WPP Chief Sir Martin Sorrell's Grand Comeback

Sir Martin Sorrel is a man always in the thick of global advertising news. Last week, he made a grand comeback on the London Stock Exchange as the shares in his new business S4 Capital traded for the first time. A deja vu moment for the man who was at the helm of WPP for a record number of years before his unceremonious exit earlier this year. To his credit, he did not take a long to get back in the saddle and start doing what he does best, which includes making headlines.

Post to acrimonious exit from WPP, Sorely launched his new advertising venture with the acquisition of Dutch firm, MediaMonks. A few days back while unveiling the nearly 200 pages thick company prospectus, he made news again with his stated position on the ''future of advertising', one that doesn't include the creative agency as we know it. In fact it implies cutting them out of the loop entirely because they don't seem to play a crucial role in advertising anymore.
While everybody and their aunt wants to be the one to usher in the digital era, how to effectively and harmoniously weave it into the existing tapestry is still a big question. Who will have the final right to clients' marketing monies - creative agencies with digital chops or consultancies with creative skill sets? Nobody really knows, not even Sorrel, who was, till a few month ago, at the helm of a group of legacy creative agencies, which included Ogilvy and JWT. Meanwhile, clients are playing along and trying their own metrics and tricks- taking their accounts in and out of agencies at Tinder speed, keeping agencies in a fearfil huddle. A miffed Jeff Good-by, co-chairman and partner at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners reacted to Sorrell's position in a scathing article he wrote for Adweek; "Doing away with the creative department is a great headline, but it can't happen. It shouldn't." Here is what marketers closer home have to say.