In 2010, the course's leader Tony Cullingham had the vision of building a network of agencies in which his students could experience the day-to-day workings of a creative ad agency. The Watford Tour began, with top agencies including Fallon, Saatchi & Saatchi, WCRS and TBWA\London signing up.
Cullingham's vision was to expand the Tour to 36 different agencies, so that the entire year-long course would become the tour.
For now, the Tour makes up half of the course as 18 different agencies in London have signed up. This year, the tour has been expanded to 19 because the BBH week had to be cancelled because of a flood.
The agencies featured are as follows:
1) Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
Founded by David Abbott, Peter Mead and Adrian Vickers over 30 years ago, AMV is part of the BBDO network, which in turn is part of the Omnicom Group. AMV is Britain's largest ad agency in terms of ad revenue and has been since 1997.
As already featured on this blog, AMV.BBDO won an unprecendented Double Black Pencil in 2000 for the Guinness Surfers ad. More recently, it won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Effectiveness in 2011 for Walker's Sandwich.
In 2010, it won a Grand Prix for Good with its campaign for the Metropolitan Police
2) Saatchi and Saatchi
Founded in London but now headquartered in New York, Saatchis is a huge agency with 140 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. The agency was acquired by the Publicis Groupe in 2000.
The embryo of the agency was established when copywriter Charles Saatchi when he teamed up with Art Director Ross Cramer. Cramer left and was replaced by Charles' younger brother Maurice and Saatchi&Saatchi was founded. The agency employed a number of men who would go on to become genuine stars of advertising, including Sir John Hegarty of BBH, Lord Tim Bell and Sir Martin Sorrell.
(Of those three, only Hegarty was/is a creative)
One of Saatchi's most famous posters is the Labour Isn't Working campaign put together before the 1979 general election.
Another key campaign was that for British Airways. 1989 "Face" advert below. The ad was directed by Hugh Hudson, and was one of the most expensive ads ever created at the time.
3) Engine/WCRS
WCRS stands for Wight Collins Rutherford Scott. The agency was founded in 1979 and went on to become the Aegis Group.
The current head creative team is comprised of Billy Faithfull, Ross Neil and Ben Long.
Engine and WCRS have had notable work with Sky and The Sun Newspaper including this lovely illustrated spot for The Sun. This is a great example of taking using what is popular in viral videos and applying it to advertising, as the artist behind this ad, Richard Swarbrick, had already done a similar, fantastic illustrated video to demonstrate Spurs' fantastic performance vs Inter Milan in the Champions League.
Read about "Watford Week" on Engine's company blog.
4) BBH
Bartle Bogle Hegarty have the strapline "When the world zigs, zag" on their website, which I believe comes from a Levi's ad copywritten by Sir John Hegarty. They are an excellent ad agency, quite possibly the hottest property in terms of London-based ad agencies at the moment. They are 49% owned by Publicis Groupe.
The agency has worked for global brands including Audi, Vodafone, Levi Straus, British Airways, Johnnie Walker, Omo/Persil & Axe/Lynx.
BBH was behind a number of high-profile campaigns such as Levi's 'Laundrette', and Levi's 'Flatbeat' featuring Flat Eric, a small yellow puppet. They were also responsible for 'Vorsprung durch Technik' for Audi, 'The Axe (Lynx) Effect' for Unilever and 'Keep Walking' for Johnnie Walker.
More recently, BBH's ad for the Guardian was extremely well received this year:
Because of a flood in BBH's office, the Watford course was not able to spend a week there this year.
5) Fallon
Fallon is known as one of the most creative, most off the wall ad agencies. Two of their most striking ads in recent memory are the Sony Balls ad and Cadbury's drumming gorilla.
A list of Fallon's most notable campaigns are available on their wiki page.
6) Publicis
Publicis is one of the world's largest advertising groups (the others being Omnicom and WPP). Counted among its agencies are Leo Burnett, Fallon, Saatchis and BBH.
The agency also exists as its own London agency. The agency has done work for Renault, The Army and McVitie's.
7) Leo Burnett
Briefly - a word for the man himself. Credited as one of the most creative men ever in advertising, Leo Burnett was, along with David Ogilvy, William Bernbach and Mary Wells one of the major forces behind the Creative Revolution of the 1960s.
Now, Leo Burnett is a worldwide network of agencies, part of the Publicis Groupe. Its clients include McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Marlboro, Maytag, Kellogg’s, Tampax, Nintendo, Philips, Samsung, Visa, Wrigley’s, Hallmark, Allstate Insurance, Procter & Gamble and others.
Here is a list of 45 Clever Leo Burnett ads
8) Mother
Mother is the UK's largest independent advertising agency.
Mother's recent ads for Comic Relief have been deservedly getting a lot of coverage lately
They're smart and they're funny, and actually funnier than a lot of things that comedy writers and comedians put together for Comic Relief. What's more they engage a very broad fanbase by combining two ideas that have become cultural icons - classic films and well-loved children's television characters. The agency also has history with wooly characters. They were behind Al and Monkey, the characters used first to promote ITV digital and then later PG Tips
The agency's philosophy is "To make great work, have fun and make money. Always in that order."
Their wiki page has a better potted history of some of their ads than I am able to offer, but I will just mention that Campaign voted Mother ad agency of the decade in 2009, and they were behind the fantastic Orange Gold spots shown in cinemas. More recently, their campaigns for Stella Artois have been highly stylised and injected a new stylish life into a brand troubled by the nickname "Wife Beater".
9) DDB
At the time of writing, DDB no longer exists. It is now known as Adam&Eve / DDB.
Doyle Dane Bernbach is a grand old agency founded in 1949 in New York. Bill Bernbach and Ned Doyle had previously worked together at Grey Advertising - the agency credited with the invention of the Account Planner.
DDB London has been the home of many great creatives over the year, among them: John Webster, Dave Trott, Gordon Smith, Rooney Carruthers, Derek Hass.
It was DDB Chicago who came up with the Wassup ad for Budweiser, which went on to become a cultural phenomenon until its exhaustion.
In recent times, DDB has struggled, and its recent buy out and merger with the smaller, newer Adam & Eve agency ended in most senior positions being taken on by Adam & Eve management.
DDB has had a very strong relationship with VW over the years, despite losing many others of its key accounts. With the injection of new blood from the very highly regarded A&E agency, it may see its star begin to rise again.
