The victory was recognized as a beacon of light in the dark and dangerous years of the ‘Cold War’ against international communism and the ambitions of the USSR.
David Brent had the opportunity to help explain the success story to the world when he appeared in the 2004 BBC TV documentary ‘Empire Warriors – The Intelligence War’ when he particularly confirmed that ‘You couldn’t win without [superb, hard won] intelligence.’ [The program may be seen online at – bbc empire warriors OR at the URL – http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vzxfe ].
In spite of some outstanding successes over the decades in the early 20th Century the generally flawed conventional advertising agency MO was prone to an unacceptable level of errors and failures. The insights from innovative warfare management in Malaya and the absolutely vital insights from highly innovative world-best marketing and market research at Unilever Australia were the breakthrough experiences that convinced David Brent that a new ad agency MO with a highly multi-skilled specialist working proactively with the agency teams and clients was the exemplary innovative formula for the future. How this came about is explained.
Following GM of a market research company in Singapore and ad agency account service, creative writing and media management in Singapore and Australia, David Brent was extremely fortunate in 1962 to join Unilever Australia who were looking for a person with combined market research and advertising agency experience. Here he acquired extremely valuable and rare experience in world-best marketing and world-best market research working intensely with Unilever’s marketing teams and its many successful brands.
This was the fortunate turning point with considerable involvement in Unilever’s many advertising campaigns with its retinue of major advertising agencies. The outcome by 1965 was David Brent’s identification of a major flaw in the MO of advertising agencies due to lack of sufficient marketing orientation among senior management and talent, over emphasis of unbridled creative intuition and insufficient ongoing interface with consumers in the market place. He believed that the only solution was a new specialist multi-skilled professional to proactively work with agency teams and clients with ongoing interface with consumers.
The skills of powerful marketing, powerful market research, intelligence, planning and advertising were successfully introduced by David Brent into a Sydney agency, Thompson Ansell Blunden [later Grey Advertising] in January 1966. The title of ‘planner’ was adopted later as it was in the UK also.
In 2004 the former MD of the agency, Bruce McDonald, Founder Chairman, Grey Advertising, Australia and the Pacific, Founder Chairman, Advertising Federation of Australia, was gracious to say ‘…. Then there were planners, thinkers, strategists. This then was David; among the first and undoubtedly, one of the most professional thinkers at this early time, and still now.’