print ad and develop a logo to help explain the difficulties that deaf people go through in life and to get attitudes to change. So I thought of a simple idea, my first creative ad concept ever with a real deadline. I can’t quite believe I actually did it - thought of the idea, took a pic with my Nikon, designed a logo, wrote a headline (probably not my best, don’t judge me) and wrote my first ever bit of copy. Put it all together by hand as macs weren’t invented. And sent it off.
We heard nothing for a few weeks and then the tutor wandered in again and said it was Creative Circle on the phone and they wanted to speak to me. I’d been chosen to go down to show some more of my work next week as I was a finalist. I scrambled around and tried to put in some very basic advertising ideas into my portfolio and off I went to London.
And it worked. I bloody well won. I got the Creative Circle six month placement - I did six week stints at McCanns, Lowe Howard Spink, Abbot Mead and Delaney’s. Top creatives of the day took me to the pub, gave me advice and showed me the best way to put a book together. I met the lovely Mark Denton and Chris Palmer - the most highly awarded 80s team of the moment. They explained that I needed to get myself a creative partner to think of ideas with. I was even offered a job at the very last agency I went to - as one of the ads I’d done there had won an award but madly I declined and decided to go back to finish my design degree. Crazy choice, eh?
When I got back to Preston there was one design student, Simon Robinson who had absolutely hated his design placement. So we decided to team up, do a student book together and try and get a job. I felt now I knew a bit more of what was needed and how to write ideas. That Creative Circle placement seemed to have given me the confidence to think a career in a top London creative department could be possible for a girl from Uxbridge.
'he wrote out our confirmation letters by hand in front of us so people would believe us'
Within a few weeks of leaving uni ( with a 2.1 if you’re asking), Mark and Chris had kindly called a senior team at BBH and our book was put in front of ( Sir) John Hegarty - he obviously of Levi’s Laundrette fame. We met John one evening and trembled nervously on his office sofa. He said he was pretty impressed by our student work and basically gave us the job on the spot. No placement needed. What the?? I think we both looked totally in shock as he wrote out our confirmation letters by hand in front of us so people would believe us.
John became our boss for 10 years - we learned so much about craft and storytelling. Even how to make one of those Levis commercials we’d so coveted in rainy Preston. Our Levi’s ad was called Washroom - and guess what… Great story. No voiceover just a brilliant music track. Shot actually in LA though not Shepperton (we lucked out there), directed by Tarsem the coolest director of the time who’d shot all the REM videos.
So thank you Creative Circle. My career in Advertising started with you and we are still very much intertwined to this day as it was a pleasure to be Gold Jury Foreperson for ‘Writing’ this year. Good writing and storytelling is as important now as when I started many years ago. Happy 80th Birthday and congratulations on all the good you continue to do to encourage young people from all backgrounds into the industry. This girl from the ‘burbs is mighty grateful.
If you are young creative trying to break into the industry, there is no better place to attend than the UK Creative Festival and it's free to attend Careers Fair - this 9th & 10th July 2025.
Jo Moore
Executive Creative Director
Tuesday 1st July 2025
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