I was there for five years and worked on almost every bit of the business for the last two

I was there for five years, and worked on almost every bit of the business; for the last two and a half years I jointly ran it. But the solution they’ve come up with is simple and straightforward, and yet remarkably effective – though not without controversy.A female Swedish presenter shows us a rather dreary office environment, and tell us in her charming Swedish accent that we can replace it with a more inspiring IKEA office environment “Where do you find the money?” she asks. “Ee-see! You just let somebody go – and it doesn’t even have to be anyone senior!”We then see a quick resume of the cost of all the furniture – which is pounds 8,024.67 – before she strolls into the dull office, where we see a rather sad-looking chap photocopying. She asks: “What are you on?” and he says: “Ten and a half” – at which she just looks at the camera with a very wicked- looking smile.

It’s one of those ads in which performance is crucial – and the presenter is a real star.Apparently, there have been a number of complaints from people who obviously don’t have a sense of humour – people who probably think it treats the very serious subject of downsizing with too much levity. But, in fact, it treats a boring subject – flogging office furniture – with exactly the right lightness of tone to make it interesting. There is a wicked joke in it, but it’s quite funny.What they’ve communicated here is something quite simple: why have a dull office when you could have a really interesting office, especially when it’s only going to cost you eight grand? And the joke of “How are you going to afford it?” is probably what makes you notice the ad.munch bunch pot shots Bates DorlandI assume this campaign is aimed at children – and this should have made the agency and client think more creatively and laterally than they necessarily would have done for an adult ad. I worked on a number of bits of business before being promoted to running the team that was doing the “You Can’t Get Better Than A Kwik-Fit Fitter” advertising.In 1990, for personal reasons, I moved to London. Eventually, in 1988, I became an account manager at Hall Advertising in Edinburgh, at the time the strongest agency outside London.

But I did courses in video editing, and Renaissance art, and became editor of a magazine for the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce. I got interested in advertising and started doing CAM (Communication, Advertising and Marketing Education Foundation) certificates at night school and applied to agencies in London.
I got a shed-load of rejection letters, saying that while my CV was impressive, I had no relevant experience, but I kept at it. As a child, I would dismantle anything electrical or mechanical around the house. I was quite good at maths at school, so studying engineering at Oxford it was a natural progression.

I graduated in 1984, and joined Shell on the graduate recruitment programme. They located me in Aberdeen, and I worked on a big project designing a computerise accounting system for North Sea gas

Looking back, I wasn’t being stretched at all. “We’d die for the kind of access Martin has,” said one source, though he did not add that if the BBC had a real grasp of political and policy priorities it would ensure that more of its journalistic stars did gritty coverage of social security rather than glamorous two-ways outside the Kremlin.. Welfare reform is a make-or-break issue for this government and he is in there at the kill – driven by an intellectual commitment to the challenge rather than to any personal political agenda.