Martin Jones, J. Walter Thompson’s new-business director, has
established a club for new-business directors from the UK’s top
agencies.
The group, which had its second meeting on Tuesday night in rooms at
JWT’s Hays Mews house, will debate issues and compare notes on clients
and pitch practices. It will meet every month.
New-business directors already attending include Ogilvy and Mather’s
new-business team, Katrina Michel and Adam Leigh; Publicis’s Mark
Robinson; McCann-Erickson’s Jane Geraghty; Justin Cernis from Mellors
Reay; Chris Thomas from Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO; and Fran Krajczewska
from GGT.
Explaining what she most hoped to get out of the group, Krajczewska
said: ‘It’s really just a network of people in the same field getting
together. It can be a lonely job and it’s nice to get together with a
group of like-minded people to debate the issues.’
Jones commented: ‘People assume new-business people are the most
secretive in the business. In fact the opposite is true. As a group we
know each other very well and experience similar problems.’
The club might include information swaps on potential pitches, Jones
suggested. ‘If a client approached me about a piece of business not
suitable for JWT or other WPP agencies, then I might give out that
information to people I like and trust,’ he said.
He added that the new-business directors would discuss clients who waste
agencies’ time, threatening: ‘We may draw up a blacklist.’
Other topics for debate include services offered by operations such as
the Advertising Agency Register. Jones said the group would invite
speakers such as the AAR’s Lindy Payne and the Incorporated Society of
British Advertisers’ director general, John Hooper, to meetings.
