4/ My years at Research International
4A The Early Days of Research International
By Phil Barnard - CEO Research International Worldwide
- And in the beginning
.................there was Unilever. As one of the largest multinational fast moving consumer goods companies, it led the way in keeping close to its consumers throughout the world. It was the most decentralised and ‘local’ in its approach to each national
market.
This led, from the 1930s, to Unilever’s establishing consumer research departments in many of its businesses around the globe. From the 1960s it began converting these cost centres into stand-alone businesses, sometimes merging units together (eg. here in the UK, the central Unilever Market Research Department was merged with the research unit of its advertising agency, Lintas, to form Research Bureau Limited in 1962).
Stricter financial objectives were set although, in the early days, any ‘surplus’ (‘profit’ was not yet a term in common use!) had to be returned to our Unilever clients! This changed as we were permittedby the Unilever Board to take ‘Third Party’ clients albeit with a low percentage cap on the level of non-Unilever business we could accept.
As Ken Fraser and Mike Angus, RBL’s first two Managing Directors, were succeeded by Eileen Cole, the restrictions on our business freedom were gradually eased and eventually we were able to seek business from virtually any organisation that did not compete directly with Unilever, and to make whatever profit we could (a theoretical freedom for some time, it has to be said!). The quid pro quo was that by this time our Unilever-owned clients were no longer forced to buy their ad hoc research from us; so, we were entering the real world of competition.
With all that’s happened in the intervening half century, it is perhaps easy to forget what a remarkable company RBL was. Its resources were unmatched with a huge postal panel; test centres; massive fieldforce (rivalled only by BMRB and the BBC!); pioneering
UK telephone interviewing and the application of computers to MR; international research leadership and conducting more qualitative research than any other British agency.
Innovation was in our blood. Not only were there constant technical advances arising from the unique Basic Research Programme, funded by Unilever through RBL’s Technical Control & Development Division (and equivalent bodies in three other countries), but we also had an early leap into continuous research with
distribution/price checks and Ian Hunt’s Motorists Diary Panel. Later to become my predecessor as CEO Research International Worldwide.
We recruited and trained the best executives in the research business and increasingly developed specialisms in agricultural; medical; industrial; social and other sectors as well as our ‘bread and butter’ of consumer packaged goods markets. All in all, we had
the most professional ‘services’ departments as well as being something of a university of the market research world. I’ve laboured the point about our unique heritage in the UK because it was a key driver in the Unilever review that ultimately resulted in
Research International’s emerging as the world’s leading full service market research company.
Some of RBL’s research assets were found to a (generally) lesser, but variable, degree in the research units that Unilever had in other countries. The Board of Unilever determined in 1972 that, in a similar way to the creation of its Detergents, Toilet Preparations, Foods etc. international ‘Coordination Groups’, so market research
would be coordinated on a multinational basis from the beginning of 1973.
Initially, four countries (plus RBL’s overseas subsidiaries- see below) would be involved: UK, (West) Germany, France and the Netherlands. They would form the European Market Research Group (EMRG) and report to a Head Office based in Rotterdam. Eileen
Cole, hitherto Chairman of RBL, was appointed its head and, thus, the Chairmen/Managing Directors of RBL
The Head Office team was kept small - initially comprising, in addition to ‘Miss Cole’ (as she always remained to many). Given the preponderance of Brits., the Rotterdam location was felt to provide some geographic balance at a time when ‘sensitivities’ still existed between Unilever’s twin power bases of London and Rotterdam.
So, what did EMRG do? It was far from a passive Head Office as all
those knowing Eileen Cole would not be surprised to learn.
Naturally, there were commercial targets set by the ‘Concern’ (as Unilever was commonly known) and, to use a modern term, they were somewhat ‘gold-plated’ by EC. Through the EMRG Policy Committee (Eileen plus the four Unit Heads, supported by Messrs. Wiegers and Barnard) she established the famous 10/10 targets ie.
10% profit on turnover and 10% share of the MR market in each country (each of the four founder members of EMRG was among the top 3 ad hoc research companies in its own country; RBL was actually no. 1).
The 1973 oil crisis and related economic distress rendered most of EMRG’s financial goals, and those of its constituent businesses, courageously unachievable for several years to come! Nevertheless, these were the years when a wide range of ambitious
programmes were established to help build the RI that would become the acknowledged world leader: international seminars covering key business sectors/technique areas; training programmes; international transfers (especially to and from RBL); establishment of research study classification systems and multinational client databases; global research brand development; best practice transfer; new business development; diversification; aquisition; a much higher external profile through
conference/seminar participation and the publication of cutting edge papers..........
Some of this, and other international activities, built on what had already been set in motion before EMRG was created. For example, the ‘Linked Unit’ system began in the 1960s. Senior executives from more ‘advanced’ units (usually RBL!) were designated as ‘minders’ of smaller, ‘less sophisticated’ units. I remember being allocated Belgium (SUMA), Italy (CER) and Sweden (IFH) as my ‘territory’, tasked with bringing technical and commercial enlightenment to them through regular contact and consultancy visits!
The Middle East and Africa featured prominently; interviewer teams were sometimes imprisoned and a certain colonial spirit which oozed sang-froid and acknowledged the role of bribery and alcohol was indispensible. Typically, the RBL executive visited the country, set up and ran the project (including recruiting a temporary fieldforce) and then returned home carrying the questionnaires for hand tabulation in London!
Where, I hear you ask, was ‘Research International’ in these times of ‘RBL’ and the early days of ‘EMRG’. Well, the name itself predated the formation of EMRG and, together with RI’s first logo (a blue, people-populated globe), was created by Lintas’s Presight unit in
the 1960s to provide an umbrella brand under which RBL and its sister units (still, at that time, reporting separately to Unilever National Management in their respective countries) could offer international research to clients. Although for internal Unilever
purposes the Management Coordination Group was known as EMRG, to clients (both Unilever and Third Party) the name ‘Research International’ became increasing familiar as more multi-country studies were conducted.
For national research, the local unit name continued in use (RBL, IVE etc.) although membership of RI was signalled in the letterhead. Eventually, the suffix ‘Research International’ was added to the local name in most cases, followed by a war of attrition (in which ‘reluctant’ units used legal, ‘client familiarity’ and straightforward chauvinism weapons to argue for the retention of their local name) over many years before going the ‘Full Monty’ and adopting the name ‘Research International’, usually as a prefix to
the country name, e.g. RIUK, RI Nederland.......
Of course, the key to everything was clients. When EMRG began in 1973, its client list was still dominated by Unilever’s national companies (in the UK: Levers, Gibbs, van den Berghs, Batchelors and so on) and we handled 80% of their ad hoc research. However,
the third party portfolio had already grown to one third of our business from less than a tenth five years earlier (in RBL’s case, from 16% to 40%).
The future EMRG units had, in fact, been phenomenally successful in building third party business. Our Unilever parentage had bequeathed us a unique palette of techniques, resources, highly trained talent (with RBL’s graduate training scheme widely considered the industry’s best) and a closeness to marketing and advertising that our competitors could not match.
All of this proved highly attractive to third party clients and we had another key feature, not greatly exploited by our Unilever clients at that time, namely expertise in international research coordination. Having increasing numbers of RI units under common (EMRG) ownership and management, engaging in the same training programmes, familiar with each other and our proprietary techniques and experienced in coordinating international projects was a source of comfort to a growing number of multinational companies.
So, even in 1973, over half our non-Unilever business was for mncs, predominantly American. You could argue that RI was built on ashes as the most important product category was tobacco, followed by pharmaceuticals; petrol/oil; office equipment; alcohol; cosmetics; media owners; snacks/confectionery; coffee/tea and food.
The close relationship we had with our clients (and not only Unilever ones) meant that account conflict guidelines had been drawn up by EMRG which restricted to some extent the business we were able to handle even when conflicting clients/product fields could be managed by different research groups in a country.
A review of RI/EMRG’s early days would not be complete without mentioning the role of ‘The Globe’. This journal was launched by EMRG in 1974, edited primarily by Elizabeth Hussey, and sought to provide a means of communicating information and ideas among
Research International employees. It not only covered clients; seminars; techniques; business development; organisational changes; competitors and a wide range of research-related issues but also focussed particularly on the people in our units. This helped to ‘flesh out’ the sometimes transitory contacts made across countries between ‘Master’ and ‘Commissioned’ units in conducting international research projects.
In its fifth year (July 1977), EMRG Head Office moved from the Netherlands to the UK, a more ‘natural’ home for a global research business, relocating in Unilever offices off London’s Fleet Street.
======================================================================
=======================================================================
4C My years at Research International Netherlands
Memories of Michael Roe CEO 1979 - 1984
========================================================================
4D My years at Research International Netherlands
4A The Early Days of Research International
By Phil Barnard - CEO Research International Worldwide
- And in the beginning
.................there was Unilever. As one of the largest multinational fast moving consumer goods companies, it led the way in keeping close to its consumers throughout the world. It was the most decentralised and ‘local’ in its approach to each national
market.
This led, from the 1930s, to Unilever’s establishing consumer research departments in many of its businesses around the globe. From the 1960s it began converting these cost centres into stand-alone businesses, sometimes merging units together (eg. here in the UK, the central Unilever Market Research Department was merged with the research unit of its advertising agency, Lintas, to form Research Bureau Limited in 1962).
Stricter financial objectives were set although, in the early days, any ‘surplus’ (‘profit’ was not yet a term in common use!) had to be returned to our Unilever clients! This changed as we were permittedby the Unilever Board to take ‘Third Party’ clients albeit with a low percentage cap on the level of non-Unilever business we could accept.
As Ken Fraser and Mike Angus, RBL’s first two Managing Directors, were succeeded by Eileen Cole, the restrictions on our business freedom were gradually eased and eventually we were able to seek business from virtually any organisation that did not compete directly with Unilever, and to make whatever profit we could (a theoretical freedom for some time, it has to be said!). The quid pro quo was that by this time our Unilever-owned clients were no longer forced to buy their ad hoc research from us; so, we were entering the real world of competition.
With all that’s happened in the intervening half century, it is perhaps easy to forget what a remarkable company RBL was. Its resources were unmatched with a huge postal panel; test centres; massive fieldforce (rivalled only by BMRB and the BBC!); pioneering
UK telephone interviewing and the application of computers to MR; international research leadership and conducting more qualitative research than any other British agency.
Innovation was in our blood. Not only were there constant technical advances arising from the unique Basic Research Programme, funded by Unilever through RBL’s Technical Control & Development Division (and equivalent bodies in three other countries), but we also had an early leap into continuous research with
distribution/price checks and Ian Hunt’s Motorists Diary Panel. Later to become my predecessor as CEO Research International Worldwide.
We recruited and trained the best executives in the research business and increasingly developed specialisms in agricultural; medical; industrial; social and other sectors as well as our ‘bread and butter’ of consumer packaged goods markets. All in all, we had
the most professional ‘services’ departments as well as being something of a university of the market research world. I’ve laboured the point about our unique heritage in the UK because it was a key driver in the Unilever review that ultimately resulted in
Research International’s emerging as the world’s leading full service market research company.
Some of RBL’s research assets were found to a (generally) lesser, but variable, degree in the research units that Unilever had in other countries. The Board of Unilever determined in 1972 that, in a similar way to the creation of its Detergents, Toilet Preparations, Foods etc. international ‘Coordination Groups’, so market research
would be coordinated on a multinational basis from the beginning of 1973.
Initially, four countries (plus RBL’s overseas subsidiaries- see below) would be involved: UK, (West) Germany, France and the Netherlands. They would form the European Market Research Group (EMRG) and report to a Head Office based in Rotterdam. Eileen
Cole, hitherto Chairman of RBL, was appointed its head and, thus, the Chairmen/Managing Directors of RBL
The Head Office team was kept small - initially comprising, in addition to ‘Miss Cole’ (as she always remained to many). Given the preponderance of Brits., the Rotterdam location was felt to provide some geographic balance at a time when ‘sensitivities’ still existed between Unilever’s twin power bases of London and Rotterdam.
So, what did EMRG do? It was far from a passive Head Office as all
those knowing Eileen Cole would not be surprised to learn.
Naturally, there were commercial targets set by the ‘Concern’ (as Unilever was commonly known) and, to use a modern term, they were somewhat ‘gold-plated’ by EC. Through the EMRG Policy Committee (Eileen plus the four Unit Heads, supported by Messrs. Wiegers and Barnard) she established the famous 10/10 targets ie.
10% profit on turnover and 10% share of the MR market in each country (each of the four founder members of EMRG was among the top 3 ad hoc research companies in its own country; RBL was actually no. 1).
The 1973 oil crisis and related economic distress rendered most of EMRG’s financial goals, and those of its constituent businesses, courageously unachievable for several years to come! Nevertheless, these were the years when a wide range of ambitious
programmes were established to help build the RI that would become the acknowledged world leader: international seminars covering key business sectors/technique areas; training programmes; international transfers (especially to and from RBL); establishment of research study classification systems and multinational client databases; global research brand development; best practice transfer; new business development; diversification; aquisition; a much higher external profile through
conference/seminar participation and the publication of cutting edge papers..........
Some of this, and other international activities, built on what had already been set in motion before EMRG was created. For example, the ‘Linked Unit’ system began in the 1960s. Senior executives from more ‘advanced’ units (usually RBL!) were designated as ‘minders’ of smaller, ‘less sophisticated’ units. I remember being allocated Belgium (SUMA), Italy (CER) and Sweden (IFH) as my ‘territory’, tasked with bringing technical and commercial enlightenment to them through regular contact and consultancy visits!
The Middle East and Africa featured prominently; interviewer teams were sometimes imprisoned and a certain colonial spirit which oozed sang-froid and acknowledged the role of bribery and alcohol was indispensible. Typically, the RBL executive visited the country, set up and ran the project (including recruiting a temporary fieldforce) and then returned home carrying the questionnaires for hand tabulation in London!
Where, I hear you ask, was ‘Research International’ in these times of ‘RBL’ and the early days of ‘EMRG’. Well, the name itself predated the formation of EMRG and, together with RI’s first logo (a blue, people-populated globe), was created by Lintas’s Presight unit in
the 1960s to provide an umbrella brand under which RBL and its sister units (still, at that time, reporting separately to Unilever National Management in their respective countries) could offer international research to clients. Although for internal Unilever
purposes the Management Coordination Group was known as EMRG, to clients (both Unilever and Third Party) the name ‘Research International’ became increasing familiar as more multi-country studies were conducted.
For national research, the local unit name continued in use (RBL, IVE etc.) although membership of RI was signalled in the letterhead. Eventually, the suffix ‘Research International’ was added to the local name in most cases, followed by a war of attrition (in which ‘reluctant’ units used legal, ‘client familiarity’ and straightforward chauvinism weapons to argue for the retention of their local name) over many years before going the ‘Full Monty’ and adopting the name ‘Research International’, usually as a prefix to
the country name, e.g. RIUK, RI Nederland.......
Of course, the key to everything was clients. When EMRG began in 1973, its client list was still dominated by Unilever’s national companies (in the UK: Levers, Gibbs, van den Berghs, Batchelors and so on) and we handled 80% of their ad hoc research. However,
the third party portfolio had already grown to one third of our business from less than a tenth five years earlier (in RBL’s case, from 16% to 40%).
The future EMRG units had, in fact, been phenomenally successful in building third party business. Our Unilever parentage had bequeathed us a unique palette of techniques, resources, highly trained talent (with RBL’s graduate training scheme widely considered the industry’s best) and a closeness to marketing and advertising that our competitors could not match.
All of this proved highly attractive to third party clients and we had another key feature, not greatly exploited by our Unilever clients at that time, namely expertise in international research coordination. Having increasing numbers of RI units under common (EMRG) ownership and management, engaging in the same training programmes, familiar with each other and our proprietary techniques and experienced in coordinating international projects was a source of comfort to a growing number of multinational companies.
So, even in 1973, over half our non-Unilever business was for mncs, predominantly American. You could argue that RI was built on ashes as the most important product category was tobacco, followed by pharmaceuticals; petrol/oil; office equipment; alcohol; cosmetics; media owners; snacks/confectionery; coffee/tea and food.
The close relationship we had with our clients (and not only Unilever ones) meant that account conflict guidelines had been drawn up by EMRG which restricted to some extent the business we were able to handle even when conflicting clients/product fields could be managed by different research groups in a country.
A review of RI/EMRG’s early days would not be complete without mentioning the role of ‘The Globe’. This journal was launched by EMRG in 1974, edited primarily by Elizabeth Hussey, and sought to provide a means of communicating information and ideas among
Research International employees. It not only covered clients; seminars; techniques; business development; organisational changes; competitors and a wide range of research-related issues but also focussed particularly on the people in our units. This helped to ‘flesh out’ the sometimes transitory contacts made across countries between ‘Master’ and ‘Commissioned’ units in conducting international research projects.
In its fifth year (July 1977), EMRG Head Office moved from the Netherlands to the UK, a more ‘natural’ home for a global research business, relocating in Unilever offices off London’s Fleet Street.
======================================================================
4B Phil
Barnard retires --- Esomar newsbrief - July 1999
Philip Barnard has now retired as Chairman
of Kantar, the WPP research arm - the third largest research group in the world
controlling Research lnternational BMRB lnternational Millward Brown, Kantar
Media Research, Goldfarb Consultants, IMRB and Winona.. He remains as non-
Executive Chairman of Kantor in a consultancy capacity, but no longer has a
non-stop day-to-day role. He talked to Phyllis Vangelder during his last active
week ot the headquarters of Kantar in central London.
"It will be nice to have time to live
at a different pace. You don't even get away from work on holiday. As often as
not, your holidays are tacked onto the beginning or end of business meetings in
various countries and if you remain in the country you are drawn into other
meetings. But of course, it has been an enormous privilege to have this job and
go to so many countries. I am very curious and try to see places for what they
are, to see people's culture through their background. I try to suspend the
fact that I am a British visitor and hear and absorb impressions in an
objective way".
This is the scientist talking. Like so many
top researchers in his peer group, Philip Barnard's education was not linked
directly to market research. His degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge was
followed by a fourth year doing experimental psychology (very useful for
evaluating the qualitative research studies which were emerging in the '60s).
"The market research industry has a richness and good balance because so
many of us came from different disciplines.
The scientific discipline and objectivity
underpinning what we do, often starting from hypo theses and testing them, differentiates
us from other sectors in the marketing information world. Market researchers
tend to have clear analytical minds and the essence of what they can give - the
search for truth and objectivity- is invaluable to organisations of every
kind".
Although the ownership of the organisations
has changed (Unilever, the Ogilvy Group and finally WPP), and, of course, his
functions within them as he progressed steadily to the top, Philip Barnard's
life career has been with the same group. Starting as a graduate trainee with
Research Bureau Ltd (RBL), the research arm of Unilever, he was soon recognised
as a potential high flyer, progressing via posts in The Netherlands and Germany
to head of RBL, UK and then, via the US, to CEO/Chairman of RI and subsequently
Kantar. In 1973 Unilever pulled together its main research units into the
European Market Research Group, based in The Netherlands and he joined Eileen
Cole in Rotterdam. He was back at RBL in the UK in 1977 and in 1984 went to
Germany to run IVE and Marplan. In 1986 he again returned to the UK to head
RBL, changing its name to RI UK and masterminding the move from a converted
soap factory in Wapping in the East End to its present prestigious location at
Hyde Park Corner, in London's Knightsbridge area.
At the same time he developed a federal
structure within the company, with specialisms in different profit areas. WPP
bought the Ogilvy Group in 1989, forming Kantar in I993 to bring the worldwide
research entities together.
Philip Barnard became the first CEO/Chairman
in 1993, as well as remaining as Head of Research International for a further
18 months.
Changes
We talked about the changes he had seen in
the industry during the past four decades. "As in other professional areas
we have become more industrialised, moving from a kitchen-table industry to a
business environment. There are now more people who have a top management and
business mindset in our industry. Perhaps we miss out on the sparkle and
creative insight of the early days, but we are now running big businesses.
"Respondents were much more open and
responsive to market research in the '60s. A lot of Unilever's work was in
interviewing housewives and they were usually delighted to have a dull day
interrupted by a market researcher. It was a time when we could invent new
things - I introduced a Family Buying Index, a Smokers Panel (unacceptable
today) and ran a Motorists Panel. We also found we could extrapolate the
purchasing power of many products from ad hoc surveys on a panel, and this I
suppose is the precursor of today's Access panels. New small companies were
being set up - some of these are the ones now being snapped up by conglomerates
as their original owners retire. There was more 'ivory tower' time. We had a
Technical Control and Development division which had money pumped into it by
Unilever to develop research into research. We still have budgets to develop
new techniques and systems, but now there is a tighter focus on achieving
competitive advantage.
International
research
"Apart from the set-backs during the
oil crisis, the research industry has been remarkably resilient. In the '70s
internationalism became more rooted. I was very fortunate to be around when
international research was developing and Research International was in the vanguard
of this movement. We had a strong headstart with the EMRG. Nielsen, IMS and
Gallup were really the only other significant international groups. The first two
were in very specialised areas and Gallup was made up of separate companies. We
were pioneering international ad hoc consumer research. At the time I was heavily
involved with the International Committee within the UK Market Research Society
as well as in ESOMAR with international seminars and statistics. We contributed
to a Panorama of the EC which took every industry and looked at it on an EC
basis. I used to write the chapter on research.
Standard
Research techniques
"During the '80s we saw the spread of
standard research techniques. Europe has been behind the US in this area. In
the early days we believed that every problem had its unique solution. In the
US they did not have the semi-intellectual pretensions (some would say
arrogance). They are much more
action-orientated and the development of standard products for NPD, simulated
testmarkets, pricing, customer satisfaction, ad testing, brand equity and so on
was pioneered in the States. They gradually spread to Europe and are now a
significant part of our industry.
"Best practice now is to benefit from
the knowledge of past generations and previous research and accept that many
problems are very similar and a set of standardised techniques produce data
that can be compared cross country and products, although there might be
slightly different variants for different products and markets. Our major
clients are multinational and they want databases of results that can be
interpreted across markets. The move to standard branded techniques is very
much client-driven. Clients are becoming increasingly sophisticated and we are
under pressure from them to provide information that can be presented
throughout their organisations. We can help clients to co-ordinate the internal
dissemination of this information and learning.
"Of the $11 billion market for
research, 35 % is syndicated market and media measurement. Qualitative
research, which accounts for some 15%, is more specific problem-orientated, but
even here branded products have been developed. Branded quantitative techniques
account for
20-25%. It is these branded products and
the syndicated services which are now globalised.
The '90s are like the '60s in that
everything is being challenged. Our boundaries are now uncertain. Associated
with this is the change in the nature of marketing: relationship marketing,
on-line and e-commerce are making us reconsider our roles. How do we treat
anonymity, data-mining, fusion? Our task in the '90s is to deliver the things
that clients want, ideally in partnership arrangements".
The
future
Philip Barnard remains optimistic about the
future of market research "Our core competencies, dealing with fresh
objective data and our conceptual abstract orientation cannot be equalled. If
this is linked with smarter business acumen we remain unique. We may have to
recognise that market researchers are of two types: the business man or woman
and the technical researcher.
Some have been able to straddle both areas.
The future is not only for global companies. There are still niche
opportunities in the whole information sector.
However, the main thrust in the industry is
from big research companies, operating transnationally, focusing on one or more
business categories or types of research. These can afford to employ people
with different kinds of skills.
"We still do not know who will take
the leadership in integrating research
with areas such as database management and competitive intelligence in the next
century.
Certainly there is tremendous interest from
the financial community in our business. Because we are in the forefront of
marketplace information and knowledge the financial analysts have put us in the
spotlight".
Training
As the recipient of a superb company
training programme, Philip Barnard believes passionately in training a new
generation of researchers. The major companies in the Group take on regular
influxes of graduates and he comments that the large research companies have
been'the universities of the industry'. As a founding member of the Advisory
Board that guides the graduate research programme at the University of Texas in
Arlington, he is delighted and honoured that the University has established an endowed
scholarship fund to create the Philip Barnard Scholarship for students pursuing
a Master of Science in Marketing Research (MSMR) degree.
Philip Barnard has no immediate plans to
restructure his business or personal life. His knowledge of market research,
his business success and global experience, linked with the fact that he is one
of the most well-liked people in the industry, means that he will undoubtedly
be wooed. Meanwhile he relishes the time to stand and stare'.
4C My years at Research International Netherlands
Memories of Michael Roe CEO 1979 - 1984
My wife, 1
year-old son, the family cat and a British au pair girl (the 18 year-old
daughter of our London
neighbours) stepped off the Cityhopper plane at Zestienhoven in September 1979
to join me for my 5 year term as head of Socmar.
A year
earlier, Eileen Cole, boss of EMRG, had asked me to go to Milan from London and take over at
CER. I had refused because Teresa was about to deliver our son (and first
child) and we thought this would put too much pressure on her. Eileen had not
been happy – you could not refuse her twice and survive. So it was to the land
of cheese rather than the land of pasta that we finally arrived.
My first
impressions of Socmar? Well, 8 years previously I had gone to Athens to start the local RI agency from
zero, having no staff at all originally. In Rotterdam I was both impressed and felt
comfortable with the large, smoothly operating team, who had a long history. But
I wondered initially if they fully believed in me. Eileen had virtually
dismissed my predecessor Berry Rutten, who I was told had been unable to
follow the flamboyant, superficial success of Frans Tummers. The company was now in financial
trouble and although things turned up quickly after my arrival, the 1980
general economic crisis knocked us right down again.
In terms of
personnel things were also up-and-down at the start. The senior staff were a
fascinating mix of the young and dynamic (e.g. Frank Vermonden, Willem v
Noort) and conservative long-termers (e.g. Ernst Koster). I also had
to get used to the idea of Research Control, the separate engine-room of
research projects guided by Guus Kors
and Peter v.d Bijl (after the sad, unexplained death of Esther), a
structure which we did not have in London.
And then just as I was getting to grips with the Amsterdam qual office, its boss, the temperamental
Anjo Schreuder announced her departure while I was away on holiday. But huge
support - business and personal - in these early days came from (and was repeated
for Jon Wilkinson later) Harry v Breemen and my secretary Magda Hoebe.
After about
a year things settled down. Home life was excellent – my family loved our house
on the lake in Hillegersberg and Teresa and I were getting on well with the
dutch language (I could even read some of NRC Handelsblad). The climate
couldn’t quite match Greece,
but was
equally
familiar as the UK.
We ate a lot of cheese and even stampot occasionally. Loved filet
americain or paling on our boterham but could not get used to kroketten. However much milk I drank
I could not grow fast enough to buy clothes in Holland – I was still much too short for
shirtsleeves and trousers (had to go to Antwerp).
My own ‘big
idea’ and primary focus was to start to sell our services professionally and
Frank drove forward this active new business development to reduce our
dependence on Unilever; Robert Petrescu replaced Anjo in his own unique
way in Amsterdam; Ton Oosterhuis was our resident technical guru (and
looked after the important but enigmatic Lever client Koen Thio; can’t remember
who had the task of dealing with the tough v.d. Bergh & Jurgens margarine client
named Lex Olivier!); Willem developed B2B and started pharma
research; ‘cool hand’ Loet Magnin and Koos Blacquiere did big, solid,
reliable client service business as always………and Henk Benning provided me with the vital
weekly fiattering info from which I built my management info system on
one huge sheet of squared (graph) paper (which still hangs on the wall of my
home office where I am writing this memoire).
As a result,
and after fierce monthly negotiations with Harry, our profitability soared and
was recognised by Head Office when we received the ‘Agency of the Year’ plate
at the annual EMRG General Management Meeting.
None of this
would have been possible without the solid field service of Aad Worseling
and his team, plus IT from Leo v. d. Linden,
supported by Gretha v.d. Pas. And then print from Andre (when we
could get him out of ‘the Jungle bar’) and house services from Aart Blokland.
If I have forgotten to mention others, my thanks to them also and please excuse
me.
The research
‘scene’ I found in the early ‘80s in the Netherlands was most impressive.
There were so many excellent agencies (e.g. NIPO, IPM, NSS) who were all highly
professional and forward looking. When I arrived Socmar had a relationship with
InterView on the ‘exciting, new’ data collection method of telephone
interviewing which I broke, but at the regular meeting of agency heads the
atmosphere was always amazingly friendly and cooperative. And at my leaving
party I was so surprised that people like Anjo and her ex-RI team were there.
Technology
was basic at Socmar. We had the card sorter for data analysis at the beginning,
but soon moved to Prime computers and Quantum software, which Ton Oosterhuis
was always trying to improve (as a ‘hobby’). International communications
required the laborious teleprinter.
Visits from
the Head Office team, now based in London,
were always nerve-wracking. Eileen was joined by Peter Hayes and David Cooper
in those days and our financials and plans were examined in forensic detail.
But since we were still Unilever-owned, our profitability did not have a much
wider impact. And the process was worse for Harry than for me, though I guess
nothing like it became later under the eyes of the ‘bean-counters’ of WPP!
I liked our
Vasteland offices. My own room was the largest I had ever had to myself…and
have ever had since. And most remarkable – a box of cigars always on the table
(who did I inherit that habit from?) The view of the trams (already gone from
the London
streets) and the river in the distance was always of interest. At lunch I would
enjoy a pleasant walk by the riverside which was so busy with barges compared
with the quiet Thames we had next to RIUK at
Wapping.
After 3
years in a new country one starts to put down some roots, and even though we always
knew we would be returning to RIUK, when the end came after nearly 5 years it
was still a wrench for me and the family to leave. With Jon announced as my Socmar
successor, I was able to introduce my Dutch colleagues to someone who was well
known to me. I described him as being very similar to myself in many ways:
nationality, age, education, research background, and the fact we lived only a
few streets from each other in London.
But when they met him the first time I was accused of seriously misleading them
– where I was short, he was tall; where I was dark, he was fair; where I was
loud, he was quiet; and so on. ‘Dig beneath the surface’ I said...and in time
they came to see the similarities, especially that we both wanted the best for
the company, and both appreciated the friendship of its staff and of the Dutch
people. And we still do to this day (more so for me when “van Persie” scores
for Arsenal).
========================================================================
4D My years at Research International Netherlands
Memories of Jon Wilkinson CEO 1984
-1988
I
was asked in early 1984 by Eileen Cole to succeed Mike Roe as CEO of Socmar,
and formally took over in August. I was
a little uneasy, to be honest, to be the second foreigner in succession in the
post – I feared that there might be some resentment. But from the beginning, I felt nothing but
warmth from all the staff, and they were very patient with my stumbling Dutch
and my climbing the learning curve with the company, clients, and market.
In
fact I was very lucky, Socmar had an excellent team both on the client facing
and Resources sides, and Harry van Breemen and Magda Hoebe were immensely
helpful in sorting out the issues in the settling-in process for my family, and
often in guiding me with the personalities in the company. Harry was not only an excellent Finance man
but took care of many other administrative issues.
There
were also a lot of talented youngsters in the company, and I wonder sometimes
where guys like John van der Kooij and Rob Kemna ended up.
Nevertheless,
Socmar (like most of the RI companies of the time) was over-dependent on
Unilever, and packaged goods companies in general. The senior account directors, Loet Magnin,
Koos Blacquiere, and Terry Haecker, were all consumer goods researchers, and in
order to attack other markets we needed to bring in a specialist. Erik de Kort was recruited and swiftly became
a successful and valuable member of the team.
He was also the most ruthless in (rightly) insisting on speaking Dutch
with me, and after about 9 months I felt pretty comfortable at least in the
business context. With Robert Petrescu
running a high quality Qualitative operation, we could offer a full spectrum of
services.
One
vital legacy from Michael was that all the client staff were very focused on
‘new sales’, and Socmar was the only RI company to check these weekly.
An
important meeting for me was the weekly progress session with Aad Worseling,
Leo van der Linden, and Peter van der Bijl, which really gave a sense of the
workflow through the company and gave early warning of potential problems. We rarely delivered late results.
These
years saw the beginnings of the widespread use of technology, but it’s easy to
forget the pace of change. In 1985 I
attended a meeting of European Unit Heads (as we were called) where someone suggested
that all RI units should buy a fax machine.
What’s the point, someone else said, none of the clients have them. A year later faxing was pretty universal, now
it’s a virtually dead technology.
Never
having worked for Eileen before, I was a little surprised that she hardly ever
contacted me, maybe because the results showed a steady upward trend. This hands-off style was inherited by her
successor, Ian Hunt.
After
a year or so we faced a special problem – the poor health of Ton
Oosterhuis. Ton was (and no doubt still
is) a multi-talented man, and he was extremely highly regarded by clients. He also played a major role in mentoring the
younger researchers. It was clear that
we needed to recruit a new ‘guru’ and Loet suggested a friend of his from Tilburg
University, Theo Verhallen.
I’ve
recruited many good people during my career, but Theo was undoubtedly one of
the very best. A technically excellent
researcher, his sunny and friendly personality made him a great hit both
internally and with clients. His
presence meant that we could win large and complex projects from new clients.
In
1986 Unilever sold RI to Ogilvy, an event with more significance for Socmar
than most other RI companies. Unilever
was one of the giants of Netherlands industry and many staff felt pride in
working for it. It was also a very
paternalistic company with excellent pension schemes and benefits. The Board was apprehensive about the
transfer, and potential adverse staff reactions, but in the event through
careful handling by my Dutch colleagues, there were few problems.
The
following year we moved offices from Vasteland, which was getting very tired,
to Coolsingel.
By
this time I found I was speaking 100% Dutch and thinking in the language while
at work. Even when I woke in the night worrying about some problem, I would
find myself thinking in Dutch out of habit.
I managed some clients, notably Niemeyer, the tobacco company, which
took me up to Groningen. Until the time
I left, however, I struggled to understand Aart Blokland!
In
late 1987, I informed Ian Hunt that I should come back to the UK in 1988, and
would need to find a successor, insisting that it should be a Dutch
national. We considered candidates from
inside and outside the company, and found an outstanding man in Lex Olivier.
I
think of all the jobs I did in RI, managing Socmar was the best. It was a high quality company with excellent
professionals at all levels, and for the most part a happy company. I’ll never forget the support and kindness of
all the staff, they made my time in the Netherlands so pleasant, and
memorable.
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