Vaughan Arnell Goes All In for the Ad Game

Vaughan Arnell is a morning man who loves his musical influences. He can usually be found between the hours of 6-8am rustling through scripts as something like this Bob Seger bootleg plays in the background.

His latest spot (below), for PokerStars, sees Brazilian football star Neymar Jr. and ‘real’ Ronaldo go head-to-head at the poker table for the betting brand’s latest campaign, created in-house and produced by Moxie Pictures.

Arnell's long list of clients in the music industry over three decades include Terence Trent D’Arby, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Spice Girls, Robbie Williams and more recently One Direction, but he signed to Moxie in October 2014 to continue his work in commercials as well as his promo offerings.

“I like to get up really early in the morning, it’s just magic,” he says. “You’ve got a clear brain and you’re not talking to anybody. You can play your music and read scripts, I love it. But then I’m the one phoning people saying ‘we should do this’ and it’s only 5.30am.”

Talking to people and good communication is key to success according to Arnell. Having been around for a while, it’s important for him to remain in tune with his peers and abreast of new tech trends and what’s happening now on various platforms. He thinks it's important for us all:

“Everything’s changing so much. If you can surf those waves and come out the other side it’s brilliant,” he adds. “I think it’s all about the long game, about meeting people who are half your age and being able to communicate and get on. For me, it’s trying to remain timeless; that’s my mission.”

Arnell believes that a good idea can come from anywhere and loves it when the phone rings. He says that a great script doesn’t have to come from the trendiest agency in the world, but it can be the best idea. “Just getting one in under the net that nobody saw coming,” he muses, “it’s just those little things. Every day’s different, you never know what you’re going to get.”

The communication goes both ways. He feels that for a creative project to come alive and do well, everyone has to believe and pull in the same direction.

“When you go into an agency it’s still really good when the creative director walks in. It might be someone you’ve known for a long time or someone you’ve never met but you know when they care about a project and they’re into it, everyone’s on the train and it’s all rolling. That’s what I love. It’s just about that energy.”

His vast experience of working with the music industry would suggest the same.

“If you go into a record company before they play the track you’re working on, they might play some other stuff they’ve done in the past and you can feel that everyone just loves the product and loves what they’re doing.”

For Arnell, the future's an exciting prospect: “What’s it going to be like in 10 years’ time?” he wonders. “Things we can’t even comprehend yet.”

A big part of Arnell’s career to date has seen him creating iconic images for some of the best-known music of our time. He’s a big fan of syncing sound with pictures and believes images can allow you to hear things in the music you might not have otherwise noticed.

As for the commercials, his own poker face says he can’t talk too much about an exciting project in the pipeline with Moxie but there’ll definitely be more to add to his latest betting ad. With regards to the long term future, he concludes: “I hope I’m still going in eight years’ time and am still able to communicate with people.”