Dan Douglass on direct

Dan Douglass

The marketing community says a fond farewell to Oliver Postgate, creator of Ivor the Engine, The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog, whose death was announced today. I loved Ivor The Engine. It was gentle, enchanting, escapist stuff - and pandered to the truism that every little boy born in the late 50's and early 60's wanted to be an engine driver when they grew up.

At a time where there was more emphasis on adult role models, the engine driver took me along on an incredible journey every week. I also loved the fact that The Clangers could say so much in their whooping and swooping musical utterances without saying anything. And the Soup Dragon was pure genius. Postgate was influential in so many ways. Even his name sounds like one of his character creations - he became a brand in his own right even before animation brands became big business. Wherever the credits featured the name Oliver Postgate, you felt as a kid somehow comforted.

Postgate rose to prominence in the days of two channels, when his animations headed the prized teatime line-up that was children's hour. And he worked out of a shed in his garden. Now that the marketing community has discovered the power of classic characters to appeal to the inner child (Paddington Bear for Marmite, Wallace and Gromit for Kingsmill, Mr Men for Persil) and we are using these creations to mine a nostalgic seam among an older audience, my guess is that brands will re-discover his work. And, in so doing, my hope is that this will have a halo effect - allowing younger audiences to pick up on the genius of Oliver Postgate.