Back to the future-or-Never burn a bridge
In 1969, just before Cindy was born, I joined JWT in Cape Town. I gave up my company car and we bough a second hand LH Drive VW with a half a clutch.
I remember borrowing the JWT Ford Escort station wagon to take Mom to the Booth Memorial hospital and again to fetch Cindy and Mom.
When I applied for the job, Asst A/E on exciting Pepsi, I was rejected for lack of experience. But they said I could work on the boring Old Mutual Insurance account which had given JWT 90 days notice, and if they kept it they would keep me.
Young and foolish, I took the job and the risk. We kept OM and they gave me all the booze business at Sedgwick, which was bought later by SFW, Stellenbosch Farmer's Winery.
6 months later they fired the Pepsi guy and gave me his Account Executive job handling Pepsi which was based in JHB. Within a year they transferred me to JWT as a senior Account Executive. There they gave me the Beecham new business assignment which I had begun working on in CT.
We got the Beecham account but by this time we were close to starving as a family, under the strain of the increased cost of living in JHB versus CT.
I begged JWT for an increase and they refused and I left to go to Leo Burnett.
But, I stayed on the Beecham account, so I never let them down.
After less than a year, Beecham told Ogilvy, that they were going to fire Burnett and give them the toothpaste business. But they said they wanted to be sure that Ogilvy hired me to run it.
When I joined Ogilvy in 1971, I had been in the business less than three years. I was now an account supervisor.
As you know, I was transferred to North America as International Management Supervisor for Beecham Latin America in 1976. By that time I was a director of Ogilvy and a candidate for MD. I took the transfer instead bringing my whole family to North America.
After one year in Canada, I acquired the Beecham Canada business.
The first real and perhaps only break in my career was Hayhurst, a local Canadian owned shop. Ogilvy offered me Mexico. I was not about to disrupt my family again and I turned it down. There was some bad feeling at the highest levels at Ogilvy, but they also knew that they had messed up my career.
At Hayhurst, among others, I acquired the AMC Jeep business. I went from Director of Account Services, to general manager to President and CEO in 4 years. I also set up a non0equity relationship with the hot British Agency Saatch & Saatchi.
When I was fired, very publicly at my insistance becuase they were going to sell the agency out from under me and my management, AMC Jeep fired Hayhurst and asked Grey to hire me with the account. I told AMC I would do this for a year, but would not commit beyond that. There I also worked on the launch of Aquafresh for Beecham. This was the 4th agency I had worked for Beecham and the second time I had launched Aquafresh.
I took over Needham as CEO and continued my automotive ride but now with Honda.
In the Omnicom merger in 1986, Honda basically asked me to form an agency to service their business.
I sold this agency in 1992, too soon and to the wrong people, the second break in my career. But the same year, re-joined my best friend Tim Elliott who had worked with me on Beecham in SA and Campbell soup, The Canadian Egg Marketing Board and AE LePage, a major national real estate company based in Toronto.
After a year at EPB Washington after acquiring the Weight Watchers account, with the Client's encouragement, we formed out own agency in New York. This is the second time I was asked and did that for a Client.
From there, we won a theoretically impossible pitch for Mercedes-Benz in Southern California. How did we do this?
We flew my old Honda Canada team, now working for Hal Riney in San Francisico into New York with all the latest USA research and mapped out the Mercedes strategy for California. We won in a canter.
People at Omnicom are still scratching their heads today about how we did that.Tim Elliott my best friend died in 1999 and I sold the agency to my creative partner and his new girl friend. It went under in six months.
In August of 1999, I continued the Mercedes ride back at Omnicom, first at The Designory a Long Beach company, but I was based at Merkley in New york, then Omnicom, (same base). Even though I moved off the day to day Mercedes business in 2005 and into Merkley proper, Mercedes insisted that I execute an International TV program on AMG shot in Germany.
In April of 2007, BBDO offered me a transfer to Japan, primarily to run the Mercedes pitch there.
In May, PHD, an Omnicom Media Company and the Mercedes Client were still in discussions to bring me back to run the business there if they could agree a new contract.
On 05/15/06 my patience with all things Omnicom ran out.
I returned to JWT where I started.
On Monday 05/15/06 when I started as Director of Integrated Marketing, about five or six levels down from the Co-Presidents.
John and I worked together at Earl Palmer Brown making Weight Watches commercials together.
John joined Doig Elliott Schur and we made the Cybil Shepherd commercials for Mercedes.
John and I formed an Internet company called IQ to build dealer websites in 1996 long before anyone knew what a website was.
What is the point of all this?
Every step in a career, perhaps life itself is important. AS you can see, in my career, there has seldom even been the proverbial 6 degrees of separation.
Clients are important.
Relationships are important.
You can tell people how you feel, especially if they mistreat you.
Never burn a bridge.
The day after I re-joined JWT I received more e-mail from Omnicom top executives than in the last six months while I was actively trying to find an Omnicom position.
The bridges were still up even though I was gone. For then it was a bridge too far.
To prove the point again, I tried again by rejoining Omnicom with John Wren;s blessing and working with their Global Talent partner Korn Ferry. I had a great year flying around the world many times over in the sharp end, once with Lucille for the trip of a lifetime.I really missed the line responsibility of actually making things happen.
I have been doing it for all my adult life.
But then to every one's surprise, including mine, in March 2008 I went back to JWT as Chief Operating Officer, the job John had held during my previous stint in 2006.
And I am happy as a clam.
We just made impossible numbers given the industry and economic meltdown
We are paying bonuses.
We are hiring people in a hiring freeze.
We are gaining new business left and right.
Not that this can be taken for granted, but it sure feels good right now.
So we are looking forward to a great 2009, grandchildren here in the summer, more driving courses for Tim and Justin, maybe even a Kart family race in the fall and as family ski trip next winter.
I remember borrowing the JWT Ford Escort station wagon to take Mom to the Booth Memorial hospital and again to fetch Cindy and Mom.
When I applied for the job, Asst A/E on exciting Pepsi, I was rejected for lack of experience. But they said I could work on the boring Old Mutual Insurance account which had given JWT 90 days notice, and if they kept it they would keep me.
Young and foolish, I took the job and the risk. We kept OM and they gave me all the booze business at Sedgwick, which was bought later by SFW, Stellenbosch Farmer's Winery.
6 months later they fired the Pepsi guy and gave me his Account Executive job handling Pepsi which was based in JHB. Within a year they transferred me to JWT as a senior Account Executive. There they gave me the Beecham new business assignment which I had begun working on in CT.
We got the Beecham account but by this time we were close to starving as a family, under the strain of the increased cost of living in JHB versus CT.
I begged JWT for an increase and they refused and I left to go to Leo Burnett.
But, I stayed on the Beecham account, so I never let them down.
After less than a year, Beecham told Ogilvy, that they were going to fire Burnett and give them the toothpaste business. But they said they wanted to be sure that Ogilvy hired me to run it.
When I joined Ogilvy in 1971, I had been in the business less than three years. I was now an account supervisor.
As you know, I was transferred to North America as International Management Supervisor for Beecham Latin America in 1976. By that time I was a director of Ogilvy and a candidate for MD. I took the transfer instead bringing my whole family to North America.
After one year in Canada, I acquired the Beecham Canada business.
The first real and perhaps only break in my career was Hayhurst, a local Canadian owned shop. Ogilvy offered me Mexico. I was not about to disrupt my family again and I turned it down. There was some bad feeling at the highest levels at Ogilvy, but they also knew that they had messed up my career.
At Hayhurst, among others, I acquired the AMC Jeep business. I went from Director of Account Services, to general manager to President and CEO in 4 years. I also set up a non0equity relationship with the hot British Agency Saatch & Saatchi.
When I was fired, very publicly at my insistance becuase they were going to sell the agency out from under me and my management, AMC Jeep fired Hayhurst and asked Grey to hire me with the account. I told AMC I would do this for a year, but would not commit beyond that. There I also worked on the launch of Aquafresh for Beecham. This was the 4th agency I had worked for Beecham and the second time I had launched Aquafresh.
I took over Needham as CEO and continued my automotive ride but now with Honda.
In the Omnicom merger in 1986, Honda basically asked me to form an agency to service their business.
I sold this agency in 1992, too soon and to the wrong people, the second break in my career. But the same year, re-joined my best friend Tim Elliott who had worked with me on Beecham in SA and Campbell soup, The Canadian Egg Marketing Board and AE LePage, a major national real estate company based in Toronto.
After a year at EPB Washington after acquiring the Weight Watchers account, with the Client's encouragement, we formed out own agency in New York. This is the second time I was asked and did that for a Client.
From there, we won a theoretically impossible pitch for Mercedes-Benz in Southern California. How did we do this?
We flew my old Honda Canada team, now working for Hal Riney in San Francisico into New York with all the latest USA research and mapped out the Mercedes strategy for California. We won in a canter.
People at Omnicom are still scratching their heads today about how we did that.Tim Elliott my best friend died in 1999 and I sold the agency to my creative partner and his new girl friend. It went under in six months.
In August of 1999, I continued the Mercedes ride back at Omnicom, first at The Designory a Long Beach company, but I was based at Merkley in New york, then Omnicom, (same base). Even though I moved off the day to day Mercedes business in 2005 and into Merkley proper, Mercedes insisted that I execute an International TV program on AMG shot in Germany.
In April of 2007, BBDO offered me a transfer to Japan, primarily to run the Mercedes pitch there.
In May, PHD, an Omnicom Media Company and the Mercedes Client were still in discussions to bring me back to run the business there if they could agree a new contract.
On 05/15/06 my patience with all things Omnicom ran out.
I returned to JWT where I started.
On Monday 05/15/06 when I started as Director of Integrated Marketing, about five or six levels down from the Co-Presidents.
John and I worked together at Earl Palmer Brown making Weight Watches commercials together.
John joined Doig Elliott Schur and we made the Cybil Shepherd commercials for Mercedes.
John and I formed an Internet company called IQ to build dealer websites in 1996 long before anyone knew what a website was.
What is the point of all this?
Every step in a career, perhaps life itself is important. AS you can see, in my career, there has seldom even been the proverbial 6 degrees of separation.
Clients are important.
Relationships are important.
You can tell people how you feel, especially if they mistreat you.
Never burn a bridge.
The day after I re-joined JWT I received more e-mail from Omnicom top executives than in the last six months while I was actively trying to find an Omnicom position.
The bridges were still up even though I was gone. For then it was a bridge too far.
To prove the point again, I tried again by rejoining Omnicom with John Wren;s blessing and working with their Global Talent partner Korn Ferry. I had a great year flying around the world many times over in the sharp end, once with Lucille for the trip of a lifetime.I really missed the line responsibility of actually making things happen.
I have been doing it for all my adult life.
But then to every one's surprise, including mine, in March 2008 I went back to JWT as Chief Operating Officer, the job John had held during my previous stint in 2006.
And I am happy as a clam.
We just made impossible numbers given the industry and economic meltdown
We are paying bonuses.
We are hiring people in a hiring freeze.
We are gaining new business left and right.
Not that this can be taken for granted, but it sure feels good right now.
So we are looking forward to a great 2009, grandchildren here in the summer, more driving courses for Tim and Justin, maybe even a Kart family race in the fall and as family ski trip next winter.
Comments