Industry chief takes time for an ad break

DITA DE BONI talks to the man who has managed to keep all sides of a sometimes acrimonious profession happy.

David Innes has all the substance, but little of the flashy, flamboyant style of the leading lights of his beloved advertising industry.

The retiring head of the Advertising Agencies Association (3As) does not greet visitors with the famous industry double air kiss, doesn't offer a range of beverages with their non-fat alternatives and won't hold forth, 16m away, from the other end of a gigantic boardroom table.

Instead, it's early in the morning, the coffee machine is on the blink and he has to climb over boxes, still unpacked, at the 3As new Herne Bay offices to offer a friendly, straightforward account of his life and times.

Mr Innes has spent more than seven years as the executive director of the 3As, a path he chose after several years as both a client and agency manager.

He is considered by some as a man who brought the various factions of the occasionally acrimonious advertising arena together, a function that has become much more crucial as a new Government threatens to deliver body blows to various forms of advertising, including children's products, tobacco and pharmaceuticals.

The agencies must be able to show their combined might in Wellington.

To journalists covering advertising and marketing, Mr Innes has always been the first point of call on any issue, known to some as the perennial "rent-a-quote" but to most as an invaluable contact.

"The thing I am most proud of, the thing I've worked hard at, is the relationship building between various organisations, the Government and the media since I've been here," he says. "I can tell you, this industry has not always got on well together."

In the past seven years, the association has needed someone with relationship building ability in the industry.

The 3As has struggled to keep membership up and fees down as the market has become became more harried and the economy has struggled.

It finally admitted direct marketing, media buying and interactive advertising specialists into the fold last week. It is not clear whether Mr Innes really approves of the sullying of the association's fairly eclectic creative waters, but his speciality has been to remain onside with almost everyone and he's not going to jeopardise that, even with one foot out of the door.

The former English and history teacher says he discovered the delights of the industry when he was lured away from education to more lucrative waters as a product manager for Reckitt & Colman in the late 1960s.

"Bless those British companies for ever," he says. "They employ arts graduates over marketing grads, because they like the lateral thinking that the liberal arts teaches people."

As the junior brand manager "for Loxene, a unisex shampoo which was ahead of its time, and Wonderset and Supersoft hairspray," Mr Innes discovered his part in the cogs of marketing and advertising and enjoyed working alongside "mercurial" creative directors.

After working his way up to regional brand manager with Gillette in Singapore, he was hired by McCann Erickson in Malaysia as head of accounts. But the first Innes bambina prompted Mr Innes and his wife - also a Kiwi schoolteacher - to return to Wellington.

"By some cruel twist of fate, we got back to New Zealand the same week as Muldoon was made Prime Minister. It was, despite that, great to be back."

After getting fired from his first job in the capital, Mr Innes nabbed a job in 1977 with Ogilvy & Mather. That firm and Colenso were the multinationals ruling the scene in New Zealand at the time.

After the 1970s, however, television began its climb to the front of consumers' minds and hearts. Colenso offered Mr Innes and friend Roy Meares the chance to pick up a "small ratty agency," which they grew from a staff of three to 25 in a short few years, picking up clients like Allied Liquor, Mitsubishi and Diners Club for their efforts.

"Basically, 25 years ago, people were consuming media in a linear way, in a more structured way, in print and on the radio. Gradually TV worked on emotional appeals rather than appealing to logic. Creatively things were starting to take off. It was exciting times."

Sure, but what about the parties?

"Basically the stories of wild parties and drug problems were wildly exaggerated. There was the occasional long lunch, and the odd mad story - like one worker taking a chainsaw to the inside of Colenso - but nothing much more than the usual angst and insecurity of creative types."

Mr Innes and Mr Meares eventually "fell out," and Mr Innes went into consulting and teaching for almost seven years.

He was considering starting up his own agency when the opportunity to head up the 3As surfaced.

"I have a love-hate relationship with this industry, but I chose this path. The pressures of the global economy have put enormous constraints on what agencies and clients can do - no one has time to think about that relationship as a proper business relationship."

For that reason, Mr Innes will be plunging back into the consulting pool, managing relationships between agencies and clients, as well as doing part-time work for DB Breweries "keeping the wowsers off their backs."

And the future? The culture-loving 56-year-old says he is "very optimistic" for the future of advertising in New Zealand. "If I was 15 years younger, I would open an agency myself," he says.

"We are going through a changing time but change can be very cleansing. I think New Zealand advertising is highly admired because it is irreverent, which is partly because we don't have the research budget to cut the balls out of it."