Trevor Beattie (born 24 December 1959) is a British advertising executive. He is a founding partner, chairman and creative director of Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB), and was formerly the chairman and creative director of TBWA London. Considered one of the leading figures in advertising in Britain, Beattie has been responsible for a number of high-profile and sometimes controversial advertising campaigns, most notably the " fcuk" campaign for

French Connection The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1 ...

and the 1994

Playtex Playtex is an American brand name for undergarments, baby products, gloves, feminine hygiene products, and sunscreen. The brand began in 1947 when International Latex Corporation (ILC) created a division named Playtex to produce and sell latex p ...

Wonderbra The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1955, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and maj ...

campaign featuring

Eva Herzigová Eva Herzigová (; born 10 March 1973) is a Czech model and actress. Her career took a major turn in 1994 when she became the face of the Wonderbra campaign. The famous "Hello Boys" ad became iconic and contributed to her worldwide popularity. He ...

. He has managed campaigns for the Labour Party, being a friend of

Peter Mandelson Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, (born 21 October 1953) is a British politician, lobbyist and diplomat who has served as British Ambassador to the United States since February 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Mandelson serve ...

and a supporter of

New Labour New Labour is the political philosophy that dominated the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-late 1990s to 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The term originated in a conference slogan first used by the ...

. Beattie masterminded the ad campaigns for the Labour party in the

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

and

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

general elections.

Early life

Beattie was one of eight children born to Jack and Ada Beattie in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

. His father, who was originally from

Lisburn Lisburn ( ; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with t ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, worked as a car mechanic. The family lived in the

Balsall Heath Balsall Heath is an inner-city area of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It has a diverse cultural mix of people and is the location of the Balti Triangle. History The name is first found as Bordeshale in 1275, which is derived from the ...

suburb of the city. Beattie was the first member of his family to enter into higher education, studying at

Moseley School of Art The Moseley School of Art () on Moseley Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham, England was built as the first municipal branch School of Art in Birmingham. The Moseley School of Art was closed by the City of Birmingham Education Committee in 1976. The ...

, alongside

UB40 UB40 are an English reggae band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham, England. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart and has also achieved considerable international success. They have been nominated for the Grammy ...

Ali Campbell Alistair Ian Campbell (born 15 February 1959) is an English singer and songwriter who was lead singer and co-founder of the British reggae band UB40. UB40 sold more than 70 million records worldwide and toured for 30 years with the original l ...

and Terence Wilson, and subsequently completing a degree in graphic design and photography at

Wolverhampton Polytechnic The University of Wolverhampton is a public university in Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, England, located on four campuses across the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Originally founded in 1827 as the Wolverham ...

Career

In 2002 he was listed by Marketing magazine as the 9th Most Influential Person in Media and in 2003 was voted IPA Best of the Best Awards Creative Director of the Year. In 2010 Beattie tried to win back the account from the Labour Party by spending over £12,000 of his own money fighting the Conservative Party in Wolverhampton but failed to unseat any of the eight politicians he was attacking. February 8, 2011, Trevor was granted an Honorary Doctorate at the

Birmingham City University Birmingham City University (abbrev. BCU) is a university in Birmingham, England. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic in 1971 an ...

. Within his acceptance speech Trevor announced he would offer a scholarship to forthcoming students in honor of his lecturer / teacher John Lowe.

New projects

Beattie has also moved into the movie industry, producing the

Bafta The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

winning movie

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

, directed by

Duncan Jones Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones (born 30 May 1971) is a British film director, film producer and screenwriter. He directed the films ''Moon'' (2009), ''Source Code'' (2011), '' Warcraft'' (2016), and '' Mute'' (2018). For ''Moon'', he won the BAFT ...

in 2008. Since 2006, Beattie has devised the marketing campaign for

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and opera ...

Space Tourism Programme. On 6 October 2023, he flew to space on board

Galactic 04 Galactic 04 was a crewed sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS ''Unity'', which launched on 6 October 2023. It was the fourth commercial spaceflight and ninth overall spaceflight for aerospace company Virgin Galactic Virgi ...

. In November 2011 The Jack and Ada Beattie Foundation was launched. The Jack and Ada Beattie Foundation supports victims of social injustice by providing grants to both organisations and individuals under the themes of 'Dignity', 'Freedom' and 'Sanctuary'. The Foundation was set up in honour of Trevor Beattie's parents. He has expressed interest in making a film on the life and career of

Coronation Street ''Coronation Street'' (colloquially referred to as ''Corrie'') is a British television soap opera created by ITV Granada, Granada Television and shown on ITV (TV network), ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres on a cobbled, terraced ...

actress

Jean Alexander Jean Margaret Hodgkinson (11 October 1926 – 14 October 2016), known by the stage name Jean Alexander, was a British actress. She was best known to television viewers for her long running role of Hilda Ogden in the soap opera ''Coronation St ...

who played

Hilda Ogden Hilda Ogden (also Crabtree) is a fictional character from the Television in the United Kingdom, British ITV (TV network), ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'', one of the best-known of all the regular characters in the serial, whose name became ...

for nearly 25 years.

References

External links

*
Beattie McGuinness Bungay
official website
The Jack and Ada Beattie Foundation
official website
BBC: Trevor Beattie: Getting noticed, all right
profile from April 2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Beattie, Trevor 1959 births Living people Alumni of the University of Wolverhampton British advertising executives Businesspeople from Birmingham, West Midlands People who have flown in suborbital spaceflight