Advertising - General & Miscellaneous, Advertising Industries, Consumer Industries - History - Individual Companies, Advertising - History & Criticism, Advertising - Technique & Practice
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Overview
Charles was the artist, Maurice the business whiz. They were a pair of Iraqi-born, Jewish brothers with an easy-to-remember last name, which, with the addition of an ampersand and their peculiar genius for publicity, quickly became the most recognizable in advertising. Theirs was one of the phenomenal success stories of the 1980s. Saatchi & Saatchi: The Inside Story offers a ringside view of the brothers' precipitous rise and fall. A series of high-profile successes - beginning with the startling Pregnant Man poster and including a now historic campaign against the British Labour party, which was instrumental to Margaret Thatcher's election in 1980 - as well as aggressive global expansion, made Saatchi & Saatchi, by the mid-1980s, "arguably the most powerful force in advertising" (New York Times) and indisputably the world's largest advertising agency. The Saatchis, however, had dipped greedily into the sea of cash and credit that their enormous profits and the financial climate made readily available. The agency was bloated and over-expanded by October 1987, when it ran smack into the Black Monday stock market crash, and even then the company still tried to keep full speed ahead. By February 1995, Charles had left and Maurice had been thrown out, essentially for continuing to live it up, eighties style: driving flashy cars, insisting on lavish offices decorated with the most fashionable art, living in a castle, throwing tremendous parties, indulging in fine cigars. Alison Fendley traces Saatchi & Saatchi from its beginnings to the founding of a new agency, M&C Saatchi, by the Saatchi brothers and many of their most vital lieutenants from the old company.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
A revealing book on the advertising industry, this fast-paced, behind-the-scenes account of the rapid ascent and sudden downfall of the Saatchi & Saatchi agency benefits from numerous interviews with former employees and with the Saatchi brothers. Iraqi Jewish sons of a prosperous Baghdad textile merchant who moved his family to England in 1946, Charles and Maurice Saatchi founded the agency in London in 1970, shaking up the traditional British ad world with their witty, formula-smashing campaigns. Clients included British Airways and the Conservative Party (they helped propel Margaret Thatcher to power). Through relentless acquisitions, including mergers with long-established New York City shops, Maurice succeeded in his ambition to create the world's largest advertising agency, but by 1990 the overextended firm was nearly bankrupt. Fendley, media correspondent for London's Evening Standard, blames their downfall on Maurice's indifference to costs and a rampant expansion that alienated clients. In 1994 the brothers were ousted from their own agency in a shareholder battle led by 33-year-old Chicago investment banker David Herro. Fendley gives an evenhanded account of the ensuing legal and competitive fracas, which led the brothers to form a new agency, M&C Saatchi, while their former agency renamed itself Cordiant. Photos. (Nov.)Library Journal
One of the most famous ads in British advertising history shows a glum-looking man clutching his swollen belly above the words, "Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?" Charles and Maurice Saatchi's agency created that ad for the Health Education Council, as well as the campaign that resulted in a Tory victory for Margaret Thatcher by remaking her image and bashing Labour. The Iraqi-born Jewish Saatchi brothers built their advertising agency into the fifth-largest in the world during the Eighties and Nineties; they were forced out by an American-led shareholder revolt in 1994. They subsequently created a new agency that may be even more successful than the old one. Fendley, a media correspondent for London's Evening Standard, presents a detailed examination of the growth and eventual downfall of the agency. She scrutinizes the interpersonal conflicts among the brothers, their employees, their clients, and their shareholders. Although her emphasis is on British campaigns, her book will appeal mainly to libraries that have strong business and advertising collections.-William W. Sannwald, San Diego P.L.Book Details
Published
June 20, 1996
Publisher
Arcade Publishing
Pages
256
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781559703635