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Interviewer >> Can you give me a quick summary of your career today?
Richard Huntington >> Yeah, I mean if you can call it a career, it seems very accidental
to me. I've been doing this quite a long time - I started advertising 3rd year university-
Applied for the Milkround - complete *** disaster.
Interviewer >> What university?
Richard Huntington >> Cambridge
Interviewer >> What year?
Richard Huntington >> Oh, jeepers! I graduated in 1989 and I did all kind of Milkround, didn't
think that still happened but that Milkround stuff - applied for a lot of agencies, got
into none. Got rejected by here (inaudible) (00:52), I still got the letter.
Richard Huntington >> Then what happened was I got into... there was an ad in Media Guardian,
must've been about September 1989 saying “By the year 2000, 90% of marketing will be direct
marketing” and I thought, that sounds like a good idea. So I applied to a direct marketing
agency to get on their graduate thing and got in. It's an agency that was completely
sort of pointless and irrelevant and collapsed as soon as the recession bit and around 1990,
but I worked with a guy called, Chris Barraclough this great director and son who was a magic
director. And they went off to setup an agency called Barraclough Corp which is doing great
and which is now proximity and I went with them because I was incredibly cheap, incredibly
young and I could put Ikea furniture together. So we set that up and then they kind of twigged
about 3 years in that I was a really very very, very bad account handler. Owing largely
to my inability to make difficult phone calls, which seems to be a really great skill in
an account handler. And they sent me to Abbott Mead which was just acquired by Barrachough
Corp. This is 1993. And so I went to be a planner at Abbott Mead. I thought it was where
I would die and I thought I was an Abbott Mead man and boy and then I realized it wasn't
quite that middle class, despite appearances and I got a chance to get an HSCL and it's
actually *** hay day ‘97. I was 30, went to HSCL to work on Tango, which is an
amazing experience. Did lots and lots of things there, stayed there for 10 years cause I drank
the cultural Kool-Aid. And then that all that collapsed in 2007 and I was one of the last
people to switch the lights of actually, which is very sad moment. I spent 9 months thanks
to Martin Sorrow's generosity, kind of just hanging out, doing a bit of consultancy. And
then I got a job when Robert Senior arrived here and (inaudible) (04:53)and an agency
that frankly I wouldn't have touched with a *** stick up until that point. Robert
arrived and transformed everything. I came on board as did Paul Silburn and I think we
started this here to create an agency that is as brilliant as it once was and may change
the London advertising industry.
Interviewer >> For you, what's the best thing about agency life?
Richard Huntington >> The people... and that say a really clear thing, but what sort of
accident happened in advertising is that we created an industry that is uniquely populated
by incredibly clever and creative and talented people. They kind of flock to the business
and so basically you get to hang out all day with brilliant people. And I look at other
sectors and think basically you have to hang out with *** and there are 1-2 ***
but by large, it is the people you meet, extraordinary human beings. I have to say, agency side,
I still get a real thrill out of a day that involves mobile phones, sausages, male testicular
cancer, beer. You know there's sort of eclecticism of our lives. It's brilliant.