Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CEO
Kevin Roberts has made an “impassioned stand” against Unilever Chairman Niall
FitzGerald’s accusation that ad agencies are failing to keep up with the
communications needs of modern companies, according to an Advertising Age report.
Roberts spoke at the annual conference of the European Advertising Agencies’
Association in Budapest last week. It was the same platform FitzGerald had
used a year earlier.
Roberts declared himself unconcerned that his speech was likely to send any
chance of winning Unilever business “sub-zero,” Ad Age said.
“The assumption that large agencies are stuck in a competitive time warp, not
knowing how to respond is wrong. The metaphor is wrong. We’re not dinosaurs,
we’re Godzilla and we want it all: TV, print, bill- boards, infomercials,
radio, pencils, skywriting, the Web. If it’s the right medium to communicate,
we’ll embrace it and use it,” he was quoted as saying.
Roberts spelled out Saatchi’s “digital smarts” – such as its ownership of new
media shops and the spread of its interactive teams. He also cited its Web
projects for
Toyota, Hewlett Packard and General Mills, and its Web-based Innovation in
Communication Award, and suggested most other agencies were just as
advanced.
The full text of the story is available at AdAge.
