Interview: Martin Sorrell

INTERVIEW: MARTIN SORRELL
''My Job Is To Look For Fine Tribal Chiefs ''

Martin Sorrell's WPP, which owns close to 80 communication companies including O&M and JWT, acquired Young & Rubicam in June. In an e-mail interview with BT, Sorrell spoke about the next step for WPP, and the industry. Excerpts:

Q. Given WPP's acquisition of Young and Rubicam, and Publicis' of Saatchi & Saatchi, is size becoming important in advertising?

A. I don't think that size is becoming important. In our own case, there is no significant combination that is taking place, except perhaps in the media investment management area where, depending on what their CEOs think, MindShare and Media Edge might develop some combination in some way, shape or form.

The more important issue is how we can bring our increased resources together to add value to our clients and our people. The key issue is how clients access all the talent we have in the group in a more effective way. From a people point of view, it is about creating better career opportunities for our 55,000, people either through a multi-disciplinary approach or by advancing their career development. In essence, I don't think size is the issue. WPP is a series of 'Tribes', as we like to call them, which range in size from (organisations with) 9,000 employees down to (organisations with) half a dozen.

Are the economics of running an ad conglomerate different from that of running a single agency?

I don't like the question because you refer to us, by implication, as an advertising conglomerate. We are not solely in advertising. I'd like to think of ourselves as being a focused communications services company or advertising and marketing services company. We believe that there are dis-economies of scale in creative businesses and that's why we like the idea of Tribes.

We aim to add value to our Tribes through various areas such as hr (training, recruitment, career development, and retention); property (making sure that we lay out our properties in the most effective way); procurement; and information technology. We also practice development in media investment management, healthcare, privatisation, new technologies, new markets, retailing, internal communications, entertainment, media, financial services, and telecom.

There's a Thompson way, a Y&R way , and an O&M way, of advertising. However, there must also be a WPP way of doing business, which any agency or communications entity that comes under the WPP fold must follow. How does this work?

Thompson, Y&R, or Ogilvy, all have their own distinct ways. However, they're not advertising ways, but total communications processes.

There isn't a WPP way, but there may be a WPP style. We started with two people in one room in Lincoln's Inn Field 15 years ago. If you want to describe the WPP style, maybe we should describe it as paranoia! We're paranoid that we'll go back to two people in one room. What we want is the power and resources of a large company, and the heart and soul of a small one.

For some time in the late 1990s, JWT seemed to have missed the new-media bus. At the same time, OgilvyInteractive, a division of O&M, was flourishing. Isn't that a strange thing to happen when both agencies are owned by the same parent?

It's a little unfair to say that Thompson has missed the new media bus. There's digital@jwt, ThompsonConnect, JWT Specialized Communications, JWT Technology, and other parts of the empire, which are very strong in the New Economy area. I think it is fair to say that Ogilvy with OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Interactive have a more focused and a strong New Economy offer. To some extent, this is driven by clients such as IBM, Amex and sap.

Y&R has a similar strength in the direct and interactive areas with Impiric (formerly Wunderman Cato Johnson). The strategic development of the agencies is upto the leaders of the individual operating companies. In the case of Thompson, Chris Jones; for Ogilvy, Shelly Lazarus; and in the case of Y&R Advertising, Ed Vick. Suffice it to say that wpp.com, the parent company of our new media efforts, represents the parent company strategy, which is to stimulate our existing brands to develop their new media offer aggressively. It would also ensure that we make investments directly in ventures that will add knowledge to our Tribes.

In an interview to Fast Company last year, you expressed the view that the US is the centre of gravity of the global economy. Isn't that a little unfair to Europe and Asia? When do you see this changing?

It's a plain fact of life that in most industrial categories the American economy dominates. But I believe that it may change over time. History shows that when countries have political or economic hegemony to the extent that the Americans, or indeed, the Japanese have had, things change. People become arrogant, complacent, lazy, whatever, and as a result, just like companies, there are cycles, and fortunes ebb and flow.

Asia-Pacific will be one of the most important regions in our strategic planning. Positioned 40 per cent in the US, 40 per cent in Europe, and 20 per cent in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, we would rather see ourselves at one-third, one-third, and one-third, respectively.

How do you manage a group that spans close to 80 geographically diverse companies, each with its own style of functioning...

With difficulty.

And how would you define your role as CEO of WPP today?

My critical job at WPP is to make sure that each of our Tribes is led by the finest possible tribal chief.

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