There have been many comings and goings (staff and clients alike)
at WCRS’s creative department. We follow its development from 1979 to
the present day.
1979-82 Ron Collins, Andrew Rutherford, Robin Wight
Three of the original founders were creatives: Wight and Rutherford were
writers and Collins an art director. Rutherford was best known for
’Labour isn’t working’ at Saatchi & Saatchi while Collins persuaded
Leonard Rossiter to knock Cinzano over his namesake Joan’s lap. It was
WCRS’s no-suit period, although Wight soon evolved into account man,
planner and BMW creative. There was a no creative pitching policy, and
an early attempt to mix creatives and others up on the floor. Rutherford
was crabby and charming depending on his mood. Collins was always
difficult, trying to do things better. Creative talent included a young
Leon Jaume, Derek Day and Mick DeVito. BMW soon got over the early Kirk
Douglas debacle.
Other creative highlights included Qualcast’s ’a lot less bovver than a
hovver’ and Bergasol. The agency was then better known for its print
work.
1982-85 Andrew Cracknell
Day and DeVito led a rebellion insisting on the formation of a proper
creative department with a creative director. So although the laid-back
Andrew Cracknell never quite seemed a perfect fit for the frenetic WCRS,
he was drafted in, and began building a department which included
talents such as Steve Henry and Axel Chaldecott, Robert Campbell and
Mark Roalfe, Dave Horry, Giles Keeble and Ken Hoggins. Cracknell crafted
a beautiful 7-series campaign in a period which also saw the Carling
Black Label Levi’s laundrette spoof
and the birth of Lunn Poly’s ’getaway’ campaign. By then, WCRS had gone
public, Roger Mathews had come in, and there were too many chiefs. Wight
recalls Cracknell expecting a promotion and actually being fired by
Mathews and himself. ’Looking back, that was a mistake,’ he says
today.
1985-88 Alfredo Marcantonio
Wight had admired the way Marcantonio had built and managed the Lowe
Howard-Spink creative department. He brought into the newly rechristened
WCRS Mathews Marcantonio talent such as Collett Dickenson Pearce’s
Adrian Holmes and Graham Fink, who infamously threw a television out of
a window.
It was a highly political period, with a succession of management
consultants wandering around. But there was excellent work being done,
particularly BMW executions such as ’shaken not stirred’. Meanwhile,
Wight was kept at arm’s-length from the agency. Collins left in 1987,
fed up with what he viewed as a City obsession. In 1989, Rutherford
moved on to the newly-acquired FCO. Wight estimates that about 14
clients moved out of the agency in a disastrous run. Mathews and
Marcantonio left (the latter for BBDO), and Wight returned to the agency
to front the electricity privatisation pitch.
1988-89 Adrian Holmes
The cerebral, quietly spoken, conservative-looking Holmes seemed an
unlikely figure to be creative director of the maelstrom that was ever
the WCRS creative department. Inevitably, there was a culture clash
between old-school Collett Dickenson Pearce alumni (Holmes, Marcantonio)
and the earthier WCRS breed. Holmes’s brief tenure of the job saw him
create the Department of Trade & Industry’s Enterprise ’swoosh’
initiative. Holmes always had Marcantonio and the other warring
directors over him, so it’s not surprising that this was a short-lived
and unmemorable period in WCRS’s seven ages. It was no real surprise
when Holmes left with David Wheldon to join Lowe Howard-Spink.
1989-93 Alan Tilby
Wight describes Alan Tilby as a ’brilliant copywriter and great
strategic thinker’. Rescued from his own Tilby & Leeves, Tilby brought
the likes of Peter Souter and Paul Brazier, and Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s
hot team, Larry Barker and Rooney Carruthers, into a re-energised agency
characterised by the new young chief executive, Andrew Robertson. True,
the revolving client door continued to spin, but there were great
new-business wins and fine work in a purple period for the likes of
Prudential with ’I want to be’, the Sega ’pirate’ work, the BMW ad where
a car balances on a convertible, Carling Black Label’s ’dambusters’ and,
of course, the Frank ’n’ Stein electricity privatisation. ’He was less a
creative director, more a creative talent,’ Wight says now. ’It’s a real
tragedy that we couldn’t find a use for his talents.’
1993-98 Rooney Carruthers and Larry Barker
The shrewd, self-effacing Barker’s sharp brain and logical clarity
proved the perfect foil for the maniacal enthusiasm and brilliant eye of
the ever unsatisfied Carruthers. Having been promoted by Tilby, the duo
blossomed in a period which saw the birth of the Orange, First Direct
and Caffrey’s campaigns. They raised the production quality of the
agency’s TV output. Barker and Carruthers were also great ambassadors
for the agency.
As Wight puts it: ’A little of BBH’s popularity rubbed off on us.’ WCRS
began winning awards in a way it hadn’t before; which, it must be said,
is a sad comment on the awards system.
1998- Rooney Carruthers and Leon Jaume
It was a shock when Barker announced he was going to join BMP DDB.
He said he wanted to write less, and be more of a creative director
No-one was more stunned than his long-term partner, Carruthers. But he
filled the gap left by Barker by recruiting the twice-departed Leon
Jaume for a third time - on this occasion he was wooed back from Ogilvy
& Mather.
Jaume doesn’t want to write ads, and has a similar calming influence on
Carruthers to the role Barker used to play. The last year has seen them
off to a flying start with the Camelot, Bupa and Sega wins, and the
rescue of the drifting Carling campaign. The most obvious thing to say
about today’s version of what Wight describes as a ’consistently
inconsistent’ creative department is that the batting average is
considerably higher than it’s ever been before.
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