Modest adman keeps to the shadows

Greg Partington is well on the way to his ambition of making Ogilvy the country's top agency in billings, revenue - and awards. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Ogilvy New Zealand managing director Greg Partington has worked in advertising for decades, yet few in the tight-knit industry know him.

Partington - who through a series of takeovers built the agency from almost nothing in 1991 to be among the country's four biggest today - avoids awards ceremonies and industry functions, making him a rare creature in the flashy, image-conscious world of advertising.

Despite working in the same industry, Partington hadn't met Ogilvy's new executive creative director, Roy Meares, until he made an approach to buy agency Meares Taine Creative (MTC) this year.

The deal, which took effect this month, was Partington's second takeover in two years.

The moves quickly doubled the size of the agency, formerly called Advertising Works, but reduced Partington's own shareholding to 35 per cent.

The growth is carefully planned, says Partington, with each deal adding capabilities the agency didn't have before. The rapid expansion shows no signs of slowing: Partington's aim is to see Ogilvy become New Zealand's top advertising agency in billings, revenue and awards, ahead of Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB and Colenso BBDO.

Partington says his business edge does not come from his years in the advertising industry, but from failure. His first agency, Alliance, collapsed in 1991 after four "hard" years of bad trading.

"The story is one of survival, having made mistakes, having learned from them and built a really large business as a result."

Partington doesn't often talk of the circumstances that led to the gut-wrenching call from the agency's British shareholder to put the company into receivership.

"My business had been ripped away from me and my life was in tatters and I had a wife and three really young children."

He pledged to learn from the "publicly humiliating" experience and sat down the next day to work out 10 lessons from those four years.

"Those learnings became my kind of mantra for the rest of my business life," says Partington.

"Amazing, eh, that cash is king - that's the first one - cash is king. These are pretty basic learnings but they were bloody critical back then." He adds another: "That overheads erode profits, so watch the little things."

He learned not to hire expensive people then expect them to do your job for you, and that it's almost impossible to buy your way out of a financial problem.

Partington continues through his list to a lesson about being focused and ensuring a business is differentiated.

"That's why, when I launched Advertising Works, I launched it as a retail business," he says.

No other agency in New Zealand specialised in retail advertising at the time, says Partington, who modelled his company on an Australian firm.

Briscoes, under managing director Rod Duke, continued the association it started with Partington at Alliance and signed on as the first client of the new agency, which started with six staff.

"I didn't start Advertising Works from scratch - I started it from a long way back," says Partington. "In our first Christmas, we were making Briscoes commercials, and I had no creditors that would do business with me, no suppliers who would talk to me."

The company made $50,000 profit in its first trading month, says Partington.

The agency's growth was slow for the first few years and in 1997 Partington sold 70 per cent of Advertising Works.

"I lost confidence in my ability to create a really big, capable ad agency."

He bought the share back in 2004, becoming the largest independent owner in the New Zealand advertising sector. Later that year he sold a stake of the $70-million-a-year business to Australia's STW group in a deal that led to Advertising Works taking over Singleton Ogilvy & Mather's New Zealand offices.

"[It] was a clever plot. It was a clever move, I think," says Partington. "I'm proud of it because I think the client got better value out of that transaction."

The deal broadened Advertising Works' offerings, particularly in direct mail and communications, says Partington, and Singleton Ogilvy & Mather's clients were able to access asset-rich Advertising Works' production facilities, lowering costs.

While Advertising Works Ogilvy, as it was known by then, was a commercial success, its creative work was not highly regarded in the industry.

In an attempt to build the agency's creative team, Partington this year took over MTC, renowned for its creativity with clients like Kiwibank, Lion Red and Cuisine magazine.

MTC's Meares realised he could work with Partington, seeing his "excitment" for creativity in advertising during their first meeting to discuss the possibility of a merger.

Partington describes the last few months as exhausting and says his mind constantly works through business strategies - even after work at home on his dairy farm.

He lives an hour north of Auckland on a "stunning" property with two herds of cows, each numbering about 400. His weekends and holidays include twice-daily milking.

"I always felt the advertising business is quite a precarious existence. I wanted to invest the money I made in advertising in primary produce - in land," he says.

Yet Partington is proud of the advertising business he has built from a staff of six in 1991 to about 150 now.

Partington held - and attended - his first industry party this month to celebrate the rebranding to Ogilvy, with some saying the glittering occasion is evidence of his pride in the agency.

Another sign is the usually private Partington's intention to put on a dinner suit and head along for the first time to next week's Axis Awards, joining in the very public celebration of the industry's brightest stars.

Greg Partington
Managing director Ogilvy NZ

Age: 49
Lives: Wellsford.
Education: Rodney College, University of Auckland.
Career: 1978-84 Dobbs-Wiggins McCann-Erickson, 1984-88 Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland, 1988-91 Alliance Advertising, 1991-present Advertising Works (now Ogilvy New Zealand).
Hobbies: Milking during weekends and holidays at his dairy farm north of Auckland. Plays classical piano.