The Chip Shop Awards are a different beast entirely. If you live in the UK, they're something of a minor celebrity in the events calendar; a place where the inspired and the profane sit side by side, chaotically intermingling. Once a year, we’re invited to consider questions that lie at the beating heart of advertising culture. What makes a subversive and disruptive ad? Can creativity ever truly run wild without limits? Where does the scatological end and the obscene begin? The event is more than just about competing for a big yellow chip; like all advertising awards it prompts us to look inwards and consider our triumphs and failures as an industry. It’s also the story of one man, a man who has outgrown his association with the awards, but without whom there would be none. His name is Andy Cheetham, and if you haven’t heard of him you’ve probably heard of his agency:Cheetham Bell JWT. An agency with the motto “The Power of Simple”, the story of the Chip Shop Awards is anything but. Yet it’s one of the few great stories in advertising and if Cheetham’s recollections are to be believed, a tale of no little drama and near financial ruin. The legend goes like this: Back in 1991, recently made redundant and with bleak hopes, Cheetham along with his then partner Tony Veasey decided to do what so many of us have done – make some spec ads. But these were different. Rather than picking a brand and knocking out a few portfolio pieces, Cheetham decided to leverage family connections and make a series of ads for Barnacles Fish and Chip Shop, a business run by his Mother.
