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PERSPECTIVE
Is David Patton a little mad? It seems like a valid question to ask. At Sony he has been a golden boy, marketing his products off the shelves, winning awards for his creative advertising. He's a client that buys great creative work that works, and it doesn't get more satisfying than that.
At Grey, he will be the latest in a long line of CEOs who have failed to ignite the agency brand. His key clients will be big, basic but demanding FMCG brands, some of whose idea of creativity begins with compromising over the size of the logo.
From being a feted, courted player on the ad scene, he will join the agency throng scrapping for mediocre accounts and dealing with the incessant pressures of quarterly reporting to a WPP holding company for which Grey is simply one of a large number of divisions with bastard targets to meet.
Patton is used to being served, not serving. His ego (big or small) will lake some readjusting; bending the knee to the sorts...