Born in Brighton, Sussex, the youngest of three children, Mayle and his parents moved to Barbados in the aftermath of World War II, where his father was transferred as a Colonial Office employee.

Ogilvy offered him a job as a junior account executive, but Mayle's interest was more on the creative side of the business and he subsequently became a copywriter in 1961 based in its New York City office.

In due course another agency, Papert Koenig, Lois, poached him from Ogilvy and sent him back to London to head up the creative team in its UK office, where one of his colleagues was Alan Parker.

A 1972 advertising slogan written by Mayle for Wonderloaf Bread was used as a football chant by supporters of Tottenham Hotspur, and became the basis of the song "Nice One Cyril".

He also penned, in collaboration with illustrator Gray Jolliffe, a series of humorous books about the character Wicked Willie, based upon a personification of the male organ.