COLLINS: WHY IT'S NO SURPRISE MICK AND IAN LEFT JWT SYDNEY

We are still awaiting a comment from JWT worldwide CD, Craig Davis on the reasons for the sudden departure of Mick Hunter from the CD gig at JWT Sydney last month, together with his art director partner Ian Morton. Hunter and Morton are choosing not to comment either, but here's a quote from former JWT Sydney CD, Simon Collins (right), now based in the U.S., that is sure to cause a stir....
"Despite their unquestionable talent, and despite my talking up the
appointment for their benefit when it was made, Mick and Ian's resignation
came as no real surprise to me. Craig Davis's quixotic brief for the
creative director role - as it was relayed to me, at any rate - seemed
always likely to create instant friction between the appointee and the
account teams, not to mention their long-suffering clients. Conversely,
talented creative people who are unwilling to (or who have been briefed not
to) compromise their brilliant ideas to accomodate the less glamorous
marketing objectives of their clients are always going to find their style
cramped in the kind of environment that JWT Australia will always be as long
as it depends for a large proportion of its revenue on multinationals like
Kellogg, Nestle and Ford. Clients like that have been successful
practitioners of advertising for longer than most agencies, and far too long
to be distracted from the profit motive by the tangential indulgence of
individual agency creatives intent on prize-winning. What JWT really needs
in Australia - and possibly eberywhere else, too - is pragmatists whom
everyone - suits, clients and creatives alike - can respect in equal
measure. People who are able to identify and exploit real creative
opportunities as and when they occur (which is usually not every day or even
every week) but without otherwise rocking what is, when all is said and
done, a huge and very successful commercial boat. In Sydney they could do a
lot worse than looking at somebody like Jack Vaughn. Unfortunately, while
the international award community remains fixated on a non-existent
corrolary between youth and talent, and while JWT's key international
decision-makers continue to worship at that false altar, I can't see them
doing anything so sensible."