CLOSE-UP: PERSPECTIVE; It’s time to set the record straight in relation to Sorrell

A kind soul has written to say that the longest tenure of the Campaign

editorship was seven-and-a-half years, but that the shortest was just

one week. Thanks Bernard, very encouraging. Well, in week one, I’m going

to do my damnedest to get previous Campaign editors turning in their

director of corporate communications offices: I’m going to be nice to

Martin Sorrell.

Five years ago, Campaign wasn’t kind to Sorrell, but then who was? One

cringe-making moment saw one of our pundits on the radio giving WPP

hours, if not minutes, to live. It said much about the general hysteria

that surrounded Saatchi and Saatchi and WPP at the time.

Sorrell was dismissed contemptuously as ‘a number-cruncher with no

vision’. David Ogilvy’s ‘odious little jerk’ comment was handy for those

who needed an industry icon to support their personal dislike of the

man. And agency managers grumbled about personal remuneration. Measures

such as running down Ogilvy and Mather’s library fuelled the image of a

man who was taking things away from WPP in order to save it, without

putting anything back.

Perhaps there was some truth in this at the time, but Sorrell was, and

still is, seriously under-estimated. Not for his financial acumen and

resilience - these are self-evident. More controversially, he appears

to be one of the few visionaries in the business today. I don’t just

mean because of his deals with Wired or the fact that he has formed

global partnerships with the major telecoms and entertainment giants.

Sorrell has always had the ability to think laterally - look at the

Henley Centre, Metro Video and Millward Brown. What is interesting about

Sorrell today is that, in total contrast to his reputation, he is

constantly making long-term investments, be it publicly (Wired) or

relatively quietly, such as building up WPP’s strategic resource and

funding Cambridge fellowships.

Because he is a genuine global player, Sorrell knows that he must try to

recapture some of the intellectual high ground that the advertising

industry lost in the 80s. He can’t do this simply by buying management

consultancies - advertising’s been there, botched that. Sorrell needs to

win businesses such as IBM’s global account and build them through

developing top-level relationships with clients. And he must create a

unified and truly global media buying force. Finally, Sorrell needs to

either build a third network or lead the industry’s fight-back against

the tyranny of client conflict.

So why is there no Imagination-like company in his portfolio? And what

about buying more publishing and programme production interests of his

own? The only sure thing about Sorrell is that he is on top of these

issues and contemplating or investigating all of the above. If only his

peers had the same ‘lack of vision’.

This article was first published on Campaign