5 good reasons for Dentsu5 Australia?
It’s Monday so a good day to speculate on 5 good reasons for this possible scenario:
1) Dentsu still no closer to having a physical presence in Australia, almost 5 months after taking the Yaris business off Droga5 and announcing their intention to “launch” in Australia in February. Droga5 Australia is 100% independent, owned jointly between local partners and Droga5 NY. Dentsu could probably afford to buy them for $20m+ (that’s the Dentsu building in Tokyo pictured left).
2) Scott Thompson, now Marketing Head of Toyota Australia, was known to be a very vocal critic internally at decision to shelve Droga5. He is also responsible for continuing to air Droga’s Yaris work on TV.
3) Widely acknowledged that Toyota/Lexus client’s most successful relationship at Saatchi’s in the last year was with Steve Jackson, who penned their five Gold Lion winning Landcruiser campaign, as well as his swansong, the popular Toyota “Glass Dummy” corporate ad. Since late last month, now a CD at Droga5.
4) Along with exit of Saatchi’s planning head on Toyota last year, and the resignation of Saatchi’s regional chief Ian Rowden last month – still not reported by the other trade press – Saatchi’s have no senior relationships with Toyota beyond Saatchi CEO John Foley.
5) Along with Droga5 chairman David Nobay, Droga5 managing director Marianne Bess ran the Toyota account at Saatchi’s through its most profitable period, both here and in North America, as well as working on the client side here in Sydney with them, ironically helping to establish Toyota’s internal working systems with its roster agencies.
Dentsu5 Australia? Makes sense to us….
12 Comments
Hmmm. I think everyone in Japan has a little more to worry about at the moment, advertising industry included.
Correct 12:51PM. Dentsu’s plans for Oz remain unchanged, but understandably, the earthquake and tsunami have meant management have their eyes focussed on more important things.
Mmmmm… 1:08… are you from Dentsu? The quake happened in early March, a month after the “planned” February (in fact one report said January) launch. If all business stopped in Japan out of respect for the victims of the Tsunami, forget a nuclear meltdown, Japan would have had an economic meltdown. My guess is that Dentsu will try to buy an agency here rather than start from scratch. Either Oddfellows or, after reading this, D5 does make sense too.
I’m not so sure why Steve Jackson is getting all the credit for the work Saatchi have done on Toyota and Lexus.
I think even he would feel a little uncomfortable with that.
He played a part but other great creatives were involved. Toyota Glass Dummy was created by a bunch of awesome people and I seem to recall another well known creative partnering him and creating the five Gold Lion winning Landcruiser campaign. Yes, Steve is great but lets not forget the other equals who made this work possible.
And, D5 just picked up the Renault account and I don’t thing Droga himself would be interested in merging with Dentsu.
This just feels like Droga5 pr, masquerading as a real story.
“the popular Toyota ‘Glass Dummy’ corporate ad”
Popular?
“Droga5 Australia is 100% independent, owned jointly between local partners and Droga5 NY”
Who owns Droga5 NY?
“Along with Droga5 chairman David Nobay, Droga5 managing director Marianne Bess ran the Toyota account at Saatchi’s through its most profitable period, both here and in North America”
I’m sure Nobay and Bess had HEAPS to do with the performance of the company in North America. And let’s be honest. The success of any automotive brand in Australia is HEAVILY dictated by it’s success is bigger markets. Whether cars here sell begins way before an ad agency does some ads. So let’s keep our hands off it on the profit front.
Come on CB, please fess up as why you hate Saatchis so much, that you continuously choose to run ‘unofficial’ speculative stories that so clearly try to (directly or indirectly)put to boot into them. This story above is really trawling the barrel with more tediously outrageous ‘untruths’. Clearly they really must have done something major to piss you off. What is it? They don’t do a good lunch anymore?
If I were a conspiracy theorist I can only assume that you are acting on behalf of your ‘close personal friends’ at D5 who, especially with all this acquisition chatter in the market place recently, clearly don’t want to miss out on the action.
This is the funniest story of the year.
I think it’s great to see this sort of article in which there’s a bit of journalism – even if it’s speculation – rather than the mere recycling of press releases which normally passes for content on the revered Blog. It shows a real insider understanding of our hallowed industry, and let’s face it, you can’t say the same about the other trade press now can you? Most of them would be just as clueless writing for Fishing Monthly, because that’s probably where they worked last month.
I feel like sushi
A good call 4:14pm. Sooner or later advertising journalism might evolve from just being a recycler of PR and what mates have said at a bar into stories which do more than just inform. They provoke. Certainly no Pulitzer here Lynchy but keep them coming – better than just reading about Multinational CD X has just moved to Multinational Agency Y.
Why don’t Dentsu just buy up Host, 3DMonkeys, D5 and be done with all the buy out rumours for good – they are getting boring!
And as CB has given Saatchi Agency of the Decade and many Agency OTYears – over the years – so must think highly of a range of people who work and have worked there – not just the one or two mentioned above. Saatchi have been a great agency in Sydney – and like all agencies have their ups and downs – they’ll be back on top again soon.