Saatchi boss shifts focus to creativity

Andrew Stone

It was Saatchi & Saatchi's year, but chief executive Andrew Stone is still not satisfied.

The advertising agency capped off a positive 2005 by winning the title of New Zealand's top agency last week, as decided by Australian industry magazine B&T.

Stone said the agency dominated the Effies - awards for effectiveness in advertising - and the Fair Go Ad Awards for the most liked ads, but did not do so well at the Axis awards, which highlighted top creative work.

"Next year, we want to do better at Axis," he said.

If creativity is the focus next year, this one proved that Saatchi & Saatchi has come a long way since being overtaken by Colenso and DDB in billings the previous year.

Stone said revenue and profit had increased "dramatically", but would not give figures. He said the agency had added 78 staff members in the past 12 months, won 86 per cent of pitches for new business (worth $46 million) and retained its top 10 clients.

That was in spite of strong challenges for some of that business, such as TVNZ, which had decided to consolidate its business with one agency.

Labelled "kings of the bounce-back" by B&T, Saatchi & Saatchi was written off by some after its Wellington office suffered from a decision to drop $16 million of accounts such as the LTSA, and a staff exodus.

"The people who built the agency in the late 1980s and the early 1990s started drifting away. Then the clients started moving to Auckland," said Stone.

Since his return to Saatchi & Saatchi as chief executive at the start of last year, the agency has beefed up its creative muscle with appointments such as executive creative director Mike O'Sullivan, and it is starting to see the effects of that.

"One of our obsessions is the future," said Stone. "We believe the future is the screen, whether that is mobile, in the car, in the hotel, a DVD, interactive or in supermarkets."

And for the agency itself?

"What we want to do in the future is continue to do what we have done, to be close to our clients and to never let our feet get off the ground, which we have done in the past."