Dave Bedwood has worked with his creative partner Sam Ball since 1995 where they met doing an Advertising degree at Buckinghamshire College in the UK.
After graduating in 1998 they went onto the usual creative team circuit of ATL agencies taking placements at Partners BBH, Y&R and M&C Saatchi before going to Germany to freelance on Mercedes at Springer & Jacoby.
On returning to the UK in late 1999 a Creative Director at HHCL said they should check out digital advertising as it was starting to take off. They tuned up at BMP Interaction (later to become Tribal DDB) and became one of the first traditional teams to get a job in digital advertising.
By 2001 they were Tribal DDB’s Creative Directors, after 4 more years they felt that the big agency had taught them enough to risk going it alone. They set up Lean Mean Fighting Machine with the belief that writing should always come before technology.
In 2004 they were voted into Campaign’s Top Ten Creative Directors as well as Campaign’s Faces to Watch.
2005 saw them pick up Campaign’s Young Achievers of the Year Award and they were voted by their peers to be the number one creative team in digital advertising.
Since starting Lean Mean Fighting Machine they have picked up numerous industry awards including D&AD, Clio, One Show, Cannes, Creative Circle, Webbies and a Grand Prix Mouse Award.
In 2008 Dave made The Observer’s Future 500 list, Campaign’s A-List, went to Cannes and, with an agency of 26 people, became the first UK agency to win ‘Agency of the Year’.
In 2009 Dave will be the Foreman for the D&AD Awards online advertising category.
