Greg Martin, one of the creative team behind Alka Seltzer’s
award-winning ’life-boat’ commercial, is quitting Abbott Mead Vickers
BBDO to become a senior art director at Saatchi & Saatchi.
Martin, who split with his creative partner, Pat Doherty, when she left
to join Bartle Bogle Hegarty in October, will work at Saatchis with Mike
McKenna across key accounts.
The move will realise a long-held ambition of the pair - who are friends
- to work together. ’Mike’s one of the best thinkers in the business,’
Martin explained. ’Saatchis is a very hungry agency at the moment. D&AD
is one of its priorities, and it’s one of mine too.’
Adam Kean, a joint executive creative director at Saatchis, said that he
approached Martin after hearing that his partner had left for BBH.
’He’s got a very good reel, simple ideas, and he’s very experienced,’
Kean said.
Apart from ’lifeboat’, which picked up a gold at Cannes this year,
Martin is known for his ’madness’ commercial for Volvo which received
three D&AD nominations in 1995.
Martin started in advertising at Holmes Knight Ritchie in 1984 after
completing a course at Reading Art College. He moved to Ted Bates a year
later, before switching again to AMV, where he has stayed almost ten
years.
