Walter has been writing and art directing work that has been consistently judged amongst the worlds leading commercials for many years. Perhaps Campbell is still best known for the Guinness ‘Surfer’ spot which swept the board at award festivals around the world, even achieving the unprecedented Double Black Pencils at D&AD.
His first successes were in radio with ads for the COI. Produced by TBWA as the AIDS pandemic spread to England. These spots addressed the danger of infection through injecting drugs. He used the full visual power of the media to convey portraits of people who had become infected with AIDS by recording the actual people who had experienced these troubled waters.
The anti injection campaign he wrote led him into the dark and dangerous world of the drug dealer with hidden microphones and a mission to find the human frailty in a story that is so often reduced to a cliché. He entered many volatile locations and engineered a series of intricate social situations so that he could secretly record the truth behind the surface story.
Next he collaborated with the remarkable Tony Kaye to evoke a world of magical mayhem for Dunlop Tyres. This provocative spot was one of the most hotly debated in the eighties, with some pundits proclaiming that it was not actually an ad (Praise indeed). The spot did however manage to dislodge Pirelli from it’s vice like grip on the market place and also garner a raft of awards from D&AD and beyond.
Further success were mined at AMV BBDO with work for Volvo, in which a docudrama approach led to stunning imagery and a recalibrating of the entire brand. It also scooped the first Black D&AD pencil for ‘Twister’ amongst the many the overall campaign achieved.
A gritty BT spot saw a relationship with the director Jonathan Glazer evolve and then be quickly consolidated within Campbell’s ‘Good Things Come To Those Who Wait’ campaign, which achieved a tally of remarkable sales figures for the beer and awards for the agency.
While creative directing, he continued his collaborations with Jonathan Glazer on various video and film projects eventually leaving the agency to embark full time on a film venture with him. They have now written a feature together which is currently in production. (They have other projects in development.)
Walter is now looking for that next big challenge and inspired by his time working closely with Glazer has set his sights on Directing.