‘We live in the age of the idea, not the age of the ad’ – Financial Times

October 2, 2014
Kevin Roberts

Kevin Roberts, whose near two decade reign as chief executive of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi will end in January, is known for his forthright manner and outrageous actions – he once blasted a Coca-Cola stand with a machine gun when he was head of rival PepsiCo Canada.

So it is something of a surprise to hear him speak about his Christian faith. “I’m Anglican. We say we’re going to do better, and we will do better because there is an everlasting life, blah, blah, blah,” says Mr Roberts, who maintains a steady stream of expletives even when speaking about religion.

“Going to church is not the important thing for me. I do go when I’m in Rome, in London . . . But I don’t care. The critical thing is I believe and I pray. So I’m not in any way devout or holy and I don’t talk about it here [in the office] and I’m not pro any religion or anti any, in fact, I’m the reverse. I’m very sensitive.”

Mr Roberts, 64, shows no sign of slowing down despite the coming leadership reshuffle, which was prompted by the recent failed merger with Omnicom. He teaches and gives leadership talks and will continue in a motivational and executive chairman role at Saatchi until 2016.

“Saatchi is a perfect platform, because we have permission to misbehave. Nothing is too politically incorrect because we are creative mavericks and vagabonds, that’s our DNA, our heritage, our legacy,” he says.

 “We don’t have to be right all the time. We have to be provocative and interesting. Teaching, leading, helping others, that’s the way I make the biggest impact outside Saatchi. The number one job is to create other leaders.”

The agency, now part of the Publicis group, was founded in London by brothers Maurice and Charles Saatchi and is famous for having helped Margaret Thatcher become UK prime minister.

“I’ve been running Saatchi for 17 years – it’s unheard of. We fundamentally only had two leaders – Maurice Saatchi in the early days and me,” he boasts, adding: “I’ve stayed because of what we call the magic of Saatchi & Saatchi, the mystique.” The agency retains an aura of British eccentricity despite now being based in New York, though it remains to be seen whether it will continue after the reshuffle. “We moved to NY surreptitiously . . . about 14 years ago, because that’s where the big fish are,” says Mr Roberts.

Mr Roberts is loyal to Lancashire, where he grew up in a working-class family. He passed his 11-plus exam and went to grammar school, but left at 17, skipped university and went to work. At 21, he was brand manager at fashion house Mary Quant.

Back then, he had a psychological block about not having academic qualifications. “It was the biggest chip I had on my shoulder. I thought: ‘I’m going to get found out, I better learn voraciously and hang out with older people’. I halved my salary and joined Procter & Gamble on the lowest rung, because working there was the nearest thing to getting a marketing degree.

“I’ve since been appointed CEO-in-residence . . . at Cambridge university’s Judge Business School, teaching MBAs. I’ve got four honorary degrees. So I’m over it now, thank goodness.”

He is also professor at Lancaster University Management School. “I do five sessions a year with the MBAs, marketing undergrads and local entrepreneurs, helping leaders who have chosen to live in my terroir, the north, and hopefully some of them come from there.”

He believes “inclusive capitalism is the only thing that’s going to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots”.

But Saatchi, like others, is grappling with its own challenges, in particular the fast pace of technological change that makes companies such as Google and Facebook almost akin to advertising agencies given their power and their command over vast audiences.

We live in the “age of the idea. Not the age of the ad. Ideas are the currency”, he says. “Execution is the killer app, not strategy. Consumers today, they’re so fast, so smart, so equipped, so intuitive.”

On the desk

Kevin Roberts is a self-declared nomad, spending much of the year travelling between London, New York, Los Angeles and his native Lancashire, to name just some of his destinations.

image003

He works in Saatchi & Saatchi’s London office in Charlotte Street at least once a month.

His whole office encompasses his personality. It is large, with a big desk suitable for meetings, and everything is decorated in pop-art style.

“This room was decorated by two creative directors for me. The cost was nothing.

“Two guys came in and painted this over the weekend in 2007 and they were thrilled to paint my office for me for free,” he says.

“This table is years old, the chairs are from the 1980s.

“People say why do you have such a big room?

They can assume all they like. Envy is an average trait; one that probably has no redeeming features.”

“But the cost of this room is nothing. It’s on the ground floor.

Everyone wants to be upstairs but I’d rather be near the door so as to be able to come in or leave quickly.”

Career Clips

Who is your mentor?
Women talk a lot about role models and mentors, but I think men need them way more than women. I’ve had seven. They’ve all been men. Three of them were schoolteachers and then four people in business.

What is your biggest regret?
What’s the point? If you get cluttered up with regret, guilt and worry, that’s just self-indulgence . . . you’re reducing your emotional bandwidth.

What other job might you have done?
What I love is leading, teaching, sharing. The biggest kick I get is that six times a year, I invite eight people who work for the company, leaders of tomorrow, to come to one of my homes for two days. They send me five questions that I answer at dinner. We discuss leadership, and role-play.

Are you worth your pay?
I have no idea what it is because money is only important when you don’t have any.

We don’t have to be right all the time. We have to be provocative and interesting.

Filter Media

Subscribe to our newsletter

To stay updated with the latest workshops & speeches

Subscribe Now