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What ails Droga5 in London?
It’s arguably the sexiest agency in the world, with founder David Droga the guy everybody wants to hear from and a big new a new investment/partnership with Hollywood talent agency WME. So Droga is where ads swap bodily fluids with entertainment, right?
Well that might be the case in NYC but it hasn’t happened in London and now London founder and CEO Kevin Dundas (left) is on his bike. Dundas worked with Droga when Droga was making his name as ECD of Saatchi London and then headed up 180 in Amsterdam for a few years. So pretty good credentials.
But D5 has completely failed to take London by storm, despite the presence, alongside Dundas, of creative Nik Studzinski, one of the original Droga-ites.
This is all rather odd. US agencies may have failed to make much impression in London in recent years; the likes of Anomaly, Mcgarrybowen and Crispin Porter have hardly set the world alight. But D5 is supposed to be cut from a different cloth and the only business it’s won is Bulmers, in Europe. Cider brand Bulmers isn’t that big in the UK, let alone France and Germany.
A new CEO is on the way and I gather that the agency is heading away from Soho to more modest quarters in Victoria. I think Dundas might have been a bit unlucky. Surely D5 in the US could have bunged London some business?
D5 will surely prevail, in London, in the end. Maybe a working holiday for Mr Droga is the way to go.
