Highs and lows of Marsh's progress

The purchase of Allen Brady and Marsh by Lowe Howard-Spink and Bell, due to come into effect on 3 June, stunned the ad world. In a business not noted for well-kept secrets, there hadn’t been even a sniff of a deal. That pleased Peter Marsh. “Ninety-nine per cent of the speculation concerning ABM over the past two years was nonsense,” says Marsh. “So it was delightful that when the real marriage was taking place, no one knew about it. Total secrecy was crucial; we would have made Trappist monks look like chatterboxes.”

ABM’s setback in 1984 – major accounts including Woolworth, British Rail and Guinness were lost – produced takeover rumours. Marsh insists that there was no substance in them and, equally, that the deal with Lowe is a marriage of mutual interest, not of financial necessity. He points to three key criteria which had to be satisfied: preservation of ABM’s autonomy; a guarantee of succession; and scope for the development of an international presence. “We have not”, he says, “been casting around for a partner. We are an asset-rich company, and a very strong financial entity. There was no financial compulsion to make this move.”

So why do it? Marsh cites his admiration for Frank Lowe and Tim Bell, the fact that Lowe is the fastest-growing group in town, and his belief that the deal offers the perfect combination of independence and integration. ABM will be an autonomous arm of the Lowe Howard-Spink and Bell group, competing directly with Lowe Howard-Spink Marschalk, but will benefit from the backing of a big public company.

Marsh remains chairman of ABM, having signed a minimum five-year service contract, and is financially responsible to the board of LHSB. “I’ll be running ABM autonomously,” he says. “Frank and Tim won’t even set foot in the building. The Dorland/Saatchi situation is the perfect example of how it will be.” Marsh’s commitment to the future of the company is clear. He lives and breathes ABM. “The thought of giving ABM life after my own lifespan is enormously satisfying,” he says. “It has a culture of its own.”

To call Marsh ebullient is akin to saying that Margaret Thatcher is assertive. He is eloquent, energetic, demonstrative and compelling. He spices his stories with mimicry; he insists that his colleagues and clients are also his friends and stresses that, while making money is important, the ad business is much more than a set of figures at the bottom of a balance sheet. Born into a working class family in Hull, Marsh began life as an actor: playing the prince in Snow White to an unsympathetic Saturday-night audience in Wigan was, he says, very character building. He went on to write two successful comedies and to direct before joining the BBC to make television documentaries. He was also married for eight years to Coronation Street temptress Pat Phoenix.

At the BBC he learned “the grammar of television”, before moving into producing commercials and, in 1957, taking a job with the Osborne Peacock agency in Manchester. He says his work there on Vosene shampoo, interviewing consumers on camera, shaped his whole attitude to advertising and made him realise that understanding the views and motivations of the audience was crucial. ABM’s “voice of the people”’ tag was already being formed.

In 1965 he was in on the launch of a new agency called Patrick Henry and Partners, but he didn’t stay long and in February 1966 started ABM – with a staff of four, a single office and one account, carpet suppliers Cyril Lord. That account almost proved the agency’s undoing: when the company went bust in 1968, ABM was left with a massive bad debt. It could have opted for liquidation, but instead chose to pay media owners for ads already run. According to Marsh, it took about four years to recover, but recover it did, growing rapidly in the 1970s and early 80s to bill over £70m by 1983.

Then came the account losses that had the media speculating and critics of Marsh’s flamboyant style crowing. He defends ABM’s work on the accounts it lost. “We had BR longer than anyone ever has,” he says, “and the ‘Age of the Train’ campaign was enormously successful. We reversed the downward trend in sales of Guinness in just 10 months. And most people believe that the advertising was one of the best things that Woolworth did.”

The pain of those losses has now dulled. ABM has had some significant wins recently, notably Vladivar vodka, the Welsh Development Agency and the much-delayed British Airways flotation. In July the agency is moving to new offices in Tavistock Square, which will bring its 180 staff under the same roof for the first time in 11 years. ABM’s resilience is a tribute to Marsh’s own strength, which dates back to those bad nights in rowdy provincial theatres. He cites an American director’s phlegmatic response to one epic theatrical flop: “Sometimes you put your face up to be kissed, and sometimes they’ll get slapped.” Enjoy the kisses, live with the slaps, but above all keep performing.

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