He's got his Mojo working...

By PAUL PANCKHURST

Scattered round a table at the Parnell offices of Publicis Mojo is an array of briefs for new advertisements.

These little instruction manuals have sections such as "Stimulus", "Desired response", and matching sections for "The consumer thinks or feels ... " and "Because the Brand or Product says ... "

Magazines - Adbusters, Metro, Pavement - add to the sprawl.

In the middle of it somewhere is Nick Worthington, 41, the south Londoner imported to Auckland to run the creative side of Publicis Mojo in Australia and New Zealand.

His credentials, including award-winning ads for Levi's, mean he must be one of the highest-paid people in the advertising industry here.

In Britain, he worked for big-name agencies such as Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. He had a hand in ads that are legendary within the industry, such as "Drugstore" - a cinematic black and white ad for Levi's that features a young man buying condoms from a shopkeeper whom he later encounters as the father of his date for the night.

One that featured on New Zealand television was "Creek", a Levi's commercial showing a pair of young pioneer women in the United States peeking at a jeans-wearer who is taking a dip.

Worthington is unusual in the advertising industry in that he is not at all shy about admitting that he collects other people's ideas and images for future inspiration.

"Where's my bag?" he asks. He pulls out a little book and says: "This is where I keep them."

Open up at random and ... here is a note about a piece of film of a boy eating, shot by director Roman Coppola, and then reversed so the boy stops chewing, extracts an intact piece of food and carefully puts it down.

"It's just awesome," Worthington says. "It's just brilliant!"

He is thinking: a great image for a health campaign.

He flicks through the book.

Another simple idea: a visual depiction of how a man sees a supermarket - that is, a supermarket reduced to beer, potato chips and meat.

He talks about "the tiny little lateral step of the brain to make you think about something in a different way".

Simple example: cat food.

Typically, advertisers require cat food ads to feature ... cats.

But what if a cat food ad instead starred ... a dog?

Play with that idea.

One possibility: a cat food so good that dogs wish they were cats.

That was the twist behind one of the ads in Worthington's portfolio that picked up awards at the international advertising contests.

The idea was matched with an image of Dougal, the dog from 1960s children's television show Magic Roundabout. The copy line: "Bummer, said Dougal, realising he was a dog."

A lesson that Worthington learned early is that an advertisement is either a 10 or a zero. It resonates or it doesn't.

"There is no middle ground. It's either really inspiring or it's not interesting."

In an evangelical moment, Worthington says: "The potential for advertising, when it's great is just, like ... phe-nom-enal."