Making Magic

In a speech to the European Advertising Agencies' Association in 1998, Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi rebuts claims made by the CEO of Unilever, Niall Fitzgerald, that advertising 'is suffering a death of a thousand cuts'.

Making Magic

Kevin RobertsSaatchi & Saatchi

Exactly one year ago the CEO of Unilever, Mr. Niall Fitzgerald, stood before you and attacked creativity and big ideas. Mr. Fitzgerald suggested that advertising creativity and advertising-driven ideas are outdated, mass-market concepts. Advertising ideas and creativity won't contribute value in this new media age of fragmentation, accelerating consumer choice, and one-to-one interactivity.

Advertising agencies, the argument went, are dinosaurs — sad, lumbering structures stuck in a mass media desert, clinging to 30-second TVCs, blinded by the asteroid called “new media” that has crashed on our planet. Too big, too middle-aged, not hip...

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