Didn’t he do well?
Campaign reports that a Dentsu Aegis Network director, thought to be former CEO Jerry Buhlmann, collected £11.1m in 2018, including £5.3m “compensation for loss of office.” Does this mean Jerry didn’t want to go?
Anyway, he’ll be mollified by his parting gift.
Buhlmann did a good job at DAN, helping to broaden a media-only company into new areas – most notably with the acquisition of Merkle – and keeping Carat’s end up in the media buying stakes.
He’s one of a number of media agency leaders of a certain generation to step down recently. Many, like Buhlmann and former GroupM digital supremo Rob Norman, were prominent in the rise of media independents and then segued into holding company media bosses. Buhlmann was a partner in BBJ which was sold to Aegis and became second network Vizeum way back in 2003.
Media agency life is no longer the buccaneering business it used to be as clients have tightened up in the wake of the 2016 US ANA report into media transparency and Google and Facebook have taken over the digital ad world. Neither are the rewards (usually) as spectacular.
As Buhlmann’s generation will doubtless reflect as they rendezvous on the golf course. Maybe they’ll buy the golf course?
