Pioneers

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100 YEARS OF HISTORY IN ASIA PACIFIC

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3/22/12

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100 YEARS OF HISTORY IN ASIA PACIFIC

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IF YOU YOUR PAST, WILL BE

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UNDERSTAND YOUR FUTURE BRILLIANT.

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FOR McCANN’S PIONEERS

Thank you to all those across Asia Pacific whose creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering belief in “Truth Well Told” has contributed to the story of McCann’s success.

And a particular thank you to Stewart Alter, for his dedication and expertise in authoring McCann’s story.

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FOREWORD This year, as we celebrate 100 years of McCann success and acknowledge the depth of our company heritage, we also look forward to what the next 100 years will bring. As we do so we must also reorientate ourselves to ensure we are as successful in the next century as we have been in the last.

There is no debate that this century will be an Asian one as hundreds of millions of new consumers seek better lives through our clients’ brands and services. China, India and Indonesia will lead the way while emergent Indochina markets will turbocharge growth.

We are superbly placed to lead in the next 100 years as we have in the last but as we embark on this exciting journey, we must remember from where we have come and how we got here. Many elements of the spirit that made us win in the last 100 years will ensure we win in the next.

McCann’s history in Asia is one of which we should be truly proud. It is a litany of firsts (for many countries in the region we were the first multinational agency to have a presence) where we created some of the most memorable work, trained some of the most famed marketers, and built some of the most powerful brands. All this was achieved by the individuals on whose shoulders we now stand. It was their entrepreneurialism mixed with innovation with creativity that today gives us such a strong platform off which to build.

The last 100 years was built by pioneers. The next will be also. As we continue to innovate, ideate, and lead, let’s also remember our roots.

Nicolas Brien Chairman & CEO McCann Worldgroup

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CHAPTER ONE

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EARLY GLIMPSES OF THE PACIFIC

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(1902-1930)

In October 1959, McCannErickson announced an acquisition that stirred the Australian advertising world. The acquired agency, Hansen-Rubensohn Co, was not only the third largest in the country, but a venerable player in the market with roots going back 30 years. Not in three decades had there been any major interest or activity in Australia by the international agency networks. McCann-Erickson’s action would change that landscape significantly. Within just a decade following McCann-Erickson’s initiative, 15 of the top 24 Australian agencies would be wholly or partly owned by international agency networks. As observed in the book But Wait, There’s More!: A History of Australian Advertising, 1900-2000, the McCann-Erickson move would in fact mark “the beginning of one of the most important developments in Australia’s advertising history.”

McCann-Erickson had consistently been a global advertising pioneer since its founding in the early twentieth century. Its 1959 entry into the Asia Pacific region followed its 1927 opening in Europe and its 1935 expansion into Latin America. And its approach, even in North America where it was founded, encompassed from the beginning the vision of a network of agency offices, each with its own fullservice capabilities but working in full collaboration with each other.

But the New York based agency’s first glimpses of the Pacific opportunity came much earlier — as early as 1917 in fact when The H. K. McCann Company began working through affiliate agencies in Australia and

New Zealand. Of the two agencies that would come together to create the McCann-Erickson brand, it was The H. K. McCann Company, founded in 1912 with “Truth Well Told” as its emblematic philosophy, that would define for the next century the agency’s enduring global vision, collaborative strategy, and innovative culture.

The agency brand McCann-Erickson itself was formed in October 1930 through the merger of two highly regarded New York based agencies — The Erickson Company, which had been launched in 1902, and the decadeyounger H. K. McCann Company.

Both agencies, and the founding entrepreneurs whose names were on the doors, had already carved out important places in the advertising industry. Both Alfred W. Erickson and Harrison King McCann had been client advertising managers just prior to starting their agencies — unusual background in the history of the agency business — and each had launched his own agency with his former employer as his first account. In McCann’s case, the same first client — The Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) — would become the driving force in the agency’s first U.S. and Canadian expansions and then its European and Latin American ones as well.

ERICKSON: AN EXTRAORDINARY ENTREPRENEUR

Alfred W. Erickson was the earlier figure. The son of Swedish immigrants to the U.S., he was born in 1870 in Farmers Mills, a small town north of New York City.

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From its earliest days a century ago, The H. K. McCann Company’s long-term strategy to expand globally included adding an affiliate in Australia, as this excerpt from a 1918 in-house publication indicates. Other documents from that time similarly reveal that there was an associate agency in New Zealand as well in 1917.

handling packing cases in a grocery warehouse. Moving on to become an office boy, he then joined the Cleveland Baking Powder Co., baking powder being one of the major advertising categories of the time. As the new century began, Erickson joined James McCutcheon & Co., a New York City department store, as its ad manager.

Then in 1902, he would go out and start his own ad agency with McCutcheon as his first client.

space selling agents for magazines into service firms that actually created the copy and art to sell client products. It did not take Erickson long to prove that he wanted to go yet one step further. He began a career of developing an intensely close working relationship with clients and an approach to advertising founded on straightforward, demonstrable product claims and striking four-colour magazine advertising pages.

In 1902, advertising agencies were themselves still a business that had only recently evolved from being

In 1903, Erickson would pick up its first major client, American Coal Products Co.’s Barrett line of coal tar for roofing

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and waterproofing. Looking to build demand for its surplus of product, the client president William Hamlin Childs had approached several ad agents who had discouraged him from advertising.

They pointed out that Barrett’s coal tar offered no real point of difference from its competition. But when Erickson was approached he saw a marketing if not a product difference. Erickson reportedly came up with the concept of guaranteeing “Barrett Specification” roofing for 20 years if the product was used as specified. Erickson’s marketing insight not only won the $12,000 ad budget but established what would become a long-term, personal clientagency relationship with the Childs family and their various companies.

Erickson’s breakthrough with Barrett led to more business with American Coal and with other brands owned by the Childs family, including the Bon Ami powder cleanser. Because a newly hatched chick lives off the nutrients of the yolk for several days before it begins scratching the ground for food, the company came up with the trademark for the brand: a newborn chick with the “Hasn’t scratched yet” slogan. When Erickson was assigned to handle this brand he argued against plans then in the works to drop the brand equity and instead expanded their presence into a major four-colour magazine advertising campaign. This was just one among many examples explaining why he would become known as a leading proponent of the power of advertising to build businesses.

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Erickson himself would also become a minor shareholder in Bon Ami, one of many companies, client or otherwise, where he would become an investor and take a management role. In one case, Barrett had a division called Congoleum that manufactured floor coverings. Erickson could see that the plain coloured pitch-and-felt squares, if painted, could be sold to a mass public yearning for more attractive flooring than they could afford if they did not have enough money to buy rugs. In 1919, he joined in buying the Congoleum flooring division from Barrett Co. and became its chairman, then leading its successful international expansion.

By the 1920s, Alfred W. Erickson had already made a name and a fortune for himself. He was known for classy four-colour magazine ads, for being a civic and industry leader, for a famous art collection consisting of an important Rembrandt painting that would set price records when it was ultimately auctioned after his death, for his personal generosity, for his philanthropy in founding a medical centre for the treatment of tuberculosis, and for his unusual business career as both an advertiser and an agency executive. It was said that he was “perhaps the only adman who ever lived whose reputation on Wall Street was as great as on Madison Avenue.” For example, in 1920 he became an initial investor in Technicolor, the new motion picture colour technology, and then was credited by its founder with playing a key role in keeping it afloat after the 1929 U.S. stock market crash.

Erickson was also recognised as one of the major figures in establishing the ad agency business and enforcing ethical guidelines. His 1936 obituary in The New York Times said, “He was one of the advertising pioneers whose efforts to form advertising agencies into an association and to establish codes of ethics for their guidance were responsible in a large degree for the development of the advertising agency business in this country.” Time magazine similarly would refer to him as “the father of the commission basis upon which modern advertising agencies operate; one of the fathers of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Audit Bureau of Circulation and the Better Business Bureau.”

1929 magazine ad for Bon Ami cleaning powder

McCANN: TURNING A DILEMMA INTO AN OPPORTUNITY

While Harrison McCann would also achieve general industry prominence, the story of The H. K. McCann Company is very different from Erickson’s in some key respects. And given that Harrison McCann himself would remain CEO until 1948 and then remain active until his death in 1962, it is primarily the McCann-side vision, strategy and organisational culture that have defined the agency even to its present day.

Like Alfred Erickson, Harrison King McCann came from a similarly humble background with no obvious path into advertising. He was born in 1880 in a small town in the state of Maine.

During high school and college, he had worked for a hotel in Poland Spring, Maine, progressing from bellboy to clerk to salesman for their Poland Spring water, which took him to their New York City office. In 1903 he joined the four-man Amsterdam Advertising Agency in New York City as the agency’s copywriter. He then joined the advertising department of The New York Telephone Company

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and instituted successful marketing approaches that led to his promotion to advertising manager overseeing a 100-person staff. In 1911 he left to become advertising manager of The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the giant oil company formed by John D. Rockefeller.

Soon after McCann joined his new company, the U.S. Supreme Court on May 15, 1911 rendered a decision directing the Standard Oil monopoly to be dissolved into many separate oil and petroleum-based product companies.

Its foreign business, outside the control of the U.S. government, was left intact, which would ultimately provide the impetus for McCann’s international expansion.

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Advertising, considered one of the general departments shared by all the U.S. subsidiaries, was to be disbanded.

This department handled all of the company’s advertising throughout the U.S., kept all records, and had many direct contracts with publications, some of which, as was practice at the time, were on a long-term threeyear or five-year basis. As noted in a 1917 internal discussion of the agency’s origins, “This dilemma for the Standard Oil Company was an opportunity for Mr. McCann, which he was not slow in recognising. Early in the Fall of 1911 he presented to the directors a plan which solved immediately their difficulties — the formation of an independent advertising agency to carry on the business of the various companies.”

The plan was accepted.

1916 magazine ad for Congoleum linoleum flooring with rug designs

Alfred Erickson was unique in the history of advertising inasmuch as he often served as client and agency at the same time. He invested in many of his agency’s clients, including Bon Ami and Congoleum, and played an active management role. Creatively, the agency was an early advocate of four colour magazine advertising.

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On November 13, 1911, McCann and four others met at The Mansfield Hotel in New York City to incorporate and finalise their plans for launching the new agency. The other four original partners were as follows: Harrison Atwood, a fellow college alumnus McCann had previously hired at the telephone company who would go on to lead the U.S. expansion; J.P. Hallman, an accountant; Ralph St. Hill, a New Zealand-born ex-newspaperman who was then Standard Oil’s copy chief and who would suggest the “Truth Well Told” slogan and then head the London agency in the 1920s international expansion; and Thomas Nast, Jr., the artist who would draw the “Truth Well Told” emblem with the sculptor and who himself was the son of the famous political cartoonist of the same name and also St. Hill’s brother-in-law.

With capitalisation of about $5,000, The H. K. McCann Company opened its doors on January 2, 1912 with about 20 ex-Standard Oil advertising department employees. The office was at 11 Broadway across the street from Standard Oil. The agency was unusual in that it came into being dedicated to both a slogan and to a superstition.

The slogan was “Truth Well Told,” which expressed the agency’s philosophy. And the superstition was Harrison McCann’s half serious contrarian belief that the number 13 would continue to bring him good luck.

THE LEGEND OF 13

In November 1920, the Auckland Advertising Club proved itself “magnanimous enough to change its official insignia at our request,” reported The H. K. McCann Company regarding the legal protection of its “Truth Well Told” slogan. The New Zealand club was one among several organisations (including a newspaper and another ad agency) that were impressed enough by the McCann motto to try to borrow it. McCann had been unusual among agencies in that it went into business with a slogan that reflected its creative philosophy about how to advertise products to consumers based on the value of real information gathered through research. It then became a pioneer among all services companies in all professions and industries — not just among advertising agencies — when “Truth Well Told” was registered and became the first service company mark to be granted official U.S. copyright protection. As The Architect and Engineer magazine said at the time, “It is now possible to secure government registration and protection for an emblem or business badge of a concern which sells brain power or ‘service’ as distinct from a commodity having the physical attribute of merchandise.” The March 30, 1920 filing and January 18, 1921 registration, which referred to March 1913 as the emblem’s first commercial usage, provided “Truth Well Told” with the number 13-starting registration number of 138998. Shown is the original emblem itself and a discussion of it from a 1915 agency brochure.

The mystique of the number 13 has become legendary within McCann.

Harrison McCann pointed out that he had started working for New York Telephone on October 13 and that the McCann agency was incorporated on November 13. The company’s first offices were across the street from the Standard Oil client at 26 Broadway (twice 13) and the second headquarters were in the 13-lettered Adams Building.

Both the agency name, The H. K. McCann Co., and its slogan, “Truth Well Told”, had 13 letters in them.

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H. K. always had his office on the 13th floor of whatever building the agency was in, and even insisted that the new 50 Rockefeller Plaza building it moved into in 1939 create a numbered 13th floor, an uncommon practice for U.S. buildings that superstitiously jumped from 12th to 14th.

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While the agency’s client base would quickly expand beyond oil companies, the initial accounts, representing about $500,000 in ad contracts, included the Standard Oil companies of New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and California, as well as the Imperial Oil Company in Canada. Chesebrough Manufacturing Co. (makers of Vaseline) also became an early client of the McCann agency.

Chesebrough, founded in 1870 in Brooklyn, became part of Standard Oil in 1881 and then resumed independent operations in 1911 as one of the 33 subsidiaries that had to be spun off.

“In the first year, we all doubled in brass — we all wrote copy, we all serviced accounts, and we all learned a lot about the advertising agency business, in which none of us had had extensive experience,” recalled McCann years later. “Our company was fortunate to start with the advertising of most of the Standard Oil Companies in the United States.

The volume was not large, but the oil companies were strong and aggressive and represented a big advertising potential,” said McCann. “That being the case, our policy from the very beginning was to follow the flag of our clients, first Standard Oil, and then other corporations whose accounts we managed to obtain. It was the type of business we had, and the service required, that caused us to develop a number of offices, first in this country, and later in foreign markets.”

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BUILDING A NATIONAL AGENCY

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Right from the beginning, Harrison McCann began a hectic traveling schedule throughout the U.S. and Canada to begin lining up the newly independent oil companies as new clients. He added several as a result of those trips, but it was also apparent that he would need to have agencies close to his clients in order to keep them. This was already made clear by demands from Standard Oil of California.

McCann’s expansion thus began in the agency’s infancy in California. On January 31, 1913, Harrison Atwood left to establish McCann San Francisco.

Servicing the Standard Oil Company of California account was the initial motivation, but the agency’s business soon boomed with a diverse group of accounts. Agriculture-based accounts, whether canners or growers, were especially dominant. By 1917, McCann San Francisco’s client list included California Packing Corp. and the agency would play a key role in 1916 in helping the client decide to make Del Monte its nationally advertised brand name by September 1916.

Full-page, four-colour magazine ads for Del Monte soon began to run.

Other U.S. and Canadian offices would quickly follow. A Detroit agency was started in 1913 and then moved in 1915 to Cleveland, a Midwestern city with a larger potential client base. A Toronto agency was opened in 1915 and a Montreal one in 1917.

(McCann closed its wholly owned Canadian agency in 1924 in favour of a longtime association with Canada’s Cockfield, Brown & Co.; and then opened independently again in Canada in 1952.) By 1915, Mr. McCann was especially proud of the agency’s good reputation. “We have gained a reputation for square dealing, prompt payment of accounts, and conscientious, intelligent service,” he said.

1951 award-winning outdoor poster for Nabisco’s Ritz Crackers

1918 Del Monte magazine ad illustrated

by Norman Rockwell

1915 Vaseline magazine ad

Among the major brands that McCann introduced through advertising were Del Monte and Vaseline in the 1910s, and Ritz Crackers in1934

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had been sent to Australia to explore opening in that country and finding an affiliated agency.”

Four months later, H. K. McCann would elaborate on the agency’s global vision and the important role that the Asia Pacific region was already playing in those plans. Clearly articulating the extent to which the company would be built on a long-term strategy, he discussed future international plans that were still 10 years away from happening.

We started in a modest way, but we have built up a national organisation.

We are the only advertising agency in America that has really a national organisation. We have an office here [in New York], the largest agency business on the Pacific Coast, and a good office in the Middle-West. We have a Canadian Company, which is operated under Canadian Laws, thoroughly familiar with Canada, and doing good work.

We have a representative in New Zealand and Australia, giving us first-hand information. This representative is establishing relationships with the leading advertising agencies of those countries. We have the best agency in Australia as representatives. The best advertising agency in New Zealand is taking business which we send to that country and handling it at our correspondents. We have the best agency in the Hawaiian Islands . . .

1917 AFFILIATES IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

While World War I kept McCann from considering an overseas expansion, the idea was already very much part of the founder’s vision. It had been using affiliates in England since 1913. But Australia and New Zealand were already very much a part of the overall strategy for growth. In fact, in an April 1917 staff memo, McCann announced that as “the beginning in the development of our foreign business,” a new employee named Samuel T. Farquhar

I believe that there is a big opportunity for some agency to perfect an organisation to have vision enough to see into the future, and courage enough to go ahead and build for the future in a big way, and it is our purpose to do that.

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This Indian ad from 1921 may be one of McCann’s earliest “pattern” ads for international use. Royal Typewriter, a McCann U.S. client since 1915, sold its products throughout the world.

Using McCann’s “Compare the work” theme and layouts developed in the U.S., the ad was run in newspapers in India through Royal’s Greaves Cotton & Co. sales representative in Calcutta.

Similar ads from another distributor also appeared in Guatemala.

Our policy, as I see it, for the future should be broader than our present policy. Our present slogan is we are ‘the only national agency.’ I feel we ought to have more vision than that and aim to be the biggest international agency. There are one or two English agencies that can place business pretty much anywhere in the world, but they are agencies more of the old space brokerage type. They are not agencies that understand thoroughly the merchandising and marketing conditions in the various countries and can render the highest type of advertising service.

By 1919, the end of the decade, The H. K. McCann Co. had grown in eight years from a base of two dozen people working in one New York office on five Standard Oil accounts to a total of 150 employees working on 45 active accounts in a five agency, two country system in New York, San Francisco, Cleveland, Toronto, and Montreal.

And it had already launched major brand names like Vaseline, Esso and Del Monte into advertising, as well as playing an important role in building such major brands as Mack Trucks, Borden’s, and Beech-Nut. By the 1920s, both the Erickson and McCann agencies had become solid businesses. Erickson remained an agency with only one office in New York, while McCann continued to open new offices throughout the U.S. McCann’s clients were already asking it to place advertising in other countries. Using an agency template, Royal Typewriter’s sales agents, for example, were adapting ad templates around the world that would run in 1921 in India through Greaves Cotton & Co. in Calcutta and in Guatemala through another distributor. The stage was set for a new phase in the story of both of these agencies. For McCann, it would lead to its international expansion in Europe starting in 1927. For both agencies, it would be the decision to merge in order to combine their complementary strengths.

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02 2 3 1913 Standard Oil newspaper ad in the U.S.

1929 Esso newspaper ad in Germany

McCann created a number of advertising firsts for its founding Standard Oil client, including the first branded gasoline ads in the U.S. and the first pan-regional ads introducing Esso in Europe

LAUNCHING IN EUROPE

A small item appeared in the May 2, 1927 issue of the weekly “NEWS BULLETIN of The H. K. McCann Company” that would define the agency’s next major initiative.

It said: “Mr. H. K. McCann sailed Saturday morning for Europe on the Leviathan.

During this trip Mr. McCann will be looking particularly into foreign markets and facilities for placing advertising abroad. He will be gone about six weeks.”

By August 15, the agency was able to announce that “arrangements have been made by which the McCann Company will handle the advertising of a number of subsidiary companies of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), which operate in Europe. These include companies operating in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, and Italy.” This first overseas expansion began with start-up agencies first in Paris and London in 1927, and then Berlin in 1928. In 1929, soon after General Motors acquired Opel in Germany, the McCann agency won the account and moved its German office from Berlin to Frankfurt to be closer to the new client.

The GM Opel win that year would be the beginning of a long-term clientagency relationship still in place today, but the agency would win a number of clients as well, some expanding with it from the U.S. and some hiring the agency for the first time within Europe. Other than oil companies, the client list in 1929 would include, for instance, Beech-Nut chewing gum in England, the Equitable Trust Company in England and France, C.H. Knorr and Corn Products foods in Germany, Lenthéric perfumes in France and Germany, Kodak and Addressograph

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1924 ad that McCann ran to promote itself emphasising that it was a true national agency with eight full-service North American offices cooperating with each other

A section from a 1929 promotional booklet describing the new McCann operations in Europe. It emphasised the same core network positioning McCann had used in the U.S., namely, that “All McCann company offices work together and a client of one office is a client of all.”

McCann’s growing ability to create and coordinate multinational advertising campaigns would also lead it to create what was in all probability the first ever pan regional brand advertising campaign for a new brand name that Standard Oil had brought to market.

As indicated in this 1928 item from the

company’s in-house publication: “The name ‘ESSO’ has been adopted for high compression or anti-knock fuels to be sold by the Standard Oil subsidiaries in Europe. Both the Berlin and Paris offices of McCann are engaged in the preparation of advertising.”

By the end of the decade, The H. K. McCann Co. had built a network of six U.S., two Canadian, and three European offices. An owned Asia Pacific agency was not yet in the picture, but McCann’s collaborative

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in Germany, Chesebrough’s Vaseline in Germany, and Stanco’s Flit insecticide in the Paris agency in order to handle the brand in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and North Africa.

organisational approach was firmly in place as a foundational principle. Its 1929 European credentials declared that “All McCann Company offices work together and a client of one office is a client of all,” echoing the language it had used in the U.S. when it proclaimed that it was “a national agency in the truest sense.”

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McCANN AND ERICKSON MERGE

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As Harrison. K. McCann recalled it years later, his agency’s growing network of offices appealed to Alfred Erickson when the latter proposed a merger. Erickson had called him one day and said, “Why don’t you and I join forces and have a really first class agency of first class size? You have many offices, even some in Europe.

We have only one office in New York, but we have some splendid accounts.”

The two had known each other through industry associations, and they said in the merger announcement: “McCannErickson Incorporated: The merger, under one name, of two groups of long time friends, who, in standards of service and of agency practice, have thought as one for many years.”

The merger, which took effect on October 1, 1930, with Erickson as chairman and McCann as president, would be the largest in the ad agency business to date. It would create a $15 million agency out of two agencies that were in the lower half of the top 10 but would rise together to compete with what were then the largest players.

Company records from 1931, the first full year of business, show that McCann was about four times the size of Erickson, though the latter agency had many large accounts. Erickson’s agency had billings of $3.3 million, about half the size of McCann’s New York office. And though McCann’s $12 million in billings were spread among a dozen offices, the New York operation represented half the total. Erickson had three large accounts that dominated his billings and would be among the largest accounts of the combined agency as well. These were Congoleum-Nairn ($990,000), Bon Ami ($852,000), and U.S. Tobacco ($505,000), the first two being businesses in which he owned an interest.

The McCann agency was considerably more complex in its makeup. All of the various companies that had grown out of the Standard Oil breakup — whether in fuel, stoves or personal products — in 1931 accounted for a total of $5 million in billings in 25 separate ad accounts. And McCann’s specialisation in West Coast agricultural accounts had sprouted into 13 different cooperatives representing a total of $1.6 million in billings. But the H. K. McCann Co. also had 190 other ad accounts of all sizes throughout its New York, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago and Denver agencies.

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An article on the McCann and Erickson agency merger in the Oct. 2, 1930 issue of Printers’ Ink, an advertising trade publication.

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CHAPTER TWO

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NEW MARKETS, NEW MEDIA , NEW MOMENTUM

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(1930 -1959)

The 1930 McCann and Erickson merger occurred at the right time for the ad agencies. The advertising business was being transformed by the explosion of a new medium — radio. The McCann agency had been a relative latecomer into the new medium, but it had gained some significant radio and creative talent when it made its first acquisition, the Olmstead, Perrin & Leffingwell agency in the late 1920s. Early in the next decade, McCann stepped up its involvement considerably.

Major activity included the extremely ambitious five night a week Five Star Theatre which introduced Groucho and Chico Marx to radio audiences.

Chesebrough’s Real Folks was succeeded in 1937 by Dr. Christian.

And no advertiser seemed too small or too local for a radio show: McCann client Encyclopaedia Britannica sponsored a famous lecturer speaking for 15 minutes.

But radio was only one part of the explosion in new media and methods.

The outdoor medium had always been important at The H. K. McCann Company, especially since Standard Oil had been a pioneer in the medium with billboards in New York and New England for Socony Gasoline.

But the merger with the Erickson agency brought on board Herbert Noxon, a major creative talent in the field, who tended to dominate the outdoor awards shows. In mid 1932, McCann established an outdoor advertising department for the first

time. The next year, a sales promotion department was set up as well, offering “every form of sales promotion material, including direct mail campaigns of all kinds, window, counter and other store displays, catalogues, booklets, folders, calendars, etc.” While it formalised the sales promotion function, the department was an outgrowth of an integrated marketing communications breadth of service that was considered part of all McCann accounts in the 1920s.

Talkies, that is, motion pictures with sound, were also being introduced in this period and advertising took its place in movie theatres. McCann’s first client to try out this medium was Stanco’s Flit insecticide on June 24, 1931. The Flit campaign had already become well-known by then, and the artist behind it would become even more so in subsequent years. Starting in mid-1928, Stanco’s Flit advertising featured the cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel (who would become more famous as the children’s book author and illustrator Dr. Seuss) and the tag line “Quick, Henry, the Flit!”

Geisel came to the attention of the agency after he had published one of his own cartoons in a magazine in which he incorporated Flit as part of the captioned punch line. The Geisel illustrated Flit campaign would run for many years and would be adapted into many media formats.

When McCann-Erickson ran its first television advertising on April 19, 1940, the Geisel Flit campaign was the commercial break.

The 1930s brought other significant changes to McCann. Its client list was expanding with new types of products that reflected the way in which society 18

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was modernising. These included the introductions of Tampax tampons, of Talon Zippers for men’s and women’s clothing that previously had been fastened, and of Columbia long-playing (LP) phonograph records. There would also be more major new brands introduced by the agency. National Biscuit Co. (now part of Kraft Foods) became a major McCann-Erickson client when it first went to the agency in 1934 for the successful launch of Ritz Crackers (which became the U.S.’s most popular cracker after only one year), and then assigned the agency the bulk of its advertising in 1935. Its Shredded Wheat was also assigned.

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One particular new business strength McCann had developed early on was to build expertise in a category and then handle multiple non-competing accounts in that category. It achieved this in more than the oil business.

California agricultural cooperatives and canners were the most prominent initially and McCann San Francisco handled everything from asparagus to lima beans to walnuts. It was true in travel and tourism as well and Australian National Tourism was one of those clients. Public utilities also emerged as a major growth category in the 1930s with McCann winning many utilities both on America’s east and west coasts. This culminated in the major showcase assignment of the American Gas Association, which used McCann-Erickson to launch its first national advertising in 1936.

Undoubtedly the most significant new account of the decade was the Ford Motor Co. dealer advertising account. The McCann ability to build a collaborative multi-office network came to fruition in 1934 when Ford assigned the agency 27 of its 32 U.S. branch territories. It spurred necessary network growth. New agencies were set up through openings or affiliations in many major U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Portland and New Orleans, as well as were 13 additional field service offices.

1941 newspaper ad for Flit based on the long-running campaign that used drawings by the illustrator who would become famous as the children’s book author Dr. Seuss

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30 5

CROSSING THE BORDER INTO LATIN AMERICA

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Standard Oil, which had been the primary force behind the agency’s U.S. and European expansions, now provided the impetus for the third major expansion wave, this time into Latin America. In early November 1934, McCann-Erickson announced that it had recently “completed arrangements with the Standard Oil Company to handle advertising for its subsidiary, the West India Oil Company, and associated companies throughout Latin America.” To accomplish this, the agency established a new foreign department in New York and then sent an executive to travel around the region to begin a “general survey of conditions in South America.”

Agencies would be opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1935, followed by Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1937.

While World War II prevented the agency from further European growth, McCann opened agencies in seven Latin American markets in the five years between 1942 and 1946. These included Puerto Rico in 1942, followed

by Cuba and Colombia in 1944, Chile and Venezuela in 1945, and Uruguay and Peru in 1946.

But the expansion into Latin America transformed McCann in ways other than just geographically. It led the agency into global media. Esso Reporter, a news programme, was expanded from the U.S. into over 30 stations in 15 Latin American countries by 1942. Coca-Cola, American Home Products Corp., and Schenley International Corp. were other clients who began to tap into McCann’s network in the 1940s for pan-regional Latin American musical radio programming.

Additionally, Latin America became the region where McCann made its first inroads with many of the world’s largest global marketers. Wins in one country evolved into regional and global business. Most prominent among these was Coca-Cola, which McCann won in 1941 in Brazil in order to handle the beverage’s introduction into that country the next year. Others in this category included Nestlé, American Home Products Corp. (now known as Wyeth), and the Mennen Company (now part of Colgate-Palmolive).

1935 McCann ad announcing that it had opened its first Latin American agencies in Argentina and Brazil

McCANN’S ASIAN AFFILIATES GAIN GLOBAL CLIENTS

During the 1940s the large multinational corporations began to take a different more systematic approach to their international agency assignments. Replacing the pattern of country by country wins, McCann began to win international account consolidations. Schenley International

Corp., a liquor company, assigned all of its non-U.S. advertising to McCann in 1943, Eversharp (Eversharp pens and Schick Injector razors and blades) did the same in 1947, and International Harvester Export Company followed suit in 1948. McCann Latin America won the region wide assignments for both Corn Products Refining Co. and Smith Kline & French in 1947. The same had occurred a year earlier with Pan American-Grace Airlines and Jantzen swimsuits.

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networks to the globalisation trend of the 1980s by several decades.

The shop engaged in multi-country account coordination and created sophisticated global media platforms as early as the 1940s.” The 1949 client list showed that the agency’s global business had stretched far beyond Standard Oil/Esso. There were five clients that McCann was handling in at least nine countries, including Standard Oil/Esso, International Harvester, Lehn & Fink, Coca-Cola and American Home Products/Home Products International. And there were already six clients handled

by McCann agencies on at least three continents (North America, Europe, Latin America), including Standard Oil/Esso, General Motors, International Harvester, Revlon, Schenley and Tampax.

These multi-country assignments would take on a new character by the mid-1950s, when McCann meetings would be devoted to discussing the coordination of global marketing strategies for clients such as Esso, Nestlé and Coca-Cola.

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1942 ad introducing the Coca-Cola brand into Brazil. McCann’s ongoing global relationship with this client began when it was assigned to handle this product launch.

Moreover, McCann’s affiliates in the Asia Pacific region were now becoming active in handling these multinational assignments. The Schenley consolidation explicitly named India while the Corn Products win included the Philippines and Hawaii as well as all of Latin America. In a 1947 McCann list of international affiliates, the agencies mentioned included China Commercial Advertising Agency in Shanghai, Adarts Ltd. in India, and Philippine Advertising Associates in Manila. Other records

show that McCann placed its first advertising in China in 1946 for Schenley Reserve whiskey, and its first in the Philippines in 1947.

By 1949 McCann was handling 15 clients in three or more countries, an amazingly early record in global advertising. As Advertising Age noted in a recent assessment of the agency’s history, “McCann Erickson immediately proved itself a pioneer in the ad business, beating other 21

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30 5

UNDER HARPER, McCANN BECOMES THE INNOVATION LEADER

While the pattern of account growth and international expansion continued, the 1940s brought one significant new element to the mix, namely the incredible rise of Marion Harper, Jr. Upon graduating from Yale, he joined the McCann mailroom in 1939. Within a few months he moved into the research department, where he soon launched a study of the factors that went into well-read ads.

This was called Factor Analysis, and it led to The McCann-Erickson Continuing Study of Reader Interest in Magazine Advertising. He expanded the scope of research to cover newspapers and then radio, and rose steadily through the ranks until H. K. McCann named him his hand-picked successor as president and CEO of the agency on Dec. 9, 1948. Harper was only 32 years old.

It didn’t take Harper long to begin to transform not only McCann-Erickson, but the entire advertising and marketing communications industry. For him, the advertising business was one that was ripe for bold ideas. As he said in a 1949 speech called “The Care and Feeding of Ideas”:

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Of all businesses, this is the business of ideas.

Always has been. Always must be.

For ideas are what people buy.

So ideas are what sellers must sell.

Ideas are what line the shelves of our pantries and refrigerators.

Ideas are what we brush our teeth with, shave with, bathe with, dress in.

Ideas are what we eat, where our children go to college.

An idea is whom you marry, where you live, what you do to earn your living.

Ideas are what people buy — ideas are what sellers must sell.

And, he might have added, ideas were also the way to reshape the agency business itself. As Harper saw it, advertisers in the early 1950s were not only focused on the powerful new advertising medium of TV. Rather, they were becoming increasingly interested in the entire array of marketing communications services. And the role of the agency was both to meet that demand and to become the expert on communications ideas and how to generate them more productively. New research methods were introduced, including the Relative Sales Conviction Test for measuring advertising’s sales effectiveness, the Eye Camera for recording how people actually looked physiologically at advertising, and motivational research based on Freudian psychology.

He had been formulating these ideas about the “agency of the future” since 1951, and he saw a unique opportunity in 1954. In that year, McCann acquired Marschalk & Pratt, a business-to-business agency that had picked up a piece of the Esso account. However, rather than simply absorbing the agency and merging it with McCann’s existing Cleveland agency, Harper believed there was a benefit in keeping it separate as a division, with its own name and clients. Marschalk & Pratt could handle smaller clients than McCann was able to on a profitable basis, he reasoned. And, most controversially, Harper believed that McCannErickson and Marschalk & Pratt could even handle some competitive accounts, since they operated under different names. It represented a new way to grow in the advertising business.

1936 magazine ad for the American Gas Association, with the theme line “Modernise Your Home with Gas,” one of many modernising products and services supported in advertising

by McCann

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1949 magazine ad introducing long playing phonograph records from Columbia Records

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30 5 What is the Affiliate Principle?

Affiliation implies an association in which each member has comparative independence and functions without the handicap of “secondclass” status. This is the essence of the Affiliate Principle. As applied to the McCann-Erickson organisation, it assigns to each marketing communications specialty the importance that it warrants as a professional function.

The effect is that each specialised service, with its own professional and administrative responsibility, is enabled to contribute more effectively to the client’s total marketing program.

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Put another way, what we have done is to establish separate “companies” or affiliates — each of which is engaged in the business of supplying clients with services related to a particular form of marketing communications.

Marschalk & Pratt would be, as Harper described it, an “agency within an agency.” Advertising Age was struck by the newness of the idea, and said at the time (the deal was announced in December 1954), “It is probably the first time that any agency has undertaken to run a specialised advertising agency as a division, and the first time a division has been set up in the same city.”

The idea was not just new; it was highly controversial – within the industry as well as within McCann-Erickson itself. The industry was not easily willing to accept the idea that two commonly owned agencies could operate independently while preserving the confidentiality of conflicting accounts. His idea of competing parallel agencies would evolve early in the next decade into McCann’s creation of The Interpublic Group of Companies (and 30 years later into other ad agency and communications holding companies, such as Saatchi & Saatchi Co., Omnicom Group, and WPP Group, which have since patterned themselves after this model).

Another concept of Harper’s was that the “advertising agency of the future” should be a decentralised structure composed of interrelated affiliated companies. The competing operations of McCann-Erickson and Marschalk & Pratt were just one expression of this philosophy. The related component was what Harper called “total marketing communications.” The “marketing communications budget” in its entirety was the ad agency’s real opportunity; it was “at the heart of the creative process” because it was “a vehicle for promoting creative thinking at the level of strategy.” In 1956 and 1957, he launched, in short order, a public relations agency (Communications Counselors Inc.), a marketing research operation (Market Planning Corp.), and a sales promotion unit (Sales Communications Inc.). Then, in 1958, McCann-Erickson also took complete control of McGowan Productions in Hollywood, which produced TV, feature and industrial films.

Additionally, Harper believed that the traditional structure of agencies inhibited the delivery of extra services, even as clients were placing “new emphasis” on this range of services “as essentials for marketing success.” He said, “In the traditional agency organisation, these important forms of marketing communications are too often under the shadow of advertising. They are, in

effect, poor relations of the agency’s advertising business.” The answer was what he termed The Affiliate Principle, “in which each member company has comparative independence and functions without the handicap of ‘second-class’ status.” And the key to their success would be “integrated planning” and “close coordination of the various elements in a client’s total marketing communications programme.”

Clearly, whether in regard to integrated marketing communications or the creation of agency holding companies, Harper was way ahead of his time. As the British agency creative executive Andrew Cracknell said in his recent book, The Real Mad Men”, Marion Harper “was a seer; he is credited with being the first person to coin the term ‘think tank’. He was the first to describe the wider function of an ad agency as ‘marketing communications’, thirty years before the phrase became common usage. As early as 1960 he was talking about ‘holistic’ answers to marketing problems (another industry buzzword of thirty years later). He was enthusing about the coming ‘information explosion’ and he had a prescient interest in computers.”

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But Harper was not just a theorist. His new-business acrobatics dazzled the industry as McCann became the fastest-growing major agency during his 1950s reign. In the boom of the TV age, it added 35 new U.S. clients in 30 months through mid-1956, becoming the first U.S. agency with more than $100 million in broadcast billings. In late 1956, Television Age referred to McCann-Erickson’s “breathless, newsmaking 30-month period between 1954 and the middle of last summer.” The trade magazine Tide termed the growth “little short of fabulous.”

The 1956 agency was five times larger than when Harper took over in 1948, and international billings were almost eight times larger.

1951 photo of Marion Harper (left) and H. K. McCann (right). In 1948, the agency founder named the 32 year old Harper as his CEO successor

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The two most dramatic of these new account wins of the 1950s were the $15 million U.S. Coca-Cola account in October 1955, wresting the account from a U.S. agency that had handled it for almost 50 years, and the $24 million U.S. Buick car account from General Motors in February 1958. In the case of Buick, McCann decided to give up the larger Chrysler ad account it was then handling.

Both the U.S. Coca-Cola and Buick gains were not only the largest accounts won to date in the industry. They represented the culmination of McCann’s commitment to global advertising and would usher in the new era of growth that would include the important and rapid expansion in the Asia Pacific region starting at the end of the decade. What the Coca-Cola and Buick account wins had in common, other than their huge headlines, was that both reflected the growing importance of multinational business to the industry. Coca-Cola had wanted an advertising agency that could begin to integrate its U.S. and international advertising. With Buick, Harper realised that he had to make choices sooner or later about which global clients he was going to become aligned with. And the agency determined that it would be General Motors, which had been an international client since 1929.

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CHAPTER THREE

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ASIA-PACIFIC PIONEERS

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(1959 - 1995)

While McCann’s new business growth and diversification had been dynamic during the 1950s, the agency was building towards even more dramatic announcements by the end of the decade. These would take effect on two fronts: a rapid fire international expansion starting in 1959 that would include owned agencies in the Asia Pacific region for the first time, and the reorganisation of the entire expanded McCann-Erickson enterprise to create the first diversified marketing communications holding company.

The year 1959 was particularly busy as McCann resumed its international expansion. In that year alone it would open full-service agencies in Italy and the Netherlands and establish an international coordination centre in Switzerland. Also, by mid 1959, international senior vice president Arthur Grimes was in Australia generating a great deal of press speculation about when and how McCann would enter the market, whether through a start-up or an acquisition. Newspaper News, the Australian trade publication now known as Ad News, then carried a story on Oct. 2, 1959, that said: “Biggest news in Australian advertising for years was this week’s announcement of the affiliation of the American agency McCann-Erickson with the top-notch Australian agency, Hansen-Rubensohn.” The headline trumpeted that this acquisition “stirs the advertising world.” The agency would open its doors as the newly named Hansen-Rubensohn-McCannErickson in December 1959.

By acquiring Hansen-Rubensohn, McCann was linking up with a respected and major longtime player in the market. The electronics company Philips, which had opened in Australia in 1926, had become the first client of Sim Rubensohn’s when he started the agency in 1928. The agency would then add other major clients, such as Nestlé in 1943. After television was introduced in Australia in 1956, the agency quickly became known for its innovative approach in the new medium. The character “Louie the Fly” that it created in 1957 for Mortein’s fly repellent would become one of the most famous in Australian advertising history and would last as an element of brand equity until 2011.

Over the early years of TV, HansenRubensohn had also made a habit of featuring current and rising local celebrities and sports stars in its work, including the Australian Test Cricket Captain Richie Benaud for Nestlé’s Milo. The agency’s high profile continued as well after the acquisition when major McCann international clients such as Coca-Cola were added; the “Big Ball” commercial it created for Coca-Cola in 1964 was considered a classic. And Sim Rubensohn’s longtime political involvement led to what Ad News called the agency’s “iconic 1972 campaign” themed “It’s time” that brought the Labor Party back into power after 23 years. (By 1977, McCann’s Australian expansion would also include a Perth agency operating under the name of AdcraftMcCann-Erickson.)

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This iconic little cowboy first appeared called the Milky Bar Kid on Australian Screens in 1961 in Nestlé Milky Bar advertising.

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1962 TV commercial for Mortein featuring “Louis the Fly” was part of a long-running campaign in Australia, where it was named “The Best Campaign of the Decade.”

Richard Benaud, the famous Australian cricket player, starred as spokesman in these late 1950s TV commercials for Nestlé Milo.

Hanson-Rubensohn had handled Nestlé as a client since 1943.

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A 1960 ad for McCann-Erickson International promised more expansion.

Noting that “international markets are just hours away” because of jet travel, the ad said that: “Recently we crossed the international date line to establish two new offices in Australia.” It then observed: “To keep pace with the world’s exploding population, still other offices are scheduled. We are ready now to help our clients meet their priorities in all markets where opportunities are most attractive.” For McCann that next Asia Pacific office would be in Japan, where Arthur Grimes headed after the Australia launch. But before that Tokyo announcement, the agency would usher the entire advertising world into groundbreaking new territory.

In January 1960, Marion Harper formalised his vision of the “agency of the future” with a major news announcement. McCann-Erickson was to be restructured into four operating units, each reporting into a new holding company version of McCann-Erickson Inc. of which Harper was chairman. Each of the four units was to be run independently, with its own management and mission, but each also had an interlocking and interactive relationship with the other three.

It was essentially Harper’s formalisation of his Affiliate Principle approach to integrated marketing communications, but played out on a grander scale.

The four units were as follows:

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• McCann-Erickson Advertising (U.S.A.). With $170 million in billings, it was now to be a “pure” advertising agency brand that “will concern itself exclusively with creative advertising functions.” Research, salespromotion communications, and public relations “have been taken out of advertising’s shadow and given their rightful place in marketing strategy,” said Harper. “This enables advertising professionals to concentrate on their own specialty, without becoming entangled in the technicalities of communications outside their immediate area,” he explained.

• McCann-Erickson Corp. (International). The international side of the business was unchanged, except that it was now a separate unit called McCann-Erickson Corp. McCann’s U.S. and non-U.S. businesses would not be brought together again under single management until 1973. The president of McCann-Erickson International was Armando Sarmento, whose astonishing career had made him the first non-American executive to earn a leading role at a major U.S. advertising agency. He had first joined McCann’s Rio de Janeiro office when it was founded in 1935 and then rose to lead the entire Latin American region before being named head of international and then president of McCann’s U.S. operations in 1964; he then was appointed vice chairman of Interpublic in 1968, a position he held until he retired in 1975.

• The third unit, Marschalk & Pratt (renamed McCann-Marschalk), was a traditional agency offering a full range of services. This was the agency acquired in 1954 that was kept as a separate competing agency with McCann-Erickson.

• Communications Affiliates. The fourth unit, which encompassed McCann’s marketing communications expansion outside of advertising, would become the umbrella for a wide range of diversified companies. It included Marplan, the research unit formerly called Marketing Planning Corp.; SCI, the sales promotion and event firm formerly called Sales Communications, Inc.; and CCI, the public relations agency formerly called Communications Counselors, Inc.

In this 1960 ad for McCann-Erickson International, the agency explained that its recent opening of offices in Australia, Italy and Holland the previous year was keeping it ahead in the jet age.

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Like most actions Harper had taken in the previous decade, these changes were met with big headlines and a mixture of puzzlement and awe. An Advertising Age editorial said: “The latest reorganisation of McCannErickson indicates that, if the McCann trend is followed, the advertising agency business is to become as complex and as diversified as most of the businesses of agency clients.” A newspaper story compared McCannErickson Inc.’s multi-divisional organisation to General Motors.

There were also other units that didn’t fit neatly into that four-division

scheme. One of these would be the industry’s first strategic and creative think tank, Jack Tinker & Partners.

Tinker, who had originally joined McCann-Erickson as an art director in 1939, was the agency’s creative director. The think tank’s high-level staff included Mary Wells Lawrence, the copywriter who would go on to found the Wells Rich Greene ad agency.

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itself then be renamed Interpublic Inc. in January 1961, and then The Interpublic Group of Companies in January 1964 as McCann created its own holding company as a vehicle for its expansion.

But there was also another unit called Inter-Public that was part of the 1960 announcement. The name came from a German public relations agency owned by the company. The McCannErickson Inc. parent company would 29

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59 9

OPENING IN JAPAN WITH A JOINT VENTURE

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A year after the 1959 Australian launch, McCann turned its attention to Japan. But instead of either a start-up or an acquisition, McCann entered Japan with a highly innovative approach suited to the market. It formed a joint venture with Hakuhodo, Inc., Japan’s oldest (since 1895) and second-largest agency (after Dentsu).

The new McCann-Erickson Hakuhodo agency then began operation in Tokyo on Dec. 16, 1960 with 13 employees, both international and Japanese.

The agency amazingly was a success right from the start. Its combination of Western and Japanese agency practices quickly won many accounts primarily from multinationals but also from some Japanese corporations.

Its first five major accounts in 1961 included Esso Standard, Gillette Japan, Coca-Cola Japan, Nestlé Japan, and the Mitsui Group. To this it quickly added the multinationals NCR, Singer Sewing Machine, 3M, Colgate-Palmolive, and Ciba and also the Japanese clients Toyo Rayon and then Asahi Beer. It would introduce international brands into Japan such as Gillette razor blades in 1963. And McCann’s overall ability to marshal global creative resources would be leveraged for Japanese clients like Nescafé with a “Cities of the World” campaign designed to help drive coffee sales in a tea-drinking culture.

Launched in 1967, this campaign would last for two decades.

Billings and revenue in McCannErickson Hakuhodo’s second year were five times what they were at the launch. Billings would then continue to rise impressively to $9 million in 1963, to $30 million in 1970, to over $50 million in 1972, when it would become the first ― and, for decades afterwards, the only ― international agency to make it onto Japan’s list of top 10 agencies in size, and then up to $178 million by the end of the 1970s.

The number of employees expanded

1964 newspaper ad in Japan for NCR. This ad symbolises the future development of NCR by saying that it is reserving one floor of its Business Efficiency Center for future expansion. Headline also reads: “This key has never been used.”

considerably and new offices were also added in Osaka in 1962 and Okinawa in 1963. Thirteen employees quickly grew to 51 in 1961, 162 in 1963, and more than 330 by the end of the decade.

Because of its international client list, it became an important centre for expatriates as well as Japanese executives. For example, James Farley would move from New York in 1962 to become an executive vice president under the first agency head, M. Carl

Johnson, and then become head of both the Japanese agency and the McCann-Erickson Asia Pacific region throughout the 1970s. More unusually, one of the first employees brought over from Hakuhodo as administrative director was Koji Oshita, who would stay with the agency for more than 30 years, rising to become its leader and a deputy regional director in Asia Pacific.

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1967 TV commercial; one of the first in the “Cities of the World” campaign in Japan for Nescafé. Over a dozen cities were beautifully filmed in an outstanding series of commercials that ran until the mid-1980s. By associating coffee with European cities and culture, the campaign made coffee drinking attractive to the Japanese, a nation of tea drinkers.

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1970 TV commercial in Japan for Johnson & Johnson’s Band-Aid, demonstrating how boiling water doesn’t affect the adhesiveness of the product.

McCann-Erickson Hakuhodo’s unique combination of Western and Japanese talent and perspectives provided early multinational clients with the necessary expertise to advertise in Japan.

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59 9

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1986 newspaper ads created by McCann-Erickson Hakuhodo for Gillette, featuring an American who played baseball in Japan, Randy Bass. He shaved his beard on television in a campaign that drew wide attention. The first ad says, “Look for me tomorrow.” The second has the theme “It’s the Triple Crown.”

1979 TV commercial for Gillette’s GII razor, created by McCann-Erickson Hong Kong.

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Vicks and Gillette would be among the international clients that would expand throughout the Asia Pacific region. Vicks was an example of regional client that was not a worldwide account.

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1977 TV commercial created by McCann-Erickson/Hakuhodo for Vicks cough drops.

A cartoon character (top frame) showing a face in distress with a cough was developed and became very recognisable in Japan as the symbol for Vicks.

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59 9

1963: EXPANDING THE McCANN NETWORK. . .

VIRTUALLY EVERYWHERE

The early 1960s expansion into the Asia Pacific region was mirrored by significant international activity in Latin America, Europe, and Africa as well.

And by the end of the 1960s decade, McCann’s international business overall would edge ahead of the U.S. in size. International billings, only a third of the McCann agency’s total business in 1960, would more than triple in size to reach $257.8 million in 1969, compared with $253.3 million in U.S. billings.

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• In the Latin America Caribbean region, McCann in 1963 added five agencies in Central America — in the key countries of Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Ecuador. An agency in Nicaragua was added in 1964 and one in Honduras in 1965. Additionally, in the Caribbean, the 21-year-old Puerto Rican agency opened operations in 1963 in the Dominican Republic in affiliation with Publicidad Ricart, that country’s leading agency. Also in 1963, McCann acquired the largest advertising agency in Jamaica, Art & Publicity, Ltd. That same year, McCann also purchased Davies and Chrislett, an agency in Trinidad with branch offices in Barbados. In 1968, McCann would merge its Mexican agency with another agency that Interpublic had purchased in 1963 called Stanton-Quadrant, a company where the Colombian-born Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez had worked for a short time while he was working on his famous 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

• In Europe, the network of major countries in the region was filled out in 1963 in Spain with the acquisition of Ruescas Publicidad, a 13-year-old agency that had offices in both Madrid and Barcelona, and an impressive client list that included Colgate-Palmolive and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.

McCann entered Austria through an association in 1962 but then opened its own agency in 1966 to handle Esso. In Switzerland, a full-service agency was launched with offices in Geneva and Zurich in 1967. In 1966, McCann-Erickson became the first American agency in Finland through the acquisition of a 42-year-old agency, and created LiikemainontaMcCann AB. In 1967, Gunther & Back Annonsbyra AB was acquired in Sweden. In late 1969, McCann started up operations in Denmark, first sharing facilities with a local agency and then going on its own in 1971.

• Africa was the new region of the McCann-Erickson world opened in 1963 when Interpublic purchased the Afamal Group, the largest advertising agency on the African continent. Afamal’s five office operation billed about $8 million in 1963, chiefly in South Africa, though it also had offices or associations throughout the continent. With its origins dating back to the 1899 founding of SA Advertising Contractors in Cape Town, Afamal would become the oldest agency in the McCann world, older even by a few years than Alfred Erickson’s original operation in New York City.

A START-UP IN THE PHILIPPINES

McCann-Erickson was also moving quickly in Asia Pacific to round out its network. While the company had chosen to open in Australia through an acquisition and in Japan through a joint venture, it took a different start-up approach in the Philippines.

McCann had worked through a Philippines associate since at least the 1940s and had been placing campaigns there for major international clients such as Corn Products (Mazola cooking oil, Argo corn starch) since 1947 and American Home Products’ Anacin analgesic since 1951. In the late 1940s its affiliate was Philippine Advertising Associates in Manila.

But on Nov. 2, 1962, a dozen employees opened shop, at first sharing space with an interior decorating firm. Leading as president was W. Richard (Dick) Guersey, who had moved over from VP-general manager of the Philippine

1964 award-winning TV commercial in Australia called “Big Ball” for the “Things Go Better With Coke” campaign.

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McCann brought its experience in handling some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated global clients to the Asia Pacific region.

Advertising Counselors agency. By January 1963 the agency officially opened its own office and prepared for its first major presentation to the Philippine Packing Corporation, the makers of Del Monte products. Del Monte, the brand McCann San Francisco had introduced 45 years earlier, and Coca-Cola, a growing global client, would be its initial accounts. Within the first year, it would already land such big accounts as San Miguel Corp., Vick International, Philippine Airlines, International Harvester, and others. By September 1963 it had 11 accounts and 28 employees. Just one year later, it could claim 20 accounts and 40 employees.

The agency established its solid reputation quickly in 1963.

Vick had considered changing the name of its Impact brand because of the analgesic’s failure to gain a foothold in the market; instead the McCann Philippines campaign helped sales rise sixfold in two months. Another program called “It’s Del Monte SUNFEST Time!” was credited by the client with driving the best sales record in its history in the Philippines. The next year the agency’s “Frames” commercial for Del Monte Pineapple would win the top award in the first Philippine annual awards presentation. By 1966 its CocaCola and Del Monte work would make it the most honored creative agency in the market. Meanwhile, its clients kept growing, from 11 after its first year to 20 in 1964 and up to 36 in early 1967 when it added such blue chip names as Esso, Gillette, Cyanamid, and Newsweek.

1970s magazine ad in Thailand for Coca-Cola.

THE HONG KONG AND THAILAND JVS CHAPTER 3

The other major Asia Pacific opening in 1963 was in Hong Kong. This time McCann formed a joint venture with China Commercial Advertising Agency to establish Ling-McCannErickson. China Commercial had been formed in Shanghai in 1926 by C.P. Ling and had become an affiliate of McCann’s, according to 1947 company records. The Ling family, including the founder’s two sons who would become active in the business, left for Hong Kong in 1949 just before the People’s Republic of China was established and re-started China Commercial in Hong Kong. The agency, whose clients included Colgate-Palmolive and Nestlé Products (HK) Ltd., would add Coca-Cola and other multinationals to the mix.

Ling-McCann-Erickson would also expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. In March 1965 it started a branch in Bangkok, Thailand. Bill White, who was then managing Asia Advertising, a small 20 person agency affiliated with McCann, was recruited to head the new Bangkok shop.

Within two years the client list included Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Chesebrough-Pond’s, Siam Motors, Tip Cooking Oil, and Esso. In 1974, McCann-Erickson Thailand would become incorporated separately. White would return to head the agency in 1987 after leading another agency in Japan for 15 years. He would also be responsible for opening up McCann’s first offices in Indochina encompassing Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

In 1965, Ad Age columnist Harry McMahan called the Esso Tiger his “nomination for the most important advertising campaign in the entire history of international advertising.” 1965 magazine ad in U.S

By the end of 1963, the Asia Pacific region was already handling billings of $20 million, almost as large already as the much older Latin American region with $26 million in billings. The Australian agency was up to $12 million in billings, Japan at $6.7 million, the Philippines at $700,000, and Hong Kong at $500,000.

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59 9 The McCann Philippines Johnson & Johnson “Duyan” commercial from the early 1990s is considered one of the best Johnson & Johnson television commercials ever created in that market.

Del Monte was the first client won by McCann Philippines in 1963. The 1986 “Godfather” spot is in the Philippine Advertising Industry’s “All Time Classics” list, as awarded by the country’s ad agency association.

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In 1979, the agency created its memorable TV commercial “Mean Joe Greene” in the U.S. for Coca-Cola. The recipient of many awards, it ranked as one of America’s best-recalled commercials, an assessment that continues up to the present day. In it, a young boy offers his Coke to football player Greene, who is limping in pain back to his locker. In appreciation for the Coke, Joe takes off his jersey and tosses it to the startled, but delighted, young fan. The concept proved so successful that other McCann agencies around the world soon made similar commercials featuring local sports heroes, such as soccer star Niwat Srisawat in Thailand (bottom left).

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THE MID 1960S: MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE, AND “TRANSFERABLE POWER”

By the mid 1960s there were several other international agencies established as well. An agency was started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1965. Management in the Malaysian agency demonstrated the extent to which McCann was developing a corps of experienced international advertising executives who could work with the agency’s impressive legion of multinational clients. In Malaysia, for example, the new managing director named in 1966 had moved to the Kuala Lumpur agency from Hansen Rubensohn-McCann-Erickson in Melbourne, which he had joined in 1960. McCann’s client lists, which tended at its new agencies to start out heavily multinational before growing with more local clients, helped to explain this management approach.

McCann Malaysia’s client list by 1978, for instance, included Coca-Cola, Del Monte, Exxon, General Motors, Gillette, L’Oréal, and Unilever.

The McCann international executive transfers were responding to the requirements of global clients who operated strategically on a multicountry stage and wanted advertising professionals with similar global marketing perspectives. “A new breed of international advertising man is emerging,” said Advertising Age in a 1968 story on McCann’s international training program. Eugene Kummel, who had become president of McCannErickson International in 1966 and then in 1973 would be named chairman and CEO of McCann-Erickson Worldwide when the U.S. and non-U.S. agencies were reunited after many years, called this “transferable power.” When he was elected into the U.S. Advertising Hall of Fame in 1988, the citation praised him for recognizing McCann’s role in the new and evolving world of global business: “while the conventional wisdom was that of hiring only those who spoke the language of the country to which they were assigned, Kummel’s contention was that expatriate

As a pioneer, McCann played a key role in introducing major world brands into Asian markets for the first time, as these introductory newspaper ads for Gillette in Japan and for General Motors in China display.

1963 newspaper ad. This is the first ad announcing the introduction of Gillette razor blades in Japan. The ad features King Gillette and says, “Gillette products have been used by men all over the world for 60 years.”

June 25, 1992 newspaper ad in the People’s Daily, introducing General Motors into China for the first time. The headline says that one-sixth of the world’s car buyers choose from General Motors in the U.S. and “Now, you can make the same choice.” The car shown is the Buick Park Avenue.

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9 95 9 5 talent must, first and foremost, speak the language of soft drinks, or gasoline or automobiles or beer.” Over time, more and more nationals would assume the leading regional management roles as the boundaries between local, regional and worldwide consumers and markets converged.

Like Malaysia, the Singapore agency start-up followed the same global to local client trajectory as had other McCann international start-ups. McCann Singapore had started as a branch office of Malaysia in the same year, 1965, when the Kuala Lumpur agency began. It would become locally incorporated in 1975. The only significant clients McCann Singapore handled in its early years were the international ones, including especially General Motors which had a regional centre in Singapore. In the 1980s it began to pursue local clients more vigorously, becoming by 1988 the top ranked agency in the country. While it added both local market advertisers and large regional clients that were not otherwise part of McCann internationally, the most visible wins were Singapore government clients.

The agency’s breakthrough was the campaign to celebrate “25 years of nation building,” which included composing the national songs that would be sung by Singaporean school children. At the same time, McCann Singapore would become a major innovator in the very local media of transit and outdoor advertising, achieving a number of firsts for its multinational clients such as Coca-Cola, Siemens, Motorola, MasterCard, and L’Oréal.

ADAPTING TO FOREIGN OWNERSHIP LAWS: NEW ZEALAND AND INDIA

While McCann could not initially own a majority interest in an Indian agency, it had a long history of associations in India. In 1947 it was working with Adarts as its affiliate. In 1951, when McCann was handling International Harvester Export Company’s advertising in India, it began working with the five year old Everest Advertising as its associate. Then in 1964, the Government of India granted permission to Clarion Advertising Services to collaborate with McCann-Erickson, which acquired a 49% interest and renamed it Clarion-McCann Advertising Services Ltd. Clarion’s own roots went back to a British agency formed in 1936; when that agency closed its Calcutta headquarters in 1956, the Indian executives and staff formed Clarion, which grew from 58 employees to 318 by 1968 when there were also branch offices in Bombay, Delhi, and Madras.

Bacardi, Cathay Pacific, ChesebroughPonds, Parker Pen, Esso, HewlettPackard, General Motors, Gillette, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, L’Oréal, Microsoft, Nestlé India, Nike, Reckitt & Coleman, and William Grant & Sons were all listed as accounts. But so were the BPL Group, the Hindustan Times, Tata tea, and others.

But McCann’s expanding advertising capabilities were most importantly about brands, consumers, and creativity ― not about dots on a map. And the ways in which the world’s largest corporations approached advertising was changing in important ways as well.

Starting in the 1960s, multinational advertising was becoming increasingly more strategic as a coordinated global practice. Geographic expansion and global account strategy and creativity went hand in hand and led to expanding relationships with worldwide clients.

Gillette was an example of a 1960s client that expanded rapidly around the world with the agency. By 1968, it was working with McCann in 27 countries, including Japan and the Philippines.

Creative approaches were becoming more sophisticated as well, and McCann’s campaigns were inarguably in the forefront. The worldwide “Put a Tiger in Your Tank” campaign in 1965 for the Esso gasoline brand was, according to a leading creative review columnist in Advertising Age, his “nomination for the most important advertising campaign in the entire history of international advertising.

It’s a success in 23 countries and over five continents.”

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While McCann generally preferred wholly-owned agencies, New Zealand and India were among the countries where government restrictions on ownership applied when the agency began its Asia Pacific expansion. In 1966, McCann became the first international marketing communications organisation to move into New Zealand when it acquired a controlling 49% interest in Dobbs-Wiggins-Golbert.

The agency, which had billings of $2.5 million, was renamed Dobbs-WigginsMcCann-Erickson Ltd. Along with Hansen-Rubensohn-McCann-Erickson, McCann was by then handling a total of $17 million in billings in six Australian and New Zealand offices. By 1968 Dobbs-Wiggins-McCann-Erickson won the Coca-Cola account, adding it to a client list that included General Motors, Bristol Myers, Ipana, Union Carbide Eveready Batteries, 3M, Guinness, Turtle Care Care Products, Lifesavers, Air New Zealand, and Hotel Intercontinental.

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In 1985, Tara Sinha left her executive position at Clarion to start Tara Sinha Associates with a non-equity affiliation with McCann-Erickson. McCann then acquired a minority stake in 1989, changing the name of the agency to Tara Sinha McCann-Erickson. This eventually became McCann-Erickson India after McCann acquired a majority stake in early 1995. While McCann was ranked only 13th in the market then (it subsequently grew by 2005 to become the third largest agency in India) its 1996 client list included both multinational and Indian companies.

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Coca-Cola also was a global advertising creative leader with McCann as its agency. Its new “Things Go Better With Coke” campaign launched in 1963 reflected a “One Sight, One Sound” approach intended to integrate not only all geographic markets but all media venues as well. Hansen-RubensohnMcCann-Erickson’s famous “Big Ball” commercial was part of this campaign, illustrating how global platforms and local creativity worked together.

When “The Real Thing” campaign was launched in 1969, Coca-Cola’s approach to integrated marketing coordination embraced not only all media, but also the all-things-communicate branding as it related to trucks, delivery person uniforms, and vending machines.

McCann and Coke also produced some of the world’s most memorable advertising during this period. In 1971, as part of “The Real Thing” campaign, the agency brought young people of all nationalities and races together on an Italian hillside to sing “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke,” a song composed at the agency that then went on to become a Top 10 recording hit.

McCann’s creative reputation in the 1970s continued to rise. The New York agency created some very famous work that ultimately went global, including in the Asia Pacific region. In 1972 it launched the “I’m Worth It” campaign for L’Oréal’s Preference hair care products and McCann then won the worldwide L’Oréal account in 1977.

McCann’s 1979 “Mean Joe Greene” commercial for Coca-Cola, which ran during the American Super Bowl, has consistently been ranked as one of America’s best recalled commercials.

The concept of a young boy and a star athlete was adapted in many countries, including in Thailand with the soccer star Niwat Srisawat.

However, McCann was not just on a steady upward path. The agency suffered some serious setbacks from which it had to recover, in the late 1960s and then again at the end of the 1970s. While Marion Harper’s core global and marketing communications expansion in the 1960s had been successful, he had also overextended the company into many other areas.

It led to severe debt problems and a financial crisis for Interpublic, and ultimately Harper’s 1967 ouster by the board of directors. Robert Healy, a former top McCann executive came out of retirement to become Interpublic’s CEO and lead its successful turnaround. Advertising Age described it as a recovery that “would have been remarkable even if it had been accomplished over a long period of time, but which borders on the miraculous when one considers that it was accomplished in just a little over two years.” Healy would then re-retire and hand over the CEO reins in 1971 to Paul Foley, a former journalist and copywriter who rose to lead McCann creatively and overall in the 1960s.

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In 1971, McCann-Erickson created one of its most memorable TV commercials for Coca-Cola as part of the “It’s the Real Thing” campaign that had been launched two years earlier.

Young people of all nationalities and races were gathered on an Italian hillside to sing “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke and Keep It Company.” It was rerecorded by the New Seekers as “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” and became a Top 40 hit in the U.S.

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Then, a decade later, the McCann agency itself faced a shock of a different type. In 1979, virtually all of the top creative, account, media and general management left the McCann New York headquarters agency with its biggest account, the $80–$90 million Miller Beer account. Miller represented about 15% of total McCann U.S. business and was a major creative showcase. An article in Business Week the next year stated flatly that “Madison Avenue was taking bets that the agency would never recover.”

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While it took several years, McCann did more than recover.

After the Miller loss, the McCann U.S. and non-U.S. agencies were again split into units reporting separately into Interpublic. But then in 1981, Interpublic Chairman Philip Geier announced that McCann-Erickson Worldwide would be reconstituted as a single integrated global network under Willard Mackey as its new president and CEO. Geier explained that “The decision to re-establish McCann as one worldwide company in 1981 reflects the happy fact that an increasing number of clients, long served internationally, are also assigning business to McCann U.S.A.” These included Gillette, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Nabisco, and Nestlé.

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Robert James, who succeeded Mackey as president and CEO in 1985, then felt by 1987 that McCann-Erickson Worldwide had regained enough momentum to launch an aggressive five year industry leadership plan. While McCann had always been especially strong internationally, the growth by competitors had lowered McCann’s position in the worldwide rankings to seventh place. The McCann executives who gathered in 1987 were greeted and encouraged – in their leadership quest in a video by President Ronald Regan, who had a previous history with the agency. Then between 1986 and 1991, McCann virtually doubled its worldwide billings from $2.85 billion in 1986 to more than $5.4 billion in 1991. By 1993 McCann-Erickson’s worldwide billings increased to $6.7 billion, making it the No. 1 agency in Advertising Age’s global network rankings.

It also became, by a wide margin, the leader in handling global advertising accounts. In 1993, McCann was handling 17 accounts in 30 or more countries, 27 accounts in 20 or more countries, and 43 accounts in 10 or more countries.

At the same time, in 1993, McCann rose to become the leading Western agency in the Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific region was no longer a new world, as it had been in the 1960s. During the 1970s, new countries were added, and existing branch offices were upgraded to full-service status. The Bangkok agency and the Singapore agency, which had been branch offices of Hong Kong and Malaysia respectively, came into their own in the mid-1970s.

The famous “I’m Worth It” campaign for L’Oréal hair products, which began in 1973, featured three main personalities in the U.S., beginning with Joan Dusseau (top), Meredith Baxter Birney (middle), and Cybill Shepherd (bottom). This successful launch turned a relatively unknown product into an overnight success story with huge sales increases. In 1977, McCann would win the L’Oréal account on a worldwide basis, including in Asia Pacific. Its campaigns would be long-running as shown in these Asian ads.

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2000 L’Oreal Feria magazine ad in Japan

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2012 L’Oréal Total Repair 5 (TR5) magazine ad from McCann Thailand that ran in beauty magazines. TR5 is a haircare products that solves five hair problems.

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FURTHER EXPANSION: CHINA, TAIWAN, KOREA, INDONESIA AND SOUTH ASIA

Then on October 30, 1979, McCann-Erickson became the first U.S. based international agency to establish an office in the People’s Republic of China. Only Japan’s Dentsu among international agencies had previously opened in the PRC, and other western agencies would follow McCann’s lead. McCann’s entry was accomplished by setting up a joint venture agreement with Jardine, Matheson & Co., Ltd., to form McCann-Erickson Jardine (China) Ltd. that was managed through McCann Tokyo. Full agency services were provided to Western clients in China and to China foreign trade corporations and organisations outside China through office in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Later, in 1991, McCann signed an agreement with China’s Guangming newspapers to form a joint venture agency that started operation in 1992. Offices were opened in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

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In June 1992, the first newspaper ads for General Motors from the McCann China agency would run in the People’s Daily, the China Daily, and the Economic Daily, reaching over five million people. Running in conjunction with the opening of the Beijing Auto Show, the ad featured the Buick Park Avenue but focused on General Motors with a headline emphasising that one-sixth of the world’s car buyers choose a GM vehicle.

Throughout the 1980s and mid-1990s, McCann had continued to expand internationally, whether by adding new countries or by upgrading equity positions to majority or wholly owned positions. Associations were replaced with wholly owned start-up agencies, including in Seoul, where McCann opened in 1990 as one of the first international agencies to fully operate in Korea.

In other cases, affiliate relationships were expanded into ownership positions, as was the case with Tara Sinha McCann-Erickson in India and with United Communications in Taiwan. Nestlé Taiwan’s creative work had been handled in Hong Kong although a Taiwanese agency was used for media placement. When this company wanted to start working with a full-service Taiwanese agency, it became an opportunity for United Communications. Reportedly however, Nestlé preferred that it tie up with an international agency. McCann took the initiative and formed an association with United in February 1982. Within a few years, Gillette and Coca-Cola were also added to the roster. Then in May 1987, McCann and United formed a 70/30 partnership and the agency became McCann-Erickson Taiwan.

In 1985, McCann-Erickson Australia developed a “Mr. Reach” character for Johnson & Johnson’s Oral Products that proved global advertising ideas could be developed everywhere in the world. The straightforward, appealing visual idea of the campaign – that the alternative to an innovatively angled toothbrush to reach difficult parts of the mouth would be a man with a flexible jaw – was one that could be understood anywhere. The campaign was expanded into the rest of the Asia Pacific region, in Europe, the U.S. and Latin America.

Ownership positions were also expanded from majority equity positions to 100 percent ownership. Most significantly McCann acquired the minority interest (49%) in the $750 million McCann-Erickson Hakuhodo agency in Japan at the very end of 1993. In other cases, the expansion to 100 percent occurred with changes in local law, such as in 1985 in New Zealand.

In Indonesia during this period, the entry into the market was a little different. McCann had first started working with an affiliate in Jakarta in 1971 when Indonesia was among the countries adding Coca-Cola assignments.

In 1982, Grafik Advertising (PT Tiara Alam Grafika) in Indonesia, headed by Lotte Mohammad, became associated with McCann-Erickson. The association was formalised in the form of a technical service agreement as of January 1, 1993, and the company’s trade name changed from Grafik Advertising to Grafik-McCannErickson. In 2001, McCann Worldgroup affiliated with Grafik-McCann and changed the identity to McCann Worldgroup Indonesia under the company of PT Interpublic Group of Companies Indonesia.

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as well as Romania and Bulgaria in Europe, Qatar and Jordan in the Middle East, Guyana, Surinam and Aruba in the Latin America Caribbean region, and a dozen countries in Africa. Expanding again in Asia, McCann became affiliated in 1995 with Unitrend in Bangladesh, an agency that been started up a decade earlier and whose client list would come to include Coca-Cola and Nestlé.

In this mid-1990s commercial for Johnson & Johnson’s baby oil from McCann Korea, the images of the stress of the day are projected artfully on the bare back of a woman to demonstrate the product’s soothing effect.

Representation was also improved in other Asia Pacific markets, including affiliating with pioneering advertising figures in their respective countries. An association was formed in 1993 with Grant Advertising, the largest agency in Sri Lanka. It had been founded in 1958 by Reggie Candappa, who was regarded as the father of Sri Lankan advertising. One of its earliest clients, Singer Sri Lanka, would remain with the agency for the next half century. Also in 1993, a new association was formed in Pakistan with that country’s largest advertising agency, Orient Advertising, which had been founded in 1953 by the leading advertising and marketing professional S. H. Hashmi. By mid-1994, McCannErickson had a presence in 99 countries, the new ones including Cambodia,

But the real qualitative change in the nature of global advertising was represented more by a creative Asia Pacific development than by the n number of new markets per se. In 11985, McCann Australia developed a “Mr. Reach” cartoon character for J Johnson & Johnson’s Oral Products.

T The straightforward appealing visual o of the Mr. Reach campaign – that the a alternative to an innovatively angled ttoothbrush to reach difficult parts o of the mouth would be a man with a flexible jaw – was one that not only w worked in Australia, but could be u understood anywhere. The campaign w was expanded into the rest of the Asia P Pacific region, in Europe, the U.S, and L Latin America, establishing that global a advertising ideas and executions could b be developed anywhere in the world, cchallenging the traditional wisdom a and practice that global advertising ccampaigns had to be created centrally a at headquarters before traveling a around the world.

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A whole new consumer world also opened up as well with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, McCann had started opening majority or wholly owned agencies within the former Communist Bloc countries. In March 1988, McCann became the first Western agency to hold a majority interest in any East European agency when it opened in Hungary. It then became the first international agency to be represented in Yugoslavia (Croatia) in 1989, and opened agencies in Russia in 1990 and in both the Czech Republic and Poland in 1991.

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CHAPTER FOUR

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THE MCCANN WORLDGROUP EXPANSION

CHAPTER 4

(1995 - 2012)

Beginning in the mid-1990s, McCann would embark on a capabilities expansion that would transform the agency in Asia Pacific as well as throughout the world. By the year 2012 — 100 years after the founding of The H. K. McCann Company and roughly a half century after the first inroads in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines — McCann Asia Pacific’s profile would no longer resemble a new frontier. All of the major agencies in the region would now be offering and integrating a full range of digital and marketing communications disciplines. Many would become award-winning creative advertising powerhouses, recognised as such across the region and even globally.

Moreover, a balanced client list of local as well as multinational accounts would now be the rule rather than the exception, as had been the case when new agencies were first launched.

The capabilities expansion officially began in September 1997, when McCann-Erickson Worldwide’s Chairman and CEO John Dooner announced a new direction. While McCann had achieved a leading position in worldwide advertising, it needed now, in Dooner’s words, to “expand our charter” in order to address the dramatic shifts affecting marketing communications. As with its past geographic expansions and organisational innovations, McCann would engage in a significant evolution that reflected the major changes occurring in the marketing, media,

and consumer world. The broadening of resources to include many more types of marketing communications other than advertising would be an extension of the agency’s longtime commitment to deliver local market strength, systemwide coordination, and highly effective communications in all professional specialties. And in an echo of the Harper era’s Affiliate Principle, each marketing communications discipline would be equal to all others (including advertising) and not be relegated to secondary status.

Weber Shandwick Public Relations, FutureBrand, and Universal McCann.

Digital communications was already part of the original lineup through a unit called Thunder House, which had been part of The Weber Group acquisition.

The significance of the move was immediately acknowledged. A New York Times article carried the headline, “A sweeping reorganisation at McCann-Erickson seeks to highlight marketing services.” The new restructuring, which the story said “formalises the results of a 16-month spree of acquiring agencies in fields identified as growth realms,” was “intended to shine a spotlight on the increasing role played by marketing services outside the realm of general advertising like public relations, interactive communications and sales promotion.”

The new organisation would come to be called McCann Worldgroup.

Its anchor companies within each marketing communications discipline were already in place, assembled through a series of 1996 and 1997 acquisitions. While some of the unit names have evolved, the original seven discipline areas have remained. In addition to the global McCann advertising agency network, the other disciplines are MRM Worldwide, Momentum Worldwide, McCann Healthcare Worldwide, 46

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The expansion of the company into McCann Worldgroup in 1997 recognized the extent to which the marketing communications world was dramatically changing, involving many different types of live branding experiences as well as what would be a radical digital revolution.

Out of home space was being used more creatively, comprehensively and interactively as marketers look for new ways to achieve impact.

McCann Tokyo achieved maximal exposure in the 2005 Hokkaido transit system for 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses.

CHAPTER 4 Fully demonstrating the opportunities inherent in non-traditional approaches to communications, McCann Indonesia conveyed the importance of breast cancer checkups in an award-winning 2005 program that put relevant stickers on the fruit that women shoppers might go to the store and feel before they decide to buy.

As part of Unilever’s 2006 campaign to advertise its Lynx deodorant brand, UM Sydney’s plan for LynxJet showed what a deodorant brand would be like as an airline embodying a young man’s fantasies. It was the second time since the Cannes Media Awards were launched in 1999 that UM Australia was awarded the Cannes Media Grand Prix and in both cases it won for its breakthrough strategy and execution on behalf of client Unilever Australia.

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CHAPTER 4

At the same time, the McCann advertising agency in the late 1990s was enjoying a new momentum. Two emerging global marketers, MasterCard and Microsoft, tapped McCann to handle advertising assignments, first in the U.S. and later around the world. “Priceless,” the MasterCard campaign McCann initially launched in the U.S. in 1997, would become one of the most memorable and awarded campaigns of all time. The “Priceless” platform would prove enduringly powerful enough to allow for expansion globally and into areas such as digital and sponsorship marketing. Microsoft consolidated its U.S. advertising responsibilities at McCann in 1999 followed by the worldwide assignment, an early sign that technology companies as a group were becoming a major new category of worldwide and total communications clients. Among other hi-tech firms McCann added at that time were Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Verizon. The year 1998 ended with more than $1 billion in gross new business, McCann’s first year at that level and possibly the first by any agency.

All of the new discipline areas were in rapid expansion mode in those first years, adding offices through acquisitions and start-ups, expanding resources, and winning accounts. By 2000, MRM Worldwide had entered the top 10 worldwide rankings and had agencies in 28 countries. McCann Healthcare became a top-3 global player with offices in 18 countries. Momentum was already in 36 countries and had filled out its range of competencies. FutureBrand was a full-service corporate branding and packaging firm operating in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Weber Shandwick Worldwide was being formed as the largest global and U.S. public relations agency through the merger of Weber Public Relations Worldwide and Shandwick International.

Universal McCann, already fully global, was enjoying “Media Agency of the Year” honors in Europe and was on its way to the same in the U.S. The McCann advertising agency was similarly being recognized as “Agency of the Year” in many world markets.

The digital revolution in the mid-1990s was also already underway, although not yet at the feverish pace at which it would radically transform all marketing communications.

McCann had already started engaging in this new area. In 1987 it became the first, and for many years the only, ad agency sponsor of The MIT Media Lab, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, think tank that is one of the acknowledged leaders in the field of new media exploration and development. In 1989, it had become involved with three of its blue-chip clients in an interactive television test in the U.S. to determine audience receptivity and willingness to engage interactively. In 1993, its McCann Healthcare unit in Chicago had run one of the first interactive commercials aimed at doctors. By 1995, it was already involved in more than 200 interactive projects in all major regions of the world, including Asia Pacific. With the December 1996 acquisition of Thunder House, it soon began to consolidate the many burgeoning online units around the McCann world into a single network — Thunder House Online Marketing Communications — which, within a half year, as the Internet boom gathered steam, became Worldgroup’s seventh communications corridor.

In 1997 McCann Erickson New York won the MasterCard ad account and launched the “Priceless” ad campaign with this TV spot, featuring a father taking his son to a baseball game. Over the next decade, the campaign would expand globally and into many different communications channels as the now-famous positioning (“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”) revitalised the brand in a transformed credit card category.

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CHAPTER 4

2010 McCann Thailand ad for the Zen Department Store in Bangkok, illustrating the flexibility of the MasterCard campaign to encompass promotions. The headline says “New shirt with matching shoes: Baht 25,000. Discover a new style that defines you. Priceless.”

Commercials from McCann Singapore (top) and McCann Korea demonstrate how well the MasterCard campaign has been localised in Asia. The Singapore “price” text translates as “Good sound system: $1,500” and the 2000 Korean one as “Parisian Beret: 120 Francs”.

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MRM AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

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Initially, the most dramatic impact of the Internet boom would be on MRM given that its traditional practice, direct marketing, was quickly converging with the online world. McCann had enjoyed a growing but modest presence in direct marketing that stemmed from a 1985 acquisition that was renamed McCann Direct. But after the ambitious Worldgroup launch, MRM would expand in 1998 and 1999 with acquisitions in the Asia Pacific and European regions, and also take on new or additional direct, database, and branded-content skill sets. Parallel to this, Interpublic in 1998 acquired a minority position in a three year old interactive agency called Zentropy, Inc. which would absorb Thunder House and become part of MRM’s expanded capabilities after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

As the digital field began to spread into new areas of specialised expertise, such as mobile, search, and social media, so did MRM’s range of competencies also expand. The agency’s growing expertise would earn it “Supplier of the Year” recognition in 2010 from both its General Motors and Verizon clients. Then in 2012, it would be named Crain’s BtoB Magazine’s “Top Interactive Agency of the Year” for the third time in five years. At the same time, MRM would also substantially fill out its Asia Pacific network, including opening an agency in Thailand in 2003 or one in Beijing in 2005. By 2012, the regional MRM network would encompass China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand and a new agency would be opened early that year in Melbourne, servicing clients across Australia and New Zealand.

Above MRM Singapore created a 2011 campaign for Intel around the “sponsors of tomorrow” theme that asked people in Thailand to propose their innovations for tomorrow for their country. It generated over 1,500 original innovations.

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MRM Asia Pacific has become a leader in creating many different types of digital campaigns, whether encompassing Facebook, mobile or social media, as shown in MRM’s work for Intel, Goodyear, and J&J Acuvue.

For Goodyear Tires, MRM Singapore created a 2012 mobile app called the “Goodyear Highway Helper” to help drivers with information.

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The award winning 2011 Intel Core Show 2gether campaign created by McCann Worldgroup Taiwan, invited consumers to experience the new Intel Core Processor through real-time 3D augmented reality integration. Over 8,000 people visited their studio to create ‘core shows’ – videos of users dancing with popular hip hop group, Da Mouth – which were shared via Facebook.

For Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, MRM Singapore’s 2012 Facebook application had a young man staring into the webcam without blinking. The theme for the total communications 1-Day Acuvue Moist “Blink Off” campaign was “Look Life in the Eye.” 51

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MOMENTUM: THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPICS AND BEYOND

Similarly, Worldgroup’s expansion through Momentum within the event, sponsorship, and promotional marketing field reflected the extension of long-emerging interests and practices. Momentum’s roots went back to a 1988 event and sports marketing acquisition in the U.S. But after making another acquisition in 1996 of a sponsorship and event marketing operation, the global expansion quickened. By February 1997 Momentum was opening its hub operations first in London and then in Tokyo. Developing an expertise that would be played out for its Coca-Cola client at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, some of Momentum’s early work had included such prominent activity at the 1996 Olympics as the Olympic Torch Run for Coca-Cola, the AT&T Global Olympic Village, and the GM Century of Motion Pavilion at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. At the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Momentum’s work included building a 55,000 square foot showcasing center in the heart of the Olympic Green in Beijing, China. The building had nine separate experiences that wove together for consumers the stories of Coca-Cola, China, and the Beijing Olympics.

The same trajectory that had broadened the digital world and had reshaped MRM would have a parallel impact on Momentum, as it would in fact for each and every Worldgroup discipline as digital began to increasingly command a major role in every marketing communications practice area.

Momentum would call this expertise “phygital” (for combining digital and physical space activation) inasmuch as it influenced its full offering of promotional and event capabilities.

Its work for Seiyu-Walmart in Japan, for example, would evolve to include a campaign that combined mass media, in-store, twitter, and crowdshopping.

In late 2011, Momentum’s expanded expertise in the region would also include setting up a joint venture retail marketing and shopper insights consultancy in Japan with Interpublic’s Mediabrands, and expanding its 11 country Asia Pacific network by absorbing another McCann Worldgroup unit in China that enhanced its digital, branding, shopper marketing, and activation competencies.

Momentum’s full-range expansion of its promotional and event capabilities has encompassed digital (what it has termed “phygital” for combining digital and physical space activation) and increasingly global resources as well.

Momentum, which had partnered with Coca-Cola on Olympic Games activation since 1996, also did so for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which included building a huge pavilion filled with experiential activities (above).

In 2009, Momentum helped Seiyu-Walmart by hosting a press conference and fashion events (right).

Further activities for the retail giant in 2011 would include twitter and crowdshopping as well as mass media and in-store promotions.

McCANN HEALTHCARE’S ASIA-PACIFIC ROOTS The worldwide healthcare communications discipline got off to a faster start than the others, in large part because of operations already in place in the Asia Pacific region. In 1985 McCann-Erickson had acquired a Chicago based agency called Sieber & McIntyre, which had a Japanese operation. That unit, called KK Standard McIntyre/McCann Healthcare, would be formed with offices in Tokyo and Osaka as a joint venture between McCann-Erickson and Japan’s KK Standard.

It was a dedicated healthcare communications company specialising in healthcare education, publishing, audiovisual, international communications and meetings and symposia.

But it was not until early 1996 that McCann became determined and systematic about building a worldwide healthcare communications network as it started acquiring agencies. Importantly, this included CWFS, an eight year old agency 52

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53 Once thought of strictly as involving scientific and medical technical language, healthcare communications has evolved creatively around the world to achieve the same high impact as consumer advertising, as these McCann Healthcare Asia Pacific ads demonstrate.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in late 2009 named McCann Healthcare Japan to develop a national campaign to help raise the Japanese public’s level of health, which included this anti-smoking ad.

that had offices in Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland. John Cahill, who was a founding partner of CWFS, would then steadily rise to head McCann Healthcare’s Asia Pacific and European regions before being promoted to global CEO in 2010.

In mid-1996, following the blueprint for growth that was the hallmark of all of its communications expansions, McCann purchased a core U.S. specialist agency to drive worldwide growth, which immediately catapulted McCann’s healthcare network into a top-5 position globally. Later in that same year, McCann Healthcare embraced the fuller spectrum of medical communications with the acquisition of the large UK based Complete Medical Communications group, a major player in medical education and meetings. Four years later a similar specialist would be added when, in 2000, Caudex Medical became the sixth medical education firm in the group. By 2007, both Complete Medical Group and Caudex Medical were global organisations. Additionally, a health and wellness direct-to-consumer communications agency called McCann HumanCare was started in New York in 2003 and then expanded around the world, including in Japan, China and Australia.

Both geographic and capabilities expansion were part of McCann Healthcare’s growth in the Asia Pacific region after the official launch of the worldwide communications practice in 1997. A McCann Healthcare unit had been established in China in 1996, and then the next year Greater China operations were set up with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

Healthcare agencies were established in Korea in 1999, and in India, first in Mumbai and then in New Delhi in 2001. A regional office was set up in 2003 in Singapore. The McCann Healthcare Asia Pacific network would also achieve considerable creative and business prominence in the region.

At the Campaign Asia “Agency of the Year” Awards, McCann Healthcare was named “Specialists Network of the Year” in 2010, for the third consecutive year. In 2011, at the same regional awards show, both McCann Healthcare Worldwide Japan and McCann HumanCare China were awarded “Specialist Agency of the Year” honors for North Asia and Greater China, respectively. That year was also the second in a row when McCann Healthcare won more international and national creative awards than any other network, with the healthcare agencies in Australia, China, India, Japan, and Singapore represented in this achievement.

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McCann Healthcare Australia won multiple creative awards, including a Grand Global in 2000, for its campaign for Bayer Australia’s Adalat Oros, a hypertension drug.

McCann Healthcare Singapore won multiple awards for its 2009 campaign for the world’s first online blood donor blog drive for the Singapore Red Cross.

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MORE WORLDWIDE DISCIPLINES, MORE COUNTRY WORLDGROUPS Universal McCann, which had been the McCann-Erickson media department prior to its 1999 formation as a separate unit, was already a global enterprise because of its McCann heritage. Its creative achievements in the Asia Pacific region especially would add to its geographic and other credentials.

UM Australia creatively would win the Cannes International Advertising Festival Media Grand Prix for its work for Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream, and then would also win this top global media creativity award again in 2006 for Unilever’s Lynx men’s cologne.

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Weber Shandwick Worldwide similarly was already a major public relations network presence in Asia Pacific, with roots in the region stretching back 50 years. Its impressive industry reputation included remaining a regular winner of international and local awards. Among its many signature achievements in the region, Weber Shandwick would become the public relations firm behind both Beijing’s successful bid for the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai’s winning bid for the 2010 World Expo.

Weber Shandwick China’s work related to Expo 2010 Shanghai China included helping Shanghai itself to win the bid and also handling major exhibitors.

In contrast with UM’s and Weber Shandwick’s established histories in the region, FutureBrand was built from a single 1997 U.S. acquisition into a global network. By 2000, it would expand into a full-service corporate branding and packaging firm with operations in 17 countries, including offices for the first time in Asia Pacific in Singapore and Hong Kong. Its creative impact would extend beyond corporations to determining how countries in the region would position themselves.

The scope of FutureBrand’s brand equity capabilities has encompassed many elements and venues of expression, from overall corporate branding to the physical environment of stores.

FutureBrand’s branding expertise extends to countries as well as companies, including in recent years Singapore (pictured) as well as Australia (by FutureBrand Melbourne). FutureBrand Singapore itself was named “Brand Agency of the Year” in 2009.

FutureBrand Melbourne would develop brand identities for the country of Australia itself as well as for the Sydney 2000 Olympics while FutureBrand Singapore would develop brand identity for that country. In 2009, it was named “Brand Agency of the Year” in Singapore.

Then, in 2010, Worldgroup EXP would become Worldgroup’s eighth worldwide discipline company. It had been created as a global production company dedicated to helping clients drive efficiency, brand consistency, and a greater return on their marketing investment.

But while the marketing communications disciplines grew as internationally networked practices, the Worldgroup expansion was also developing bottom-up within countries.

McCann Worldgroup Korea provides an example of how this

occurred. It established Universal McCann in 1999 as the first independent media agency in the market. In 2004 it expanded as McCann Worldgroup to deliver a wider range of specialised services through McCann-Erickson, Universal McCann, MRM, Momentum, and McCann Healthcare. In 2009, it both launched Weber Shandwick to offer services in PR and strategic communications and made a healthcare acquisition to strengthen that capability locally.

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San Miguel Beer was one of the first major local accounts won

by McCann Philippines when it opened in the early 1960s.

The account has become a creative showcase for the agency, including this 2002 “100 Words” TV commercial for San Miguel Pale Pilsen.

At the same time, the Asia-Pacific region continued to add new agencies and partners. In 2008, McCann New Zealand was reborn as an agency brand after having been merged with Lowe for several years. Also in 2008, McCann’s affiliate in Pakistan changed from Orient Advertising to Orientm-McCann Erickson, a new agency founded by Masood Hashmi, one of the sons of Orient’s founder, S. H. Hashmi, who had died in 2006. Orientm-McCann Erickson’s client list included assignments from L’Oréal Pakistan, Nestlé, and Pfizer’s Wyeth Pakistan as well as from major local clients such as Bank Islami, Packages Limited, and Q-Mobile. And by 2012, River Orchid in Cambodia would be on board as an affiliate in that country that also represented the agency in Vietnam and Myanmar.

The client mix in the Asia Pacific agencies would also continue to take on a new cast. McCann’s heritage as a leader in working with global clients still remained an essential strength. As a regional hub, McCann Singapore, for example, would serve as a coordination center for about a dozen

blue-chip multinational clients by 2012. But each agency had also evolved more local presence, including in developing relationships with multinational companies that were not part of the overall McCann worldwide client list. McCann Taiwan provides an example. The global McCann clients such as CocaCola, L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, and MasterCard are on its list, but so are other international clients such 3M, Subway, J.P. Morgan, and Dunkin’ Donuts as well as Taiwanese accounts such as BenQ, ASUS, Chimei, Keywear, and Taiwan Beer.

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The Internet has become an important communications medium in the beer category, as this campaign from McCann Taiwan demonstrated. Sweet Touch is the newest fruit beer product line of Taiwan Beer. It was successfully launched in 2011 through a digital campaign that identified the young female target audience as people who enjoyed romantic daydreams and social contact through Facebook. So the campaign created a “Love Imaginary World” with a Facebook tie-in.

By 2003, McCann Worldgroup’s seven worldwide marketing communications networks formed a powerful combination with a range of capabilities and global leadership in their sectors. This was true in network size and geographical reach, scope of capabilities, quality of product, and blue-chip client partnerships. Revenue from the newer disciplines was up to 40% of the total, a percentage about twice as high as when the expansion had begun. The McCann agency was also winning plaudits. In 2004, Advertising Age chose McCann-Erickson as one of the few large agencies to receive the top “5 stars” in its annual ranking, which it would repeat the following year.

Internationally, McCann also demonstrated a new dynamism.

McCann Asia Pacific not only had one of the region’s best new business records overall in 2004, but it also achieved high visibility for its success in individual countries, particularly in India, Taiwan, and China.

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These two 2011 magazine ads from McCann in China show work for two different nameplates, supporting the Cadillac SRX and the launch of the Chevrolet Aveo.

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MRM, which was named GM’s “Supplier of the Year” in 2010, works with GM across many areas of expertise and in many countries around the world, including this website above created by MRM India for Chevrolet.

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GM’s famous Australian brand Holden shook up the domestic market with a series of new model introductions, including for the Holden Ute (as in “utility”), as shown in this ad from McCann Melbourne.

As one of McCann’s oldest and most extensively global accounts, General Motors works with McCann Worldgroup agencies in all regions of the world and on many of the different nameplates and models across these markets.

It has also become a major multidiscipline client as well.

When Cathay Pacific Airlines wanted to celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2006, McCann Worldgroup’s Cathay Pacific Central Team in Hong Kong created a total program. As shown here, it included TV and print advertising, as well as a website, but also the reworking of actual physical space for this marketing effort. It transformed the terminal for the Airport Express train that goes from downtown to the airport into a “time tunnel” showcasing historical aircrafts over the years. And including flight attendants dressed in historical outfits. The installation included 3D pillars and signage along with audio boarding announcements to create a total experience for passengers.

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A CREATIVE RENAISSANCE

In 2002, Prasoon Joshi, a leading creative figure in Indian advertising, joined McCann in that country to drive creativity and growth. The transformation would begin right away. In 2003, the agency’s “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola” campaign would not only win two Gold Lions at Cannes and sweep various local awards, but would also re-establish the brand which was facing strong competition from Pepsi. By 2005, McCann India would move up to a top three position in creative and perception rankings, having not even been in the top dozen in 2001. By 2008, it would become the most creatively awarded Indian agency at Cannes with six Lions, and its commercial for Perfetti’s Happydent gum that year would be declared the best advertising commercial produced in India.

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McCann India would also rise in size to become one of the top agencies in India and the new business leader in 2011, repeating from 2007. Many major local clients would be added to the roster, including Reliance, Dabur, Marico, TVS motors, Aircel, Videocon, Britannia, and Perfetti. Joshi himself would be promoted within McCann first to become Executive Chairman at McCann Worldgroup and Regional Creative Director for Asia Pacific and then to President McCann Worldgroup South Asia in 2012.

McCann Mumbai’s 2008 TV commercial for Perfetti’s Happydent Teeth Whitening gum was called the best advertising commercial produced in India that year. The brand’s promise of dazzling smiles became that literally in this short cinematic adventure. This campaign won many major local, regional and international awards.

This surreal “Welcome to the Homeland” TV commercial from McCann India for Xbox 360 was an example not only of the Indian agency’s creative approach, but of that for the brand globally. The 2007 introduction of the Halo 3 video game by McCann’s San Francisco agency won the top Grand Prix awards at Cannes both in the Integrated Marketing and Film categories.

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Other countries would also see a new creative and business energy. In January 2003, a new management team of Malaysian nationals was brought in to head McCann Kuala Lumpur. It included Tony Savarimuthu as CEO and Lee Szu-Hung and Huang Ean Hwa as deputy chairmen and executive creative directors. The agency would subsequently become one of the most creatively awarded agencies in the region. In 2005, it produced the only global Coca-Cola TV commercial for the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan, a spot that would be adapted by more than 12 countries and become one of a select group of commercials shown to visitors at the Coca-Cola headquarters museum in Atlanta.

The creative resurgence of McCann Asia Pacific in the 2000s encompassed print as well as television, digital and other media. Award-winning print ads, such as the one for Artline Pens from McCann Malaysia or the antigambling illustration from McCann Singapore, reveal a subtle intricacy that makes them extremely engaging visually on behalf of their messages.

McCann Malaysia’s work for Artline Pens

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McCann Korea’s 1999 Coke commercial called “Apartment” was another example of the famous creativity behind this brand.

McCann Malaysia in 2005 produced the only global Coca-Cola commercial for the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan.

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This print ad from McCann India’s “Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola” campaign won two Gold Lions at Cannes in 2003 and reinforced the successful launch of the agency’s creative renaissance.

Coke’s ability to tie into the excitement of sports sponsorship was evident in this 1997 McCann New Zealand TV spot featuring the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team

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In 2006, McCann added another regional creative leader when Spencer Wong joined as executive creative director of the agency’s Hong Kong office and as executive vice president of McCann-Erickson Guangming China. He would become managing director of McCann Worldgroup Hong Kong and lead it to winning a Cannes Grand Prix in 2009.

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Continuing this success, in 2011 McCann Hong Kong transformed Coca-Cola’s iconic TV summer campaign into a highly engaging initiative that generated buzz and excitement among Hong Kong teens.

By leveraging the two technologies of television and the phone, a traditional campaign was transformed into a new and interactive sensation. The development of the Chok Chok Chok app and campaign led to Coca-Cola being named “Digital Marketer of the Year” in 2011 at the Asia Digital Media Awards. The work also picked up the Grand Kam Fan at the Hong Kong creative awards.

Building on this creative momentum, McCann ended the year in 2011 within the top 3 creatively ranked agencies in the Philippines and Thailand, and was ranked number 1 in Malaysia and Hong Kong, according to their local market award shows.

McCann Singapore created an award-winning 2008 viral YouTube video showing a ghost in an elevator behind people late at night in the Raffles Hotel. It was eventually revealed that the hoax was for the GMP employment agency and its “No one should work late” ad campaign to attract job seekers.

MRM Thailand won a 2010 PR Lion at Cannes for its program that launched the LG Lollipop mobile phone with an online series about love and communication called the “Lollipop Love Story.” The campaign, which generated considerable press and blog activity, was supported with advertising that drove traffic to the micro site where teen audiences could watch the series.

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Coca-Cola’s 2011 “Chok Chok Chok” app and combination TV and interactive campaign from McCann Hong Kong led to the client being named “Digital Marketer of the Year” in 2011 at the Asia Digital Media Awards.

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NEW LEADERSHIP

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For all the achievements of its first decade, McCann Worldgroup faced new challenges in addressing the dramatic shifts occurring in the relationship between consumers and marketers as part of the fast-emerging digital age. By 2010, digital was no longer simply another tool available in each discipline’s toolbox; it had become at the very least integral and often the pervasive driving force of many campaigns.

Additionally, while the various Worldgroup discipline companies were moving ahead in adapting to the changes in the industry, the great global recession and financial crisis that began in late 2008 weighed heavily on the company worldwide. Major setbacks with Microsoft in 2009, with budget cutbacks at General Motors as it restructured as part of the recession, and the loss of part of the Verizon account in 2010 were not offset by the type of big global account wins that McCann was traditionally known for. And in spite of winning Cannes Grand Prix advertising awards in 2008 out of San Francisco for Xbox and in 2009 out of Hong Kong for Nike, the perception held that McCann needed new digitally integrated creative energy as well.

In 2010, with John Dooner retiring, Interpublic announced that, effective in April, Nick Brien would succeed him as the next CEO of McCann Worldgroup. He would be only the eighth to lead the entire worldwide company over its centurylong history. Brien had joined Worldgroup five years earlier as chairman and CEO of Universal McCann and subsequently headed IPG’s media management arm, Mediabrands.

Prior to joining UM, Brien had more than two decades of experience, including at Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett ad agency, Starcom media agency, and Arc Worldwide diversified communications unit. He had played key roles in shaping and leading those companies’ marketing, media, advertising, and integrated communications offerings. In his three years at UM, he and his team stabilized the agency after some difficult years. When he left to become CEO of Mediabrands in 2008, UM was poised to reclaim best-inclass designation, and was then fittingly named the 2009 “Holding Company of the Year” by Media Magazine.

regional leadership team charged with driving change across their respective geographies. Charles Cadell, previously CEO of Lowe Lintas India, was hired as regional managing director for McCann Worldgroup, Southeast Asia & Australia, while Prasoon Joshi oversaw India, T H Peng China and Michael McLaren Japan and Korea. During that year, there was siginificant changes to country leadership as the company saw the elevation of the next level management (Thailand, Philippines) or new talent joining the ranks (Indonesia, China, Japan). In late 2011, McCann concluded the acquisition of SMART with its team taking on the leadership of McCann in Australia. The new entity assumed the name McCann Erickson Australia and the combined operation made McCann Erickson one of Australia’s largest agencies poised for another exciting chapter.

Upon assuming the Worldgroup CEO role, Brien himself talked about the changes taking place in the industry, and the need to build enhanced capabilities as a marketing solutions company. “Our industry is undergoing radical transformation. To keep pace with the changes being driven by emerging technology, it is vital to focus on collaboration, creativity and organisational flexibility,” he said.

In January 2012 Cadell would be promoted to president of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific while Prasoon Joshi advanced to become president of McCann Worldgroup South Asia overseeing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

A YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION IN ASIA PACIFIC

The new regional leadership “will drive deeper collaboration plus allow us to accelerate investment opportunities in a more cohesive manner,” said Nick Brien. “McCann Worldgroup has positioned itself for an ambitious growth strategy and must be continually obsessed with creative excellence, strategic innovation and performance measurement.”

For McCann Asia Pacific, 2011 would become a year of transformation. Under Nick Brien’s leadership, the new vision and ambition for the collaborative McCann Worldgroup began in earnest across the region with the installation of a new 64

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“2011 was the year in which we reorganised and restructured to lay the foundations of our future success. Today we are a re-energised agency network in Asia Pacific poised for great things.

2012 is where we rediscover our mojo as a collective powerhouse of Asia Pacific.

It is the year we deliver on the promises we have made to our own people, to our Clients and to ourselves. The strong entrepreneurial spirit combined with incredible talent that exists across the group will ensure we continue to be the agency that pioneers brands for positive change in this Region. This book is only half written – what comes next as we embrace and own the digital century will make for gripping prose,” concluded Cadell.

Nike and McCann Hong Kong won the 2009 Cannes Grand Prix in the Design category for their unique approach to developing posters in 2008 for the Nike Basketball League. The “Paper Battlefield” program had the top players put silkscreen images of themselves on the poster and then had other players overlay their own images so that the random cross printing captured the fierceness of competitive sports. More than 350 posters were made showing 350 different clashes of athletic skills.

The award was the first Cannes Grand Prix won by an agency in China.

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The network across Asia Pacific had closed 2011 in a financially strong position, after winning several large high-profile pitches and strengthening existing relationships with key clients. Moreover, the new business energy was evident across all markets in Asia Pacific, and in March 2012, McCann was placed third in Campaign Asia’s new business league tables, having previously not even ranked among the top 10.

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PIONEERING NEVER STOPS

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