Is it me or am I missing something about Abbott Mead Vickers? I
mean what’s so special about them? Why have they been agency of the year
twice in a row, and why is Campaign always going on about how brilliant
they are? I heard it’s because the editor does PR for the agency as
well, and they’ve got shares in Haymarket, or is that Maurice
Saatchi?
So what, they’re the biggest agency. Campaign’s always writing how big
isn’t everything anymore. And there’s loads of big agencies. ’Scuse my
ignorance, but surely ’big’ just means you do crappy work and then blame
it on international alignments.
The work’s always so cosy and middle class - such as the Economist and
Yellow Pages. It never takes risks. I know there was ’dead dogs’ and
’cages save lives’ and ’twister’ and Dunlop and Kiss FM and ’stuntman’
and the Dave Stewart video for BT and Wrangler, but apart from
those ...
And they can’t do telly, of course. OK, there’s Sainsbury’s and Volvo
and Pizza Hut and Alka Seltzer and the Leeds and Fa-mous Grouse and Paul
Masson - but apart from those ...
It’s not as if they’ve got particularly talented people. That David
Abbott’s a bit overrated. If he was any good he wouldn’t have stayed in
the same job at the same agency for 20 years, would he? He’d have been
poached and been on the telly a lot. Anyway, never trust a man who dyes
his hair white.
That Peter Mead. He’s not an adman, is he? He spends all his time in the
City or down at Millwall Football Club. What’s he ever done for
them?
Adrian Vickers. Adrian Vickers. Who’s he? Spends all his time at
Sainsbury’s.
I spend all my time at Tesco, Brook Green, but I don’t get hundreds of
thousands of pounds a year and my name above the door for it.
And as for that other bloke, whatsisname, Billy Smart? Baulk, Michael
Baulk. Would you trust him? All this ethics this, ethics that, no
redundancies, maternity leave, paternity leave, absent without leave,
tea leaves bollocks.
I rest my case. Apart from the roads and the aqueducts and the ads what
has Abbott Mead Vickers ever done for us ...?
