SYDNEY: Neville Jeffress, the man who pioneered the recruitment advertising industry more than 60 years ago, has died.
The 87-year-old advertising legend passed away in a UK hospital after contracting pneumonia last Thursday night (13 September).
Jeffress became interested in recruitment advertising after returning from service in the Second World War, and began a small business from the back of his newsagency, on Sydney’s northern beaches.
The Neville Jeffress Advertising agency grew to be Australia’s one of largest advertising agencies. In 1995, it ranked sixth in income and billings. It dealt exclusively in classified advertising before being sold to US recruitment strategy and advertising giant TMP Worldwide in a deal worth $25 million.
Jeffress was also the founder of media clipping service Media Monitors, and remained chairman of the company.
Jeffress had friends in high places throughout the media and advertising world, including media mogul Harold Mitchell, who shared a cuppa with Jeffress in Mitchell’s Sydney office just four months ago.
“To the very end he was making sure that his businesses were modern and up to date. He was polite but still tough. What a way to go,” Mitchell said this afternoon.
“He was fit and well, and was telling me of plans for more travel.”
Mitchell said Jeffress’ legacy would be his ability to make information available to an ever-enquiring public.
Jeffress was raised and educated in Sydney and had a lifelong association with newspapers and the media. He joined the Afternoon Sun newspaper in 1936 as a clerk in the publishing department.
In 1982, Jeffress purchased NSW Country Press and merged it with the Sydney press clipping firm, Lynch Pidler. The new company, Neville Jeffress/Pidler, grew through the acquisition of other press clipping services, including the Australian Press Cutting Agency and Media Monitors, giving the organisation its current name.
Jeffress held a Member of the Order of Australia, which he was awarded in 2006, for outstanding services to advertising and the media industry.
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