Nigel Allmond. Odd Job. Odj: nick-named after Goldfinger’s silently
stocky bald bad guy with the knife-edge bowler, though this Odd Job does
speak - a whispering growl with a Grimsby twang.
Now Odj is throwing his bowler into the media ring and setting up a
joint venture media shop.
The Allmond Partnership, hereby officially christened TAP for easy
access, is a joint venture between the man himself and Manning Gottlieb
Media.
Allmond blushes at the prominence of his name - sweet in one so
physically daunting, but more of that later. ’I’m not an egomaniac, I’m
really reticent about such things,’ he gruffs. He doesn’t photograph so
well (see above), ’and I don’t want to frighten the children.’
For those to whom Allmond has always been the slightly sinister-looking
foil to the slightly sinister-looking Tony Kenyon at the old IDK agency,
his emergence as media entrepreneur will surprise. Odj’s reputation -
aside from movie star doppelganger - is as a TV buyer, a bloody good TV
airtime negotiator and, more specifically, one of the key figures (some
would argue the key figure) behind BT’s TV buying business.
Thirty-five, bowling ball head, no neck, Allmond’s not a guy you’d want
to meet down a dark alley, nor the sort of slick schmoozer you might
earmark for media agency moguldom. ’I’m not the typical adman type,’ he
admits needlessly. ’For a start, I’m not much of a politician, I tend to
be too open, though I see that as a strength.’
For all his bully-boy looks, Allmond has a soft underbelly and it comes
as no surprise when the conversation gets personal. For instance, after
taking a degree in Japanese and Asian economics, Allmond turned his back
on his fledgling career at Dorlands in the 80s when his dad was made
redundant, heading back to Grimsby to help pops get back on his
feet.
Then, when his father died last year ’it really got me reflecting on
things’. By then Allmond was a director of the Negotiation Centre, born
out of the CIA Group’s acquisition of IDK, but it was a very different
sort of operation from the IDK he’d been happy at for the previous nine
years. ’I didn’t leave IDK, it left me. I asked myself what I enjoyed
doing and found that TNC wasn’t it.’
His shock resignation, not surprisingly, got the industry gossiping
about TNC’s hold on the BT TV buying, which comes up for statutory
review next year. And here Allmond manages to play the politician
beautifully. ’If there was a pitch for the BT television business, and I
was lucky enough to be invited to pitch, then that would be a great
opportunity.’ He has, after all, run the pounds 100 million-plus account
for 13 years and is seen as part of the BT family, facts you can bet MGM
needs no reminding of.
TAP will, ultimately, be owned 51/49 by Allmond and MGM (the rachet deal
gives an initial 75/25 split). It’s MGM’s first real expansion beyond
the MGM brand and an important reflection of the sort of relationship it
has with its new parent company, Omnicom. The TAP deal has been given
the green light by Omnicom in New York, and signals that MGM has secured
the sort of independence it fought for when it sold a majority stake to
Omnicom in August.
For Colin Gottlieb, Allmond was an easy choice of partner. The two have
known each other for years, they make a ’particularly heavyweight team’,
and are a good balance - ’put us on either side of the scales and we’d
balance all right. Nigel is one of the best broadcast people around.’
Gottlieb enthuses: ’You’re calling me broad again,’ Allmond says. All
the makings of a great double act.
In practice, TAP will act as a second-string operation based on bastard
buying but able to tap into the warm and cuddly strategic and creative
credentials of MGM. ’Imagine,’ says Allmond wistfully, ’a fantasy land
where the old IDK had married the old PHD. That’s the sort of company we
want to be.’ High ambitions, and Allmond will require a solid TAP team
to realise them.
Allmond, in danger of being seen as a one-client man, needs a strong
support structure beyond the MGM axis if he is to convince clients that
TAP can take the place of an established media agency. But he’s on the
hunt for staff and is happy to hand over equity to the right people.
And for Allmond himself, the key is that this time he’s in charge. ’When
you work for someone else, you may have a voice but that voice ain’t
very loud,’ he whispers. ’I’m very ambitious, that goes with the
territory.
At least now I won’t be able to say ’if only’.’ And he must be hoping
the Goldfinger connection goes further than a bald geezer with a vicious
bowler.
The Allmond file
1984 Dorlands, graduate trainee TV buyer
1987 Davidson Pearce, TV buyer
1988 IDK, TV buyer then director
1997 The Negotiation Centre, director
1997 TAP, managing director.
