We waited for him to speak again, perhaps both of us relieved that our increasingly angry confrontation had been interrupted.
“We could merge,” he said simply, leaning forward and interlacing his fingers on the desktop before him.
Neither Oliver nor I reacted. I just stared.
Sydney’s pale face was impassive. “Blake & Turnbrow have been chasing us for some time, as you know. They’re much larger than us and have offices worldwide. Together we could easily manage our respective clients and any more we might care to pitch for. Blake & Turnbrow are keen to amalgamate with us.”
“To take us over, you mean, don’t you?” I said, my annoyance now focused on him. That in itself was unusual, because Sydney was the easiest person in the world to get along with.
“No, I don’t mean that,” he said, his retort mild, not at all offended. “If getting into bed with a prestigious global agency will help us expand and find bigger clients, why should we balk at the idea?”
“Because, Sydney,” I said with disguised impatience, “it means giving up control of our own business.”
“Wait a minute, Jim,” Ollie put in. “It doesn’t have to mean that at all. Lets take the helicopter view.”
It irritated me further when my copywriter used ad-speak: “overview” wasn’t good, but “helicopter view”? And a “takeover” was a “takeover”, not the sharing of a bed. A suspicion struck me: was Oliver really surprised at the suggestion, or had he and Sydney already discussed the prospect in my absence (I was often away from the office on photographic shoots or making TV commercials, allowing plenty of opportunities for cosy get-togethers for my partners)? Or was I just being paranoid?
“Obviously Blake & Turnbrow like our client list, as well as the creative talent in this agency,” Oliver went on. “But then don’t we envy their client list and some of their creative teams?”
“If we get taken over—” I began to say.
“Merge,” Sydney insisted.
I didn’t drop a beat. “—there’s no guarantee that some of our accounts won’t leave us. They signed up with Guinane, True, Presswell, not with Blake, Turnbrow, Guinane, True, Presswell…”
“BTGTP has a nice ring to it.” Oliver smiled and I wasn’t sure if he was deliberately winding me up.
Before I could respond, Sydney cut in once more. “Companies rarely switch agencies unless they’ve been let down by bad marketing strategies, mediocre creative work, or poor servicing: we’re guilty of none of those. However, we might fall down on the first and last points if we pitch for and win this new account.”
“I’m still not sure why such a large corporate bank should approach us,” I muttered, a little sourly I think. “The agency they have now is one of the biggest and best.”
“Yes, and it’s become complacent. The bank has been with them for twenty years or more and I think they’ve both become tired of each other. It happens to every account eventually, no matter how solid the relationship has been.”
Sydney unlocked his fingers and rested back in his chair. “Fortunately, the bank’s marketing director is a very old acquaintance of mine and for the past year I’ve been rekindling our friendship. We belong to the same club and more than once I’ve let him thrash me at golf.”
“This is the first time you’ve mentioned it to us,” I said grudgingly.
“Because I’ve had nothing to report until now. Geoff tipped me the wink only a few months ago and I’ve been working on him since. He’s well aware of my interest, of course, and I think he’s enjoyed the little game between us. I want the carrot and he loves to dangle it before me. Naturally, I’ve allowed him to enjoy himself at our expense—and I mean that literally.” He looked meaningfully at me, and then at Oliver.
“British Allied Bank is beginning to lose out in the market place,” Sydney went on. “It’s competitors, the other big banks, are regarded as more friendly towards small businesses and more trendy as far as the younger market is concerned. Certainly British Allied is banker to many vast corporations, but never underestimate how important the smaller businesses are. What they lack fiscally as individuals, they more than make up in quantity. Not quite as important, but certainly worth considering are the young non-account holders, the upwardly mobile C2s, who have to be encouraged—or enticed—to open a bank account. Like the small businesses their numbers are incredibly high and well worth bringing in. Catch ‘em while they’re young is the motto of all the banks, because they rarely change banks during their lifetimes.”
“So we’re seen as more cutting edge than British Allied’s present agency? Is that why they want us to pitch?” Oliver was jigging a foot on the carpet, a habit of his when his energy was running high.
“Precisely,” Sydney replied. “But naturally, there will be other agencies pitching, including their present one, which has to be given a chance. I’ve learned from Geoff, though, that we’re the only hot shop; all the others are good and well established, but don’t have our reputation for high-concept campaigns. I think, provided we come up with the right pitch, if we hinted that we could possibly be associated with another much larger agency in the near future, it might be to our advantage. Of course, if we did win it, it would be the biggest single account we’d held financially. The advertising budget would be phenomenal.”
“Are you saying both deals go hand-in-hand?” I asked, frowning.
“Not at all. But a merger would help in regard to back-up. It’s all very well having wonderfully innovative ideas, but if we can’t service the account fully, then what’s the point? The bank will be all too aware of our limitations as much as I know they’ll like our ideas.”
I turned to Oliver. “What do you think?”
He grinned, and his foot was still tapping. “I say let’s take it to the max. Let’s burn the blacktop, go for both.”
He spoke in precise, clipped tones, an “elitist” accent he’d never even tried to modify for street-cred purposes; estuary-speak had become the norm in our game, but he was having none of it. I liked him for that, even though he had an irritating penchant for jargoneze. He never tried to hide his wealthy, upper-class background and, with his shortish brown-almost-auburn hair, loose strands of which hung over his forehead, and military-straight back, intelligent brown eyes, home-counties accent, he would never have succeeded in doing so anyway. Even though his clothes were casual, they had a sharp neatness to them, a kind of preciseness that matched his clipped voice.
“I think we’ve a good chance of winning the account,” he went on, “particularly if they’re tired of the old staid bank advertising they’ve become used to and are looking for something fresher and more original.”
“And the takeover?”
“Merger,” Sydney persisted.
Oliver shrugged. “Whatever. It might be an extremely beneficial move.”
“You’d give up everything we’ve worked for?” I was beginning to simmer.
“It wouldn’t necessarily mean that, chum. Try seeing it from the north.”
I hated it when he called me chum, especially when it was coupled with the jargon.
“Sydney and I already more or less agreed it would be a smart way for us to expand.”
Ah, so Sydney and Oliver had already discussed the matter without me.