They are the remain campaign billboards that never were.



Adverts put forward by agencies working for Britain Stronger in Europe – and subsequently rejected by campaign chiefs – began to emerge on Thursday as the referendum postmortem gathered pace.

Agency chiefs criticised the remain campaign for a lack of focus and leadership. The images included work from agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi, two of the companies working for the remain campaign.

Once out, the pin can’t be put back

M&C Saatchi’s worldwide chief executive, Moray MacLennan, said: “We never normally release work that we produced on behalf of a client but that hasn’t run.

“But this time is different. We are still emotionally engaged, the issue is – and will remain – of vital importance and it might help to air some of these ideas,” he told Campaign.

Nigel Farage and the microphone

“We said don’t try to cower people into submission – encourage them to see the positives. We came up with a strategy based around ‘Don’t leave it, lead it’ but they didn’t run with it.

“At no point did we deal with the senior politicians. Instead, we were dealing with a cross-party committee and it was desperately frustrating. It was a structure doomed to failure.”

What will life be like if we leave?

Industry insiders said several of the adverts received positive feedback from lower down the chain of command but were later rejected by campaign chiefs.

Saatchi & Saatchi pitched the advert featuring a photograph of Nigel Farage behind a microphone which looked like a moustache on his top lip after the Ukip leader unveiled a controversial billboard showing a queue of migrants and refugees under the slogan “Breaking point: the EU has failed us all.”

Separately, David Cameron was reported to have blocked an attack ad – a pastiche of the party’s 2015 general election poster which showed Ed Miliband tucked inside the breast pocket of Alex Salmond.

The ad for which all the artwork was prepared showed Boris Johnson inside the top pocket of Nigel Farage. It was not one of the proposed campaigns or adverts released today.

Don’t Leave It Lead It

“There was a lack of both strategy and nerve,” said one industry source. “In communication you either need a really clear strategy or you need to have the nerve to react in the moment and take control of the conversation. They had neither the strategy nor the nerve.”

The source added: “When we pitched ideas in all of the people we spoke to were really positive about them but when it went up to the people running the campaign, the feedback came back they weren’t willing to run them for one reason or another.”

The most memorable remain campaign marketing may have been among the most ridiculed - the video targeted at young voters with the words “workin, ravin, chattin, roamin” before asking viewers to vote in.