Ad man fires blunt hands-off message at TVNZ

Greg Partington says TVNZ should stop trying to form direct relationships with advertisers. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Ogilvy New Zealand managing director Greg Partington has a blunt "butt out" message for Television New Zealand and its expansion into advertising.

TVNZ should stick to its knitting, providing content that attracts viewers and stop trying to form direct relationships with advertisers, says the typically direct ad man.

Partington insists that as a single medium the TVNZ initiative to take on the role of advertising agencies would not work, and it should give up on plans for open slather.

He has told TVNZ bosses as much.

Next year the broadcaster will halve commissions it pays advertising agencies and is forming more direct relationships with advertisers.

It is also expanding its role in advertising production for the retail sector, where Ogilvy has a big role.

Ogilvy clients include Briscoe Group and it produces ads, including TV commercials, from studios in Stanley St.

It is a typically direct opinion from a man who has been a maverick in the ad industry.

Many in the advertising agencies are taking a wary wait-and-see approach to the aggressively expansive approach by the state broadcaster. But Partington seldom minces words.

As a younger man he built Advertising Works into a formidable independent, taking on the big multinationals. The agency has established and - after a merger with global giant Ogilvy and ASX-listed STW Communications - maintained a big role in the retail sector.

Partington has a 35 per cent equity in what he says is New Zealand's third-biggest and arguably most vertically integrated ad agency. That suggests that as an individual he may be New Zealand's biggest ad man.

Yet despite his links to Ogilvy - owned by global giant WPP - he remains an outsider and an enigma.

He can be disarmingly honest, suggesting he is not as much of a hard taskmaster as his reputation - "I wish I was," he says.

"I have a restlessness in the way I operate which can be a nightmare to work for," he says.

Even the Ogilvy NZ promotional website says its MD is described as not known for suffering fools lightly.

"I have never once had a moment where I felt proud of what I have achieved - possibly because I feel that everything in advertising is very fragile," he says. "The way I operate is that nothing is ever good enough - I walk around the business and see the flaws of the work I like and don't like - deciding what can be done faster, smoother and more effectively."

Partington, 52, shares his time between the ad agency and working his 607ha dairy farm east of Wellsford.

He lives on the farm and sometimes helps out with putting the 800 cows through the herringbone milking sheds.

"I have the best of both worlds.

"In some ways the two businesses are the same," he says.

"This advertising sector is fragile, so challenging, so stressful and exciting that my ability to survive it has been able to go home and focus on the farm and producing food."