We were, apparently, wrong before and we could be wrong again. Many of you may have heard of a character named Cornelius Trunchpole who’s been making the rounds in advertising’s social media scene. The “elderly gentleman” can be seen on Facebook, his blog and on Twitter spouting witticisms from the good ‘ol days of advertising.
In an exclusive interview with Adrants, Trunchpole said of his career in advertising, “On leaving the Army I went straight to work at the London ad agency Wilson Bagley, where I quickly rose to the rank of Creative Director, writing copy for such accounts as Coleman’s mustard, Heinz, and Monster Munch crisps. Following a chance meeting in a London phone box I was then offered a job at the McCann Advertising agency in America, where within weeks of joining I had facilitated the companies merger with the Erickson agency (an achievement I received not even a word of thanks for). At this point I was still only 14 years old.”
In the interview, Trunchpole staunchly claimed he was, in fact, Cornelius Trunchpole and not, as some thought, Saatchi & Saatchi Chief Creative Director Gerry Graf. Be that as it may, another tipster today writes to tell us he think Tunchpole is Alex Bogusky.
In an email, the tipster who we can confirm works in the advertising industry but prefers to remain anonymous, wrote, “A friend of mine was hanging out with Alex Bogusky recently at his home when he noticed on his laptop he had Cornelius Trunchpole’s yahoo email account open. Logged in!”
Considering Bogusky has left Crispin Porter + Bogusky, it would seem he’d have plenty of time on his hands to craft this character over a long period of time. And whomever’s behind the character has done a great job at the gig. A full blown social media persona has been crafted. An agency has been launched. Seemingly real work is being done for Habitat for Humanity.
If Alex is behind this, we tip our hat to him for keeping it going for so long and for making it an interesting ride. If he’s not, well, we’ll just go back to enjoying the work the man does for the industry.
