WHEN ADVERTISING executive Eoghan Nolan first embarked on his copywriting career “donkeys years ago” in the 1980s, it was to the Leo Burnett Book of Advertising that he turned.
Now the Irish wing of Leo Burnett has bought his fledgling business, Brand Artillery, and Nolan will join the board and serve as its creative director.
The buyout looks set to add a fresh stream of clients to the Leo Burnett portfolio just two years after it acquired about €20 million worth of business through its takeover of the Larkin Partnership.
For Leo Burnett’s managing director, Shane McGonigle, the agency’s latest expansion is part of its push to tackle “a horrible time” in the advertising, marketing and media market by leveraging the experience of fellow “thoroughbreds” in the business.
“We need a really good creative director, particularly at a time like this,” he says.
The Dublin agency is part of the global business Leo Burnett Worldwide, founded by the inventor of “Marlboro Man”, but is managed and part-owned locally.
One-third of Leo Burnett’s revenues are now digital, says McGonigle. “We’ve kind of gone past the point where we need a digital department. It’s now fully integrated into our business.”
The agency also recently appointed Emer McHugh, former deputy managing director of Initiative Media, as head of digital.
Mindful of former General Electric chief executive Jack Welch’s truism on organisational change – “if the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near” – McGonigle is alert to the digital realities of the current market.
Leo Burnett's recent work includes campaigns for Airtricity and the RTÉ Guide, as well as the "tongue-in-cheek" advertising of wildman-actor Mickey Rourke as an election candidate in a campaign for Bavaria Beer.
The two years since the acquisition of the Larkin Partnership, which brought in clients such as Nissan and Penney’s/Primark, have been its most profitable, according to McGonigle, and represent a rare example of a successful takeover in the Irish advertising business.
A former creative director of Irish International and McCann Erickson’s, Nolan has worked on major campaigns for Diageo, Glanbia and Centra.
Brand Artillery only opened for business in February with clients as diverse as Argentinian venture capitalists and the National Library of Ireland.
Nolan describes himself as “emboldened” by the challenge of evading the “pincer movement” of declining ad spends at a time of rapid technological change.
“For a lot of people working in the kitchens, as it were, on the creative side, the chance to reach more people more immediately is very exciting,” he says.
