DDB and Lowe are two of the relatively extra well-known inventive company networks now set to vanish as Omnicom merges with IPG. In 2018 Marketing campaign produced its prime 20 businesses of all time and it nonetheless hangs collectively fairly nicely (permitting for an Anglo-perspective) with each in outstanding locations. DDB was prime.
Not a lot for the doings of the storied US company – Invoice Bernbach, VW’s ‘Lemon’ and so forth – however for the influence it had over right here. London’s well-known inventive explosion was fuelled largely by DDB almumni – David Abbott and a youthful MD Tim Delaney amongst them – though it by no means amounted to a lot in billings phrases. But it surely had sassy NYC chutzpah in spades and that chimed with the swinging London period.
DDB acquired, first, Boase Massimi Pollitt, residence to inventive director John Webster, really considered one of life’s originals who authored, with the assistance of comparable to Dave Trott and Chris Wilkins, among the greatest and funniest advertisements ever seen anyplace.
Lowe, too had its excessive maments, notably within the years following the breakway from CDP when Frank Lowe (later Sir Frank) managed to influence a powerful array of purchasers that the company knew greatest and analysis didn’t. Notable amongst these was Tesco when Lowe persuaded boss Ian MacLaurin, then making an attempt to maneuver Tesco gently away from its ‘pile it excessive promote it low-cost’ market roots, that Dudley Moore chasing chickens in France was what he wanted.
In the event you pitched this as of late you’d seemingly be greeted with clean incomprehension. Lowe finally sank beneath the confused waves of Interpublic, latterly welded to Mullen in MullenLowe. Now that’s gone too.
DDB gave the impression to be operating out of fuel because the impact of the BMP merger regularly wore off, as this stuff are inclined to do. But it surely had a spectacular second coming, on this aspect of the Atlantic anyway, when it purchased london indie adam&eve to type (finally) adam & eveDDB. A&E carried all earlier than it, Cannes Company of the Decade, numerous AOY gongs, briefly the largest UK company by billings and, of curse, writer of the celebrated John Lewis sequence of Christmas advertisements, arguably the final advertisements to essentially interact the UK public and media. Or the general public that isn’t a signed-on admirer of Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot.
High names, together with the founders, left and the company has slipped a bit however Omnicom has at the least paid lip service to its heritage by now calling it adam&eveTBWA and leaving it in its historic Paddington fastness relatively than shoving it into Omnicom Towers on London’s South Financial institution. Addresses matter inordinately to inventive businesses, Lowe was by no means the identical after it deserted Bowater Home with a its view of posh Rotten Row. How a lot worth has AMV BBDO misplaced since being turfed out of Marylebone?
A&E, in its excessive interval anyway, continued the mild British comedy custom that outlined the company’s earlier work (as in Arkwright above) and Lowe deployed for Tesco and others together with Heineken and Stella. A&E’s largest Cannes winner wasn’t John Lewis however Harvey Nichols.
Possibly there was a time when the advertisements actaully had been higher than the programmes…Anyway that’s 2025 for you, a melancholy be aware in a approach however one demise is another person’s alternative.
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Aviva has consolidated its advert account, previously with adam&eveDDB, with Saatchi & Saatchi which additionally handles Aviva’s just lately acquired Direct Line insurance coverage enterprise. AMV BBDO additionally pitched.
