Toasting sweets and Slowey's

Some are gurus, more are artisans

Some are gurus, more are artisans. They've all come to greet the publication of A Century of Irish Ads, compiled by Derek Garvey. It's a meeting of advertising types in the Old Jameson Distillery on Bow Street. "Ye shall know us by our shaved heads and goatee beards," says a joking Dave Kelly, an art director in the advertising world. We also wear a lot of black, he adds. And they do.

Everyone has a favourite advert from the past. Photographer Kevin Dunne loves the simple, elegant 1950s advert for Slowey's. The book's creator, Garvey himself, picks the same bridal image as his favourite. "It takes up the whole front page of a national newspaper, there's no price, no address of the store. In the context of its time it was very daring."

There is great discussion about creativity and the merits of advertising. Breandan O Broin, an acknowledged advertising guru, says advertising doesn't set out to be an artform. "The artisan part of the business is one of the things I quite cherish. I still need to sell what I do. It's only with great reluctance that I'd ascribe to it as being an art-form.

Derryman Gerard Cavanagh, director of The Irish Times Publications Ltd, picks the Mac's Smile adverts for razor blades as a favourite. Les Grennan, an advertising designer, says the adverts for Lemon's Pure Sweets are on his list of favourites. Sure you could fry an egg on all this talent, if you had an egg.