The late great Jay Chiat (he of TBWA\Chiat Day) once asked: “How big can you get before you get bad?” (actually I think he said crap) discussing life in Omnicom.
Well TBWA has undergone a number of changes since, not least in the aftermath of Omnicom’s purchase of IPG. So it’s enterprising of them to produce this vid telling us what the agency is all about. First up is “disruption” which came via TBWA’s Jacques Seguela (could never quite see the benefit of this but it got them noticed in the days when ‘look at me’ was the agency mantra.) Then we get a bit a of a history rewrite, to wit the network was “built on the shoulders of giants.” Well it may have been: Chiat was one (although he doesn’t figure here) his creative partner Leo Clow of Apple fame another, Bill Bernbach too (although DDB was always separate from TBWA) and, something of a surprise, another “giant” Sir Frank Lowe.
Frank sold his Lowe agency to IPG back in the day but it had sweet FA to do with then rival TBWA. What’s left of it has only just been incorporated into Omnicom (and presumably TBWA) with the recent IPG mega-deal.
Does it matter? A bit of onwards and upwards stuff is to be welcomed for the embattled creative agency sector but this plays rather fast and loose with history.
