Advertising boss shoots high

Johannesburg - Alhough he says "family reasons" are behind his return to South Africa after a short but successful career in Australia, Mike Abel determinedly plays up the positive factors behind the move.

He doesn't say so in as many words, but he clearly hopes his new agency, M&C Saatchi Abel, will make an immediate impact.

"There hasn't been a big-agency investment like this in years," he says. "It won't be Mike and three friends in a garage. We'll be fully operational with a staff of about 20 delivering best practice from day one. We'll have the best creative talent available and a single-minded focus on building clients' market share. I'm talking about finding the sweet spot with category-breaking ideas."

Abel was chief operating officer of Ogilvy South Africa when he emigrated to Australia about a year ago. Fears about crime here were among his reasons for going.

In Sydney, he joined M&C Saatchi, and recently was appointed CEO of an agency that had unusually strong revenue growth (10%) in the teeth of the worst recession in Australian advertising for 50 years.

South Africa will be MK&C Saatchi's 15th country, but Abel says there?ll be no free handouts of globally aligned accounts, not even founder client British Airways.

"I'll have to find and fetch my own business," he says. "I dont expect any global business to walk in the front door."

He sees opportunities to make a mark through rigorous dedication to measurability and accountability - features which are strong in Australian advertising agencies, but not in South Africa. It will be digital from the start.

"There is no longer such a thing as specialist digital agencies," he says. "You are either digital or you are not."

M&C Saatchi, founded by Maurice and Charles Saatchi in 1995 after their first agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, slipped out of their control, first came to South Africa in 2001 at the instigation of Angel Jones, a South African then working for the agency in London.

But 18 months later, the global network disinvested. Jones and her MD partner, Nina Morris, continued under a new name, MorrisJones.

Maurice Saatchi still works in the M&C network, but Charles has retired.

- Fin24.com