Advertising genius David Abbott died on May 17 at the age of 75.
A co-founder of Britain’s largest agency, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, Abbott was known for his witty campaigns, including the famous ad: “I never read The Economist” – Management Trainee, Aged 42.
“When he joined Adrian Vickers and me in our little agency it was like Lionel Messi joining Millwall. His talent catapulted AMV into the advertising stratosphere,” AMV co-founder, Peter Mead said in a statement. The agency was launched in 1977, and in 1991 became part of the BBDO network. In 1998, Abbott stepped down as chairman of AMV BBDO, and was succeeded by Peter Souter.
In his farewell speech, Abbott said:
“You care about two things. You care about quality – in everything you do. From the chairs in Reception, to the way you answer a phone, to a piece of Typography, to the ideas you have, to the research you put your name to, to the meetings you hold, to the way you hang a picture, to the way you crop a photograph or write a line.
Quality is always possible and always under threat, but if you don’t seek and defend it you won’t be satisfied and you won’t be happy.
The second thing you must care about? That’s easy. It’s each other.
Take care of each other and nearly everything else will take care of itself. It’s pat, but it’s true.”
The entire speech has been posted online by writer Ben Kay, who had the privilege of working with Abbott before his retirement.
In 2001, Abott was inducted into The One Club Creative Hall of Fame: “David’s work stands, above all, for intelligence and humanity-rare qualities in a human being, let alone a transient piece of communication. And it is because he cajoled, argued, fought, charmed, probably engaged in hand to hand fighting to uphold those simple virtues, that his entry to The Creative Hall of Fame is so thoroughly deserved.”
Abbott’s short novel, The Upright Piano Player was published in March 2010 and longlisted for the Desmond Eliott Prize. In a 2011 interview with Quercus, Abbott spoke about how advertising is good training for fiction. “To succeed in either, you have to be fascinated by people and eager to find out what makes them behave the way they do,” Abbott said.
High50 editor-in-chief Stefano Hatfield remembered Abbott as charming and serene, and one of the key cultural and business forces in British life over the past 40 years. “At a time when we were all exposed to mass advertising with very little hope of escape, he created campaigns with intelligence, wit and above all, humanity,” Hatfield wrote in The Independent.
