Three Minute Happiness

James Cooper

In 1997 the Tories were unelectable, there were no digital ad agencies and the agency everyone would kill to work for was Howell Henry. How times change.

As I said on Monday in 1997 I left Watford, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Howell Henry had just completed the wonderful blackcurrent Tango ad and it was the hottest place in town. Closely followed by St Lukes.

Now HHCL via Red Cell and United is no more. I'm not sure how it went from being Agency of the Decade to this sad state of affairs but I guess it has to do with the two H's, the C and the L all leaving. I've always found Steve Henry to be a bit spiky and I know he rubs people up the wrong way - but 9 times out of 10 he's right. And Axel Chaldecott was the nicest man ever not to offer me a job. (Well he did, but my partner at the time didn't fancy it. I know. Bonkers. But don't worry about it. I'm over it. Really.) Don't know the others but I would imagine they were good eggs too.

The other hot agency was St Lukes. Clearly they are still around but with all due respect they are a million miles away from where their potential suggested they could be. At the time the two CDs were Kate Stanners and Tim Hearn. Kate was an anomaly - a female creative director who was....cool. And Tim was also cool in an uncool, go down the pub drink beer and talk about dubious music kind of way. I would have loved to work there then too.

One person who did, for 10 years, was Alistair Campbell who rose to become Creative Director but recently left to join Agency Republic.

Obviously it would be too easy and predictable for me to say that the rise of digital over 10 years has meant that some of these great agencies have suffered. Sure we are hungry for talent and some of the smart people have recognised that there may well be a different way to do things but there are scores of 'traditional' agencies that have flourished in that period too and continue to do so.

However, if you look stateside at someone like Goodby they have done nothing less than a complete turnaround - rather like the Tories have done by electing David Cameron as leader. Five years ago the San Fran agency partners sat down and told the agency that they would be fundamentally changing and anyone who wasn't up for that should leave. Sure enough 60% of their work now is digital. This from an agency that had the most wonderful TV reel from the 90's and could have, more than most, rested on their laurels.

Just goes to show if you really want to effect change you have to go large. 10 years later the Tories are magically electable again but did they go large enough? It will be fascinating to watch. Just like this whole digital thang.

Bon weekend and all that jazz.