The Brothers

Fülszöveg

The Saatchi brothers, Charles and Maurice, have created in the space of 18 years the biggest advertising company the world has ever known. The little 'hotshop' agency they started with "me people in 1970 passed the giant J.Walter Thompson in Britain within a decade; they then took on - and conquered - the might of Madison Avenue.
On the way to their present pre-eminence the Saatchis made some of the most highly acclaimed advertisements in the industry, including the 'Pregnant Man' advertisement of 1970 and much of their work for the ConservaHve Party, whom they represented from 1979 on, helping Margaret Thatcher to become Britain's first woman Prime Minister and then to be re-elected in 1983 and 1987 - the last time in controversial circumstances which yet again made the agency front-page news.
By the early 1980s the brothers went after biper and more established industries than advertising: consultancy, research, direct selling and many other multi-million pound businesses.... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The Saatchi brothers, Charles and Maurice, have created in the space of 18 years the biggest advertising company the world has ever known. The little 'hotshop' agency they started with "me people in 1970 passed the giant J.Walter Thompson in Britain within a decade; they then took on - and conquered - the might of Madison Avenue.
On the way to their present pre-eminence the Saatchis made some of the most highly acclaimed advertisements in the industry, including the 'Pregnant Man' advertisement of 1970 and much of their work for the ConservaHve Party, whom they represented from 1979 on, helping Margaret Thatcher to become Britain's first woman Prime Minister and then to be re-elected in 1983 and 1987 - the last time in controversial circumstances which yet again made the agency front-page news.
By the early 1980s the brothers went after biper and more established industries than advertising: consultancy, research, direct selling and many other multi-million pound businesses. They offered L2.5 billion for the Midland Bank, but were repulsed; a bid for the City merchant bank Hill Samuel was similarly defeated. Now their attention is fixed on other still bigger, prey.
How have they achieved so much? And who are they? Some of the people they took over thought they were Japanese, or maybe Italian. Even their friends are not aware of the details in this book about their early background, their arrival in Britain as children, the early frustrations and academic failures of Charles before he discovered something he could do well, and the contrasting academic brilliance of his younger brother.
Their lives have touched on those of many of the leading personalities of our day: David Puttnam and Alan Parker, who were friends and associates from the beginning, Michael Heseltine and Mary Quant, who were early supporters, Tim Bell, Martin Sorrell - the man who bought J. Walter Thompson - Thatcher herself, and many others from the worids of commerce, the media, politics, art and showbusiness. It is one of the most astonishing success stories of the past twenty years, not just in the corporate and advertising worids, but in others toó: Charles and his American wife Doris have built what is generally regarded as the single best collection of contemporary art in private hands in the worid.
Continued on back flap
Continued from front flap
Ivan Fallon, Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times, has gained access to the brothers for the first time; he has talked to the people who have worked for and with them over the years, to their friends and enemies, to members of the family and to many others. The result is far more than a book about an advertising company; it is a tour de force, a story, still far from finished, of a modern phenomenon which has had a major impact on the culture of a generation.

Photograph by Jerry Bauer
Ivan Fallon was born in Ireland in 1944, the son of the poet and playwright Padraic Fallon. After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, he became a financial journalist in London, and City Editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1979-1984. He was named Financial Journalist of the year in 1982. In 1984 he became Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times where he writes one of the most widely read financial columns.
His first book DeLorean, the Rise and Fall of a Dream-maker, written with James Srodes, was widely acclaimed in the United States, where it was a Book of the Month choice, and in Britain. A second book. Takeovers, was published in Julyl987.
He is married, with three children, and lives in Kent.
Jacket design by Craig Dodd
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