My obsession with and retention of pop culture in all of its forms has led him to apply his curiosity and creativity to many different disciplines and endeavors. With an advertising background (he started as a copywriter with the Jupiter Drawing Room in JHB when he was only 19) and ended up as a Creative Director at Fox P2 in Cape Town for 4 years before leaving in 2014 to work as a commercials director and on various creative projects, mainly with NorthVCA.

While still at The Jupiter Drawing Room JHB he became one of the first South Africans on MTV worldwide (except the US) for their short-form parody of Jackass called Crazy Monkey. This led to the creation of “Footskating” which became a worldwide non-phenomenon by satirising extreme sports culture and style.  A Crazy Monkey movie soon arrived which Gavin co-wrote and “starred” in alongside Brendan Jack. 

While in advertising Gavin has won awards all around the world at Cannes, One Show (most recently a Bronze Pencil last month) and D&AD. Locally he has won many Loeries culminating in the Grand Prix for Ster Kinekor’s Open Eyes campaign in 2016, which was a multi-platform piece about a boy having his vision restored and going to the cinema for the first time.

Obsessed with music, movies, television, sport, cars, literature and any alternative culture, Gavin has also written on a number of subjects (mainly football, music and cars) for a number of publications including GQ, Top Gear UK, The Times Of London, Sports Illustrated, FHM and Signature magazine.

He has also directed commercials for Volkswagen, Burger King, Allan Grey, Nedbank and News 24 and currently works on “traditional” advertising (if such a thing still exists!) as well as branding and design with NorthVCA. He is fascinated by so many things, which typically find their way into his work and world view.

After going into Creative Consultancy (a fancier word for freelance) he worked as a Creative Director and copywriter on KFC with Ogilvy JHB on both their retail TVCs and “big brand ad” Beyond The Sea. 

Beyond The Sea

The one thing he doesn’t really like doing is writing about himself, but there you have it!

Cheers 

BRANDS WORKED ON
Discovery Health
Ster-Kinekor

Nike
Nedbank

Frank Life Insurance
Castle Lite

Captain Morgan

Johnny Walker
Sanlam
Santam

Gun Free SA

Old El Paso
Nature Valley
Edgars

Fresca
Alfa-Romeo

Nederburg

Hunters Dry
Dairy Board SA
EA Sports FIFA 15

Maserati

Kauai

Belkin

BLOK

Mazda