This Adman Has More Than One Creative Outlet

David Metcalf, a sprightly 54-year-old hails from a Yorkshire mill town Charles Dickens once called “the dark satanic north.” Yet the man himself is full of quirky good cheer. This Christmas, he served his guests hot dogs and beer – alongside silver platters of oysters. His TriBeCa shop, Working Class, is an extension of his highly individual taste, as is his advertising workshop that buzzes in the basement below, taking on such project as Martha Stewart Omnimedia’s new magazine, Everyday Food.A crest bearing the Latin motto “Crazy But Not Stupid” hangs over Working Class’s front door and sets the tone for the place. Handmade candies and perfumes, Yorkshire teas, toile pillows, Victorian antiques, coronation china, and a 20-seat Victorian table are for sale. But it isn’t all froufrou – there are also work boots, pea coats, leather pants, and cautionary-yellow slickers in sizes fit for toddlers or lumbering sailors. In a balcony at the back, Mr. Metcalf created a cozy screening room with overstuffed couches nestled amid quarry stone and stained glass.“It’s a store that doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It just started as a bit of fun; it’s whatever I feel like selling. …It opens you up to trying new things, it keeps you fresh.”Interacting with customers leads to new ideas for campaigns – which has its pluses and minuses: “The problem with my stuff is that if I create a bag it has to be representative of my advertising so people look at is as a piece of branding. It starts with a business card and can go all the way to print or TV.”With Everyday Food, the question was “How to make Martha smaller?” The answer: Focus on the fun, young and hip aspects of her personality. The magazine’s tagline, “Good food can be fast food,” was inspired by the film “Super Size Me” about McDonald’s health risks; it is now the motto for Everyday Food.Mr. Metcalf first met Stewart while working at advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. “When I worked at Ogilvy I put Martha in an AmEx commercial. She talks about how good the card is but ‘Don’t throw your old cards away, recycle them,’ and then she retiles her swimming pool with cut up credit cards. After that she hired me to do different projects, like the first trade ad for the Living magazine; the Wedding magazine; then came all the Kmart stuff, the commercial; the cover of the Kids magazine, the Everyday Paint cans with the tulip design,” he said.The mega-agency has proved quite a contrast to his current four-person shop. “I didn’t need to have my name on the door, I needed to own the door,” he said. “We do projects only if we like them,” he said of breaking away to start his own firm seven years ago.The Working Class walls are also home to past projects, such as photo stills from those first Martha/Kmart commercials, print ads for AT&T Broadband and AOL, and a cheeky banner designed for a Montauk realtor that reads: “Where fish nets aren’t stockings.” Mr. Metcalf’s unique vision keeps big-name companies knocking on his door.“I don’t do anything mainstream,” he said. “We get business from people that recommend us. We don’t cold call. I don’t pitch for business. People come to me for ideas. I don’t have big contracts, just letters of intent. I do my own thing. People say I’m eccentric; I consider myself lucky, I never know if I’m going to be in business next year.”Mr. Metcalf’s latest project is with New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery, one of the best orthopedic hospitals in the world.“If something happens to your arm or leg, you’re having a hip replaced or a kneecap rebuilt that’s the place to go, and that’s information so few New Yorkers know. We’ve got to fix that,” he explained excitedly. “We look at the big picture, what the problem is and how can we fix it…we don’t look at it as doing an ad.”For the Hospital of Special Surgery, Working Class made a series of animated commercials and ads with “roadside symbol” icons that depict the human body in various sports gesticulations and everyday movements. The campaign has been a huge success.When asked what drives him to do this kind of work, Metcalf responds: “I think I’m a good salesman. My goal was ‘Can I earn a living without doing the things I hated?’…I was determined to do something I liked for a living when most people were just doing a job.”

This Adman Has More Than One Creative Outlet

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