Jeremy Bullmore, who died earlier this month, was a columnist par excellence, renowned for his humour, verve, intellect and self-deprecation. An industry luminary, he wrote a column for Haymarket Media's Marketing magazine, before directing his sharpened pen, and wit, to its sister title, ±±¾©Èü³µpk10. Former Marketing and ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 editors, harking back to 1993, recall their experiences of working with "adland’s greatest philosopher".
Claire Beale
Founder, Creative Salon, and editor (2004-2012) and global editor-in-chief (2014-2020), ±±¾©Èü³µpk10
I'm back in the chair in Jeremy's office at the end of the corridor in Farm Street. His room is dark, and cosy and comfortingly messy. His enormous desk is pillared with wobbly towers of books and in the spaces between are scattered bound documents, stapled reports, scraps of note paper, faxes. And through the paper jungle, Jeremy peers over his spectacles, drilling me with a decidedly challenging stare.
Inevitably I am looking for advice: often on how to navigate some senseless corporate roadblock; or how to combat the unmerited but aggressive arrogance of this or that adman; or whether this page design is more appealing than that one; but also, sometimes, advice on how to be a working mum (in the days when working from home one day a week meant losing a fifth of your salary without any corresponding reduction in workload); or how to cope with the death of a parent.
I always left those meetings with Jeremy with a clarity and a confidence that no-one else in my life was able to supply. And so often the way he helped was not by advising me on what to do, but by asking the right questions and patiently encouraging me to find my own answers.
Jeremy was not only ±±¾©Èü³µpk10's agony uncle, he was its editor's. And the editor I became and the woman I became was shaped in so many ways by Jeremy's wisdom, generosity and humanity. I loved him very much.
Danny Rogers
Editor-in-chief UK and EMEA, PRWeek, and editor (2013-14), ±±¾©Èü³µpk10
In one of his first "Ask Bullmore" columns after I took over as editor of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 – still a weekly magazine on newsstands then, of course – a young ad exec complained about the creative culture of his agency, which amounted to installing a wigwam in reception and sitting next to a stuffed goat in the office. To which Jeremy replied, "I wish I could comfort you but I can't. You should be even more dispirited than you are," concluding with the suggestion: "If I were you, I'd replace your creative director with that stuffed goat."
This sums up Jeremy for me; an acerbic wit that pulled no punches. Bullmore was an exemplar of an age of advertising when one could be straight talking and combative yet successful... if you were also brilliant. That said, he was also a one-off. Not only did JB survive the revolution in the industry when Sir Martin Sorrell took over WPP. He thrived. Indeed SMS gave him the neighbouring office and relied on him as a trusted advisor.
How many advertising, indeed corporate, executives can transcend generations with such relevance and grace?
Dominic Mills
Consultant, and editor (1991-1996), ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, and editorial director (1996-2011), Haymarket Business Media
Most of the tributes to Jeremy Bullmore focus, quite rightly, on his enormous and decades-long contribution to the advertising industry. And I will too.
But first I'll start with his latter-day role as a careers agony uncle, principally in ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 where he wrote weekly for many years, but also Management Today and The Guardian. That's because I think it represents everything he stood for and, although he would never think of it like this, showcased his many qualities and virtues.
Writing an agony column is difficult. A bad one is easy; a good one is really hard. The balance between thinking and writing is disproportionately biased to the former. A careers agony columnist has to demonstrate many things: empathy; wisdom; experience; an intuitive understanding of human nature – triggers, fears, insecurities, vanities, motivations, hopes; an innate understanding of inter- and intra-office politics; and organisational dynamics. They must honestly answer the problem or conundrum (otherwise what's the point?) and, unfailingly in Jeremy's case, make it entertaining with a side-helping of gentle wit and an occasional piquancy.
That he did this week-in, week-out, for ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 was a major achievement. That he held down three agony uncle gigs simultaneously (as well as other writing and speech-making) at a time when many of his peers had long since retired, was, to me, inspiring. The stamina, the productivity, the intuitive grasp of the human condition, the way he would twist a problem around like a Rubik's cube to find a solution... you could only stand and admire it. You'd say to yourself: "Why could I never have thought of that?"
And when I think about why Jeremy was such a great agony columnist, it's clear to me: he brought to it the skills of the consummate advertising professional. To me, that starts with an endless curiosity... about people, about life, about relationships, about why things work or don't, about organisations, about products. To this, you must then apply an intellectual rigour to simplify the issue to its bare essentials. And finally apply a creative bent of mind to find that inspirational leap to the solution.
I know Jeremy was a creative at heart and by discipline – and it's time well spent to see some of his work in his – but I always thought he could equally have been a planner such was the rigour and clarity of his thinking. Perhaps that's it: the best creatives are instinctive planners.
Others will pay tribute to his many personal qualities. The kindness and decency, the warmth, that sense that he always had time for you, the subtle sense of humour. But two always stood out for me: the self-deprecation and the way he wore his erudition so lightly.
Caroline Marshall
Consultant, and editor (1998-2004), ±±¾©Èü³µpk10
John Jeremy David Bullmore, husband of Pamela, father of Edward, Adam and Amelia, grandfather of eight, writer, copywriter and senior adviser to boards and businesses. This is about as concise a description of a remarkable man as I could write. A man who provided hundreds of us who knew him directly (and thousands more who read his work or heard him speak) with discreet counsel and, through that, the confidence to deal with a range of issues thrown up by our personal and professional lives.
Throughout his career, Jeremy challenged conventional wisdom with unconventional and informed thinking on subjects of real importance. In doing so he gave the business of advertising an intellectual respectability that was born of hard practical experience blended with insight and integrity.
±±¾©Èü³µpk10 called him "Adland's greatest philosopher", an important label for his achievement as a public person. To that I would add, importantly, funny, kind, loving and generous. All of us who have known Jeremy have so much to thank him for and so much to celebrate.
Taken from Marshall's obituary on Bullmore.
Conor Dignam
Chief executive, Media Business Insight, and editor (1998-2000), Marketing
Jeremy Bullmore’s writing about the world of marketing, advertising, business – and life generally – was simply outstanding. He never wrote a column that wasn't worth reading at least twice. Back in the late 1990s when I took on the editorship of Marketing magazine he was the star columnist for the publication and I was quick to invite him out to lunch to try to make sure we kept his pearls of wisdom in our pages.
As we sat down for lunch, he said: "If you've invited me to lunch to tell me you no longer require my column, I completely understand but shall we get it out of the way early so we can enjoy lunch." When I assured him that the lunch was to tell him how much Marketing valued his column and wanted him to keep writing it, he seemed pleased: "Excellent, now we can really enjoy lunch."
I never got to know him very well, but managed to invite him out to a number of other events over the years and he was always as delightful, entertaining and insightful in person as he was on the page. They don't make them like him any more.
±±¾©Èü³µpk10 pinched him as a columnist after a few years (and I don't blame them) but I will always consider it a privilege to have published his writing and spent some time in his company.
Mike Hewitt
Chief executive, Adaugeo Media, and editor
(1993-1997), Marketing
Jeremy already seemed unfathomably wise – and ancient – when he began to write for Marketing in the mid-1990s. At the time, advertising was changing so fast (Marketing launched its first website in 1996) that any perspective from earlier than last Tuesday was both rare and remarkable.
Jeremy brought that perspective. I suspect he regarded the young staff of Marketing, utterly convinced that we were doing exciting things for the very first time, with a mixture of tolerance and wry amusement. In his weekly column, delivered at first by fax and only much later by email, he became our much-needed voice of experience, never afraid to point out the idiocies of adland but a supporter of excellence wherever it appeared.
Looking back, his columns carried lessons that still haven't been learned, and I can't help feeling we would all be better people if we'd spent a bit more time listening to Jeremy and rather less on our PDAs*.
There will be other columnists, but I am confident there will never be another like Jeremy.
*personal digital assistant. Like a very expensive early smartphone but utterly useless.
Simon Marquis
Retired, and editorial director (1993-1998), Marketing
Signing up great columnists for the relaunched Marketing magazine felt like a smart move – I was the new editorial director in 1993 – and luminaries such as Quentin Bell and Winston Fletcher had already said yes. But dare I approach the great Jeremy Bullmore? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and so off went my begging letter.
To my delight he said he'd "give it a go". Jeremy was a demigod of the ad business, he'd hardly need to give it a go. His first column arrived, on time, the exact word count, and pitch perfect. Never, ever did JB's columns need the sub-editor's tweak. Pearls, each and every one.
After I'd blagged a few freebies, he politely suggested I might like to pay him – not for the money, of course, but because he thought it put the transaction on a proper, professional basis. The derisory fee we agreed was laughably good value, and Jeremy's thoughtful parables and searing insights were so brilliant they found their way into several best-selling books.
Whenever I saw him in later years he modestly credited me with adding another string to his writerly bow. The writer, and the man, were the embodiment of wit, intelligence and charm.
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