Andrew Varasdi faces a dilemma. Does he talk up the involvement of legend-ary admen John Singleton and Allan “Jo” Johnston in Banjo, his new agency, or does he downplay their presence for fear of appearing old hat? At the heart of the issue: do Singo and Jo still have it?
Given Singleton’s liking for the track, it’s appropriate that Varasdi appears to be having a bet both ways. Singleton and Johnston are involved in the agency, but only as far as it suits him, and them.
Reports that John Singleton is playing a hands-on role in Banjo have been greatly exaggerated, says Varasdi. The 38-year-old Singleton protégé, who dedicated 16 years of service to the agency now known as Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, says Singleton is merely funding the operation. But given Singleton’s many and varied business con-nections, Varasdi adds: “His role is chief referrer.”
Similarly, Johnston, one half of the most successful creative partnership in Australian advert-ising, will be a hands-off investor, says Varasdi.
But the jingle, always Mo and Jo’s most potent weapon, has been happily tipped by Varasdi as staging a reprise with Banjo.
Singleton has a long and overwhelmingly successful history in Australian advertising. He first burst onto the scene in 1968, aged 25, when he opened the prov-ocatively named SPASM. Showing his entrepreneurial character early, he was one of the first creatives to launch his own agency.
SPASM was taken over by DDB when the multinational giant made its first move into Australia, but Singleton went on to make his name with his eponymous agency, John Singleton Advertising.
The agency became Australia’s most famous ad business and, under Singleton’s guidance, it churned out a succession of well-known campaigns, including Qantas’s still-running “I still call Australia home” campaign.
Singleton moulded the agency in his image: ocker, hard-working, focused on selling clients’ products and turning its nose up at what the rest of the industry considered creative advertising. And it worked. Clients flocked to the then Hunters Hill-based agency, and Singleton became rich and famous.
But is Singleton still relevant? The ad game, after all, is now a vastly different beast to the one the young Singleton tackled, tamed and used to make his name.
One of his old employees, Jack Watts Currie creative director Colin Watts, reckons that Singleton is
just as relevant today as he was in his heyday.
“He understands selling, simple as that,” Watts says. “Does he personally understand how to create good advertising? Possibly. But he understands media really well. It’s very easy to write [Banjo] off as a couple of old farts and a sidekick – but that would be a mistake.”
Euro RSCG Asia Pacific chief executive Tom Moult argues that Singleton’s return is in keeping with his character. “If you did a brand value chart of John Singleton, you’d have the word ‘mischievous’ in there,” Moult says.
“In the heyday of Singos, his authority was so strong with clients, someone would leave the office in a cab with the work and Singo would call the head of Telstra and say: ‘I’ve just seen the work, it’s bloody marvellous.’ The work was sold before the guy was out of the cab. That’s a huge level of authority I’ve never had.
“They’ll do OK, or do well, or really well,” Moult predicts. “There’s interest out there.”
That there is. Varasdi claims to have been talking to a raft of potential clients in the month since Banjo’s official launch, with two clients already on board. And that’s without a strategist – Ben Lyttle, also a Singleton Ogilvy & Mather defector, starts on 1 September – or a creative director – an appointment is another three months down the track, says Varasdi.
Moult is not alone among agency heads who believe Banjo will be a success, despite – or perhaps because of – the much talked-about economic slow-down hitting Australia.
Watts, a partner with Singo’s son, Jack Singleton, in boutique Sydney agency Jack Watts Currie, shares Moult’s view that Banjo will prosper.
“First and foremost they’re business people,” Watts says, “which means they’re extremely good at reading what is needed in the market.
“When they were indepen-dent [John Singleton Advertising went public in 1994 and global giant WPP is now a significant shareholder] and didn’t have shareholders telling them how to suck eggs, they read the mood correctly. Varasdi, being freed from shareholder constraints, will do well.”
While he wishes Banjo well, Watts says his agency won’t deal the start-up any favours: “We’ll go hard against them if we have to face them in a pitch.”
As for Varasdi, naturally he thinks starting a new business in the middle of an economic slowdown will play in his favour.
“It’s a good time to launch an agency when there’s no financial pressures,” Varasdi says. “You’re small, you’re nimble, your cost base is very small. Hopefully we’ll start to get some traction.”
Host founder and chief executive Anthony Freedman, whose independent agency has undergone an accelerated growth spurt in the past 12 months since winning the BankWest account, agrees a new business can thrive in an economic slowdown – with a proviso.
“A new business can prosper in tough economic times assuming it’s clear about what it has to offer and assuming there are relationships that can be tapped into.
“If this business is a new business and it can secure new clients, even if those clients are spending less than before, it’s still new business.”
Will Banjo be a threat to independent agencies such as Host? “I imagine we would appeal to a different kind of client,” Freedman says diplomatically.
While refusing to comment on Banjo’s chances of success, BMF CEO Matthew Melhuish says he’s not worried about the potential of another competitor.
“We welcome everyone,” he says of Banjo’s launch. “There’s always opportunity for people wanting to do something new.”
The Banjo players have pinned their hopes on a return to the full-service agency model, and it is perhaps this, rather than Singo and Jo’s involvement, which will determine its fate.
While stressing that Banjo will be a “creatively-focused agency”, Varasdi is a firm believer in the full-service model.
“We want to be a full-service strategic creative agency,” he says. Varasdi is taking steps in that direction with the planned appointment of a media director.
Predictably, not everyone thinks a return to the full-service model is necessary – or possible.
“It’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube,” says Y&R Brands chief executive Nigel Marsh, borrowing from his WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell.
“Rightly or wrongly the world has moved on from the early days of my career when I grew up in a full-service agency. Given the complexity of the business, there is a clear argument that agencies from both sides have a res-ponsibility to make sure content and contact strategies are not developed in silos.
“There are many different ways of doing this that don’t involve the traditional full-service model,” Marsh argues. “The growth of channel planning in agencies and some of the genuinely fabulous working part-nerships that have developed between creative and media agencies being just two examples.
“Collaboration has to happen – how you deliver this organ-isationally will differ from case to case,” says Marsh. “I’d be a bit wary of someone suggesting there is a one-size-fits-all solution – and that he happens to have it.”
Regardless of his scepticism, Marsh says it would be “foolhardy to ever underestimate Singo”.
While creative agencies such as The Campaign Palace – a part of Marsh’s Y&R Brands fold – and Photon-owned BMF have ven-tured into the media strategy space with channel planners, independent agency Razor has been operating as a full-service agency for two years now.
Razor partner Andrew Wynne says that while clients benefit from the holistic thinking and cost savings of the full-service model, they “have been per-suaded that there is value in the separation of disciplines”.
“There are two types of confusion Banjo will face, which is what happened to us,” Wynne says. “Clients will say: ‘Oh, they’re an integrated agency. That’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a creative agency or a media agency.’ And second, if you pitch for one part [media or creative], they’ll say: ‘Hang on, aren’t you an integrated agency?’
“That’s the problem of creat-ing new models. We’ve missed out on two or three pitches because [clients] couldn’t classify us properly. It’s taken us a lot of time to establish ourselves, because you can only prove your worth with your work.”
Banjo, however, Wynne admits has some advantages his agency didn’t have: a high profile and Singo’s network of contacts. “Andrew [Varasdi] is a good operator. They’re known in the industry and I’m sure there’s a lot of loyalty there for them.
“If they can shift business to get it going, they’ll do pretty well versus others who had to do it without that backing and background – like us.”
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