Saatchi & Saatchi plc

British advertising, communications, and consulting company. Founded by the brothers Charles and Maurice Saatchi in 1970, by the mid 1980s it had become the world's largest advertising company. Renamed Cordiant plc in 1995 (after the departure of the founding brothers to form the New Saatchi Agency, later renamed M&C Saatchi), the company then split in two in 1997 with Saatchi & Saatchi emerging as one of the new entities. It remained independent until it was acquired by Publicis Groupe SA of France in 2000. In 2007 the company had 154 offices in 84 countries.

The agency's advertisements usually featured provocative or arresting visual images and an economy of text. Saatchi & Saatchi was particularly associated with the Conservative Party under former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher; it produced the party's successful election campaign in 1979 (and also helped her in 1983). One advertisement showed a long line of unemployed workers and said, in a simple pun: ‘Labour isn't working’.

By the end of 1979 Saatchi & Saatchi had become the number one agency in Britain and by 1982 one of the top ten worldwide networks. In 1989 it was the first agency to advertise in central Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Mergers The most important opportunity for the Saatchi agency came in 1975 when it merged with the old and well-established Compton agency of London, so acquiring the accounts of a number of blue-chip clients, chief among them being Proctor & Gamble. Other major clients included the Campbell Soup Company, DuPont, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, Hyundai, Johnson & Johnson, Philip Morris, and Toyota. The Saatchis went on to create an international advertising network through a series of acquisitions, the most significant being the US agencies Compton Communications, Inc. in 1982 and Dancer-Fitzgerald Sample and Ted Bates in 1986. They also branched out into other areas, buying strategic communications business, The Rowland Company, and management consultants, Hay Group.

Break-up In 1987 the Saatchis made their ill-judged (and unsuccessful) bid for Midland Bank (then the fourth largest in the UK). At that time the company started having serious cash flow problems. Simultaneously, a US investment fund started buying Saatchi shares; holding a controlling interest in the company, US fund manager David Herro ousted Maurice from the Saatchi board (following a controversial share option package) in 1994. Maurice and his brother promptly resigned, taking senior managers and millions of pounds of revenue with them, which led to a war of litigation. The departure of the Saatchi brothers caused the renamed Cordiant group severe losses in revenue. Mars and British Airways moved their accounts to the New Saatchi Agency, along with almost £40 million of revenue. Severance payments and litigation over the Saatchis' departure cost the company a further £11 million.

Pregnant man One of their campaigns was for the British government's Health Education Council in 1971, which was trying to increase public awareness of birth control. The Saatchis produced an advertisement that featured a pregnant man with an anxious expression on his face. The text asked: ‘Would you be more careful if it were you who got pregnant?’