Batman and Robin. Mills and Boon. Morecambe and Wise. Marks and Spencer. Posh and Becks. OK, maybe not the last one, but John Hunt and Reg Lascaris are as irrevocably linked together in the public mind as any other partnership. More than a quarter of a century after creating the advertising agency that arguably put SA creativity on the international map, they may no longer share the same office as they did for nearly 15 years, or even work on the same projects, but they are still considered a team.
These days Hunt is worldwide creative director for TBWA, while Lascaris is president of the Africa, Middle East and Mediterranean region. Both operate out of the Sandton offices of TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris.
This put the AdFocus judges in a quandary. The Lifetime Achievement Award is traditionally awarded to an individual. How could they prefer one man over the other? They couldn't. So for this year only, we are offering a recession-busting two for the price of one. The AdFocus 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded jointly to Hunt and Lascaris.
But why should Hunt's name always go first? Why, when the agency was founded in 1983, wasn't it called Lascaris Hunt? "No-one had heard of us and we needed credibility," says Hunt. "There was a well-known company at the time called Hunt Leuchars Hepburn. We figured that if we sounded like them, we would get noticed." It's hard to tell if he's joking.
The pair of them certainly weren't joking when they launched Hunt Lascaris with the stated goal of becoming the first world-class advertising agency to come out of Africa. "A lot of people might have thought we were getting above ourselves," says Lascaris. "We weren't satisfied with trying to be a good local agency." The agency's mantra became: "Life's too short to be mediocre."
Hunts also wanted to break the mould by winning accounts for what it did rather than who they knew. "It was an old boys' network," recalls Lascaris. "The quality of your work often had nothing to do with whether a client chose you. We wanted to be judged for the right reasons."
Having said that, Lascaris' strength has always been in building relationships. Creative inspiration alone doesn't win clients. Lascaris provided the business side of the partnership.
The agency started life with a single client, Kelly Girl. Next came Big Jack Pies. Hunt once boasted that his first client presentation was from the boot of a car. Recognition and awards weren't long in coming. The big breakthrough came in 1989 with "Beating The Bends".
Mercedes-Benz based a well-publicised campaign on the experience of a customer who survived a plunge from Chapmans Peak, near Cape Town. Hunts and BMW responded with a campaign suggesting a BMW would not have gone off the road in the first place. The campaign was quickly banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that it was comparative advertising. The ban was overturned on appeal but agency and client had made their point and did not run the ads again.
The publicity garnered by this campaign brought fresh clients. "BMW was the seal of approval," says Hunt. "Until then we were people who did good work for medium clients." But it was a small client - Nando's - that provided the next step. "They only had three outlets at the time," says Lascaris. "It was doubtful whether they would survive or if they could pay their bills. But we were a very good culture match. What they were to the chicken industry, we were to the ad industry."
Reinher Behrens, group CE of McCann Worldgroup SA and chairman of the Association for Communication & Advertising (ACA), worked for Hunts for 18 years. Hunt had a reputation for spotting creative talent early and Behrens notes: "There was an environment where, at any one time, 10 of our creative people could have gone off to become executive creative directors at other agencies."
The next big chunk of business came from Standard Bank, which remains with the agency today. But even this ambitious duo were surprised by the next business direction. Politics.
The agency was involved in the peace accord leading up to SA's first democratic elections in 1994. It developed the "dove" peace symbol that became SA's temporary flag. "We were going into areas we had never even considered," says Lascaris. When Pallo Jordan and Popo Molefe walked into the agency's offices and asked Hunts to represent the ANC, Lascaris initially thought it was a joke.
It wasn't, and soon no-one was laughing, recalls Hunt. "At that stage the country was in flames. Within three months we had to build a fence around our offices. We had bomb threats and tapped phones."
Some requests were bizarre. Lascaris says: "One morning, I got a call from someone at government's heraldry department, asking if we could design a new national flag by that afternoon. It was surreal." The request was turned down.
Hunt and Lascaris's first meeting with Nelson Mandela was no less extraordinary. They waited for him in Jo'burg's Carlton Centre. When he arrived, Mandela first went to greet a cleaning lady outside the nearby cinema complex. After an initial stunned silence on meeting a national hero, she launched into fiery criticism of the ANC and anything else she could think of. "Here was this international icon, a man who had just spent 28 years in prison for his beliefs, someone who world leaders still revere today, and this cleaning lady was shitting all over him," says Hunt. "And he wasn't the least offended."
Hunts was being increasingly noticed overseas. "South Africans were the bad boys of the world, but our (Hunts') advertising was noticed for its irreverence," says Lascaris. "Then suddenly in the early 1990s... whoosh! We were part of the global stage. We went from pariah state to wonder state. Hunt Lascaris became the point of reference for SA advertising. It helped the rest of the world realise SA had great talent. The timing was perfect for us."
So perfect that in 1993, Hunt Lascaris was elected international advertising agency of the year, and won the 1994 award for marketing organisation of the year. Other honours, including European agency of the year and various creative awards, followed. Global recognition wasn't always mirrored locally. "Strange things would happen," says Hunt. "A campaign would win a Cannes Gold Lion, but nothing at the Loeries. For a while, the SA industry did not like international stuff."
There were also individual honours. In 1996, Hunt became the second person elected to the SA Advertising Hall of Fame. The following year he received the FM's long-term achievement award. In 2003, he moved to the New York HQ of global advertising group TBWA, which had since bought control of Hunts, to become worldwide creative director. Two years later, he returned to SA to continue that role from Johannesburg. In between, he was appointed president of the Cannes film, press & outdoor advertising festival.
Hunt has also penned a number of TV and theatre plays. He is a former SA playwright of the year for Vid Alex, a condemnation of apartheid-era censorship.
He and Lascaris have also been prolific authors. Books include The South African Dream, Fire & Water, Revelling in the Wild and Third World Destiny.
While Hunt went to the US, Lascaris remained in Johannesburg to run the Africa, Middle East and Mediterranean region. He was also made responsible for developing the Hunts business model for global application. According to Jean-Marie Dru, president and CEO of TBWA Worldwide: "John and Reg have built a model for the TBWA network. Hunts stands out as an example of what makes our network special." He adds that the SA agency still rates among TBWA's four most influential creative agencies around the world.
Having worked in close proximity for most of their 26 years together, don't they get on each other's nerves? Lascaris can remember a mild disagreement over office light fittings and insists that's the only one they ever had. Hunt's memory is sharper. "Reg wanted to take on Checkers when they were a complete mess and we had a row over that. But there have been no temper tantrums or slamming doors.
"Reg and I are very different. But when we started, we shared an office for 10-15 years. We shared client service and creative decisions. So we had the right to say that campaign won't work or that relationship is wrong. It was a team thing. To have two opposing sides on the same side was unique. We come from different disciplines, but we always knew how to work together."
So how easy is it now to let others manage the agency Hunt and Lascaris built? They have international responsibilities, but aren't they tempted to offer "advice". After all, Hunts has fallen off the award-winning high ground in recent years - even though they believe the phenomenal success of the campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper, which won grands prix this year at Cannes and the Loeries, signals a strong creative comeback.
Hunt says: "We are involved, but we don't want to interfere. We try to act as a sounding board. But at the end of the day, our positions within TBWA globally mean the buck in SA still sits with us. We are responsible."
The way we were Hunt and Lascaris at the beginning of their collaboration
