Tom McFarlane and Tom Dery, the long-time leaders of M&C Saatchi Sydney, were honoured as the 2017 entrees to the Advertising Hall of Fame at the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards earlier this year - and now we have the video.
Better known as “The Toms”, the pair came together more than 22 years ago at DDB Melbourne and between them went on to build M&C Saatchi Australia from a startup into a machine.
Dery is the “suit” in the Tom/Tom relationship while McFarlane is the creative. Dery was managing director of DDB Melbourne in 1995 when the offer of M&C Saatchi landed on his lap.
Following the notorious 1994 fallout at Saatchi & Saatchi in London that saw founders Maurice and Charles Saatchi ousted, and go on to set up another agency with their names above the door, M&C Saatchi, the Saatchi brothers were going after British Airways and Qantas, and needed a Sydney office.
Having worked at Qantas for several years in research, and with experience in running his own agency, Whybin, Dery Barnes, Dery was the key candidate for the founding partner position.
A year later, he asked McFarlane to join M&C Saatchi as founding creative. In the early days, the industry was quick to criticise the brazen M&C Saatchi, as it started to pitch for and win business with a fury. In just a few years, M&C Saatchi was boasting Qantas, ANZ, McDonald’s and Tourism New Zealand on its books. Check out full story Tom McFarlane and Tom Dery are the first pair to enter the Advertising Hall of Fame as a duo and see the video below:
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