DDB and Lowe are two of the rather more famous creative agency networks now set to disappear as Omnicom merges with IPG. In 2018 Campaign produced its top 20 agencies of all time and it still hangs together pretty well (allowing for an Anglo-perspective) with both in prominent places. DDB was top.
Not so much for the doings of the storied US agency – Bill Bernbach, VW’s ‘Lemon’ etc – but for the impact it had over here. London’s famous creative explosion was fuelled in large part by DDB almumni – David Abbott and a youthful MD Tim Delaney among them – although it never amounted to much in billings terms. But it had sassy NYC chutzpah in spades and that chimed with the swinging London era.
DDB acquired, first, Boase Massimi Pollitt, home to creative director John Webster, truly one of life’s originals who authored, with the help of such as Dave Trott and Chris Wilkins, some of the best and funniest ads ever seen anywhere.
Lowe, too had its high maments, notably in the years following the breakway from CDP when Frank Lowe (later Sir Frank) managed to persuade an impressive array of clients that the agency knew best and research didn’t. Notable amongst these was Tesco when Lowe persuaded boss Ian MacLaurin, then trying to move Tesco gently away from its ‘pile it high sell it cheap’ market roots, that Dudley Moore chasing chickens in France was what he needed.
If you pitched this these days you’d likely be greeted with blank incomprehension. Lowe eventually sank beneath the confused waves of Interpublic, latterly welded to Mullen in MullenLowe. Now that’s gone too.
DDB seemed to be running out of gas as the effect of the BMP merger gradually wore off, as these things tend to do. But it had a spectacular second coming, on this side of the Atlantic anyway, when it bought london indie adam&eve to form (eventually) adam & eveDDB. A&E carried all before it, Cannes Agency of the Decade, countless AOY gongs, briefly the biggest UK agency by billings and, of curse, author of the celebrated John Lewis series of Christmas ads, arguably the last ads to really engage the UK public and media. Or the public that isn’t a signed-on admirer of Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot.
Top names, including the founders, left and the agency has slipped a bit but Omnicom has at least paid lip service to its heritage by now calling it adam&eve\TBWA and leaving it in its ancient Paddington fastness rather than shoving it into Omnicom Towers on London’s South Bank. Addresses matter inordinately to creative agencies, Lowe was never the same after it abandoned Bowater House with a its view of posh Rotten Row. How much value has AMV BBDO lost since being turfed out of Marylebone?
A&E, in its high period anyway, continued the gentle British comedy tradition that defined the agency’s earlier work (as in Arkwright above) and Lowe deployed for Tesco and others including Heineken and Stella. A&E’s biggest Cannes winner wasn’t John Lewis but Harvey Nichols.
Maybe there was a time when the ads actaully were better than the programmes…Anyway that’s 2025 for you, a melancholy note in a way but one demise is someone else’s opportunity.
We look forward to serving you throughout 2026, our 15th year I think. If you’d like to support us on the journey you can do so here.
Very best wishes
MAA Team
Breaking News
Aviva has consolidated its ad account, formerly with adam&eveDDB, with Saatchi & Saatchi which also handles Aviva’s recently acquired Direct Line insurance business. AMV BBDO also pitched.
