John Watson Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

30 Gresse Street London W1T 1Qr

WPNC is an unusual combination of off-line direct marketing and leading edge digital. Our team, led by Vicky Reeves and John Eversley, has extraordinary experience across all media. We make things work. We move people. And I think we're rather better at doing that than most.

So after 2 years 'garden leave', I convinced Maria Phillips and Tod Norman to set up WPN. We brought in Gail Cookson, John Eversley, Bob Nash, Arno Meddleton, Mick Eglinton, Di Williams, Debbie Wastie, Sandra Money among others. We started in a corner of media company BLM in Marshall Street, following a high level executive decision (ie Maria) to locate in Soho, never ever Hammersmith (sorry Rapp!). Good to get back to real DM without the politics and margin focus of a multi-national. We… Show more So after 2 years 'garden leave', I convinced Maria Phillips and Tod Norman to set up WPN. We brought in Gail Cookson, John Eversley, Bob Nash, Arno Meddleton, Mick Eglinton, Di Williams, Debbie Wastie, Sandra Money among others. We started in a corner of media company BLM in Marshall Street, following a high level executive decision (ie Maria) to locate in Soho, never ever Hammersmith (sorry Rapp!). Good to get back to real DM without the politics and margin focus of a multi-national. We started working with a nice bunch of clients (many of whom are still with us) such as Which?, Salvation Army, and NSPCC. Bad days in the credit crunch when one of our largest clients, Picture Financial Services, had the plug pulled on them a week after Lehman went down, but we survived in pretty good shape and added to the team brilliant people like Chris Martin, Annette Thurgood and Ali Meredith. But we were always looking for an outstanding parter in the digital space. Green Square introduced Vicky Reeves and her team, and by April 2014 we had agreed a deal and merged the businesses, and so we move on to bigger and better things... Show less

London

First Chairman, then Non-Exec Director, of MC&Co, one of the leading independent media agencies in the UK.

After I left WWAV Rapp, Dame Shelia McKechnie asked me onto the Which? board where I worked with her for 2 years. She was a truly remarkable individual.

Chris Albert and Rinalda Ward and I quit THB&W and with backing from BBDO (in the shape of Ivor Samuels) set up WWAV. The 'V' was Bernie Varndell, a production man, who departed pretty quickly. We started in a basement room of BBDO's St Petersburgh Place offices and we grew at a phenomenal rate. As BBDO shrank we took over more space until we finally occupied the whole building with a couple of hundred people and subsidiaries in Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds and Amsterdam. We also had a data… Show more Chris Albert and Rinalda Ward and I quit THB&W and with backing from BBDO (in the shape of Ivor Samuels) set up WWAV. The 'V' was Bernie Varndell, a production man, who departed pretty quickly. We started in a basement room of BBDO's St Petersburgh Place offices and we grew at a phenomenal rate. As BBDO shrank we took over more space until we finally occupied the whole building with a couple of hundred people and subsidiaries in Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds and Amsterdam. We also had a data business in Crawley and Paris, and a direct mail production outfit in Tottenham. It was a great team: apart from Chris and Rinalda (no longer with us), there was Tony Masters (also sadly gone) - probably the finest data and planning brain in the UK - Lynne Pearson, Lesley Mair, Maria Phillips (now with me at WPN), Brian Curran (now big role in Omnicom New York), Gordon Brown (not that one) and Helen Simpson from 'oop north, Chris Gordon from Edinburgh...and so many more, many of whom are now senior people across most DM agencies in the country. We sold it to Omnicom: in the last year, 2000, we had over 1000 staff, a turnover in excess of £100m and pre-tax profits of £6m. Great days! Then I left and worked on my garden for 2 years... Show less

Drayton Bird, Glenmore Trenear-Harvey and I set up THB&W in the seventies. We had splendid offices above Pineapple Dance Studios in Langley Street Covent Garden, and we specialised mostly in direct mail, with a bit of press. DRTV didn't exist, let alone digital. I learned a lot from Drayton (and maybe he learned a little bit from me!). We had a great time, very long lunches, made no money, fell out...and set up WWAV (see above).