Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney: Mumbrella Creative Agency Review – an awful year for a creative force, but it’ll bounce back

The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.

It is fair to say that Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney has not had the happiest of years. Lion Nathan and David Jones were two massive client losses. And a sizeable dent was put its highly-prized Toyota account by Droga5, an agency heavily staffed by ex-Saatchi’s people, notably former Saatchi’s creative boss David Nobay. ECD Steve Back was another key departure. More bad news emerged months later as Saatchi’s failed in its attempt to acquire The Monkeys, another agency run by former employees. As news of the rebuff broke, Saatchi’s went to ground, which has been fairly typical of the agency’s approach to managing its profile.

Yes, there has been the occasional piece of high-quality creative work, such as ‘glass organs’ for Toyota, and it is no surprise to see Saatchi’s score well in our survey for creativity. For an agency that has endured such a tough year, Saatchi’s should gain credit that our panel put it in their top ten in this category.

But in most areas, the agency appears to have slipped into reverse. Our panel rates it as the worst of our top 30 for integration and commercial success, and not much better when it came to client stability and momentum.