Brexit: Rejected Remain campaign posters revealed by advertising agency

M&C Saatchi boss Moray MacLennan says the campaign ‘was doomed to failure’

Caroline Mortimer
Friday 01 July 2016 17:56 BST
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Leading advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has released some of the posters the Remain campaign rejected during the EU referendum.

The posters focused on the overwhelming support for the union by younger voters while one urged older voters to choose Remain because it was what their grandchildren would want.

Other, more controversial, posters included one using a photograph of Ukip leader Nigel Farage with a microphone in front of his top lip, which gave him an apparent Hitler moustache, with the caption “Remain sane”.

Here are some examples of the ideas the Remain camp rejected:

(Saatchi & Saatchi)
(M&C Saatchi)
(M&C Saatchi)
(M&C Saatchi)
(M&C Saatchi)
(M&C Saatchi)

The worldwide chief executive of M&C Saatchi, Moray MacLennan, told marketing industry magazine Campaign: "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.

“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."

He said the agency did not deal with senior politicians at any point and instead liaised with a cross-party committee which was “desperately frustrating”.

Mr MacLennan said it was “a structure doomed to failure”.

The public voted by 52 to 48 per cent to leave the EU in last week's referendum.

It has caused widespread anger with protesters, commentators and some MPs calling on Parliament to reject the result as they said voters had been lied to about what would happen following a Leave vote.

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