Maurice presides over M&C success
LORD Maurice Saatchi and the other members of the M&C Saatchi board were in town this week to mark the fifth anniversary of the agency and to pat the local management team, particularly Asia Pacific chairman Tom Dery, on the back.
The agency this week announced a profit figure in the Asia Pacific region exceeding A$5.7m, with the region's seven offices contributing 33% of worldwide revenue and 37% of worldwide profit.
The rumour was that Maurice--so-called to distinguish him from his brother Charles--is living proof of the adage that the higher in an organisation you go, the nicer the people you meet.
However, the media train surrounding arguably advertising's most famous living adman meant that this was difficult to get close enough to assess by press time this week.
A media conference held in the American Club on Sydney's Macquarie Street on Wednesday learned that Maurice, far from regretting the manner of he and his brother's departure from Saatchi & Saatchi--the first agency they founded and took to public float--and their abrupt launch of M&C Saatchi--regards it as "a happy accident".
M&C Saatchi's London office is approximately the seventh largest agency in London, with M&C Saatchi in Australia also riding high after several strong new business performances.
Maurice offered two veiled remarks about the agency he once directed, saying Saatchi & Saatchi, now part of the Publicis family (as is M&C Saatchi), is "in better hands" than it was under its former parent Cordiant.
He also said the issue of having two agency networks with almost the same name should one day be brought to some sort of resolution.
While he wouldn't rule out a decision by the M&C Saatchi partners to publicly list, he said there was little point as M&C Saatchi hadn't made an acquisition "and we don't plan to".
In the Asia Pacific region, Dery said a major focus next year would be on getting a presence on the ground in China.
Founding partner Bill Muirhead said the big challenge facing agencies in the foreseeable future was attracting the right talent or "brainpower" so agencies were not seen by clients as "creative studios".
