The Rise & Fall of Y&R

I started my media career with Zenith in London. However I only lasted a year in their miserable office until I was lured by the lucre of Y&R.

It was at this famous private American agency that I spent my formative years. Two in London & three in Warsaw. What little I know about the business I know from them. It was a great place to work. Big & rich with a wonderful history, the place where Beanz Meanz Heinz was created. The London office also made no money. Not a sausage. But being a private business this didn't seem to matter too much.

I joined them at their nadir... the opposite of Zenith who were the biggest in London at the time. But a few years earlier Y&R was famously run by John Banks. Apparently upon winning a major account without a pitch he announced that he would honour any expense submitted before 12 noon the following day. People could, and did, go to the best restaurants in town. One person even went to Paris for the night.

Even in our poor years we still enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. There were sports cars in the parking lot which you could take for the weekend. There was the gym in the building built with the profits of the the "Tell Sid" Campaign. And we all went to Paris for our Christmas lunch 1994 as we had won the Eurostar account. We were even winning business again, notably Ford, by producing brilliant ads like the one in the headline link.

When I was Media Director in Poland we were visited by Alex Kroll, the legendary head of the company. His family were originally from Poland so he always took a strong interest in our region, even opening an office in Moscow as early as 1989. He made a wonderful speech to the company about children & the future.

He also made it clear that the secret of Y&R's success was that it was private.

Peter Georgescu, a Romanian American, took over from Kroll in 1994. He took Y&R public in 1998 and WPP bought them in 2000.

It hasn't been the same since.