Recently arrived Managing Director Simon Marshall tells Julia Buchanan why TMS is the ideal challenge.
The first thing Simon Marshall, managing director of The Marketing Store (TMS), does is apologise for the cheerfully chaotic Covent Garden offices. Marshall, who joined in September, jokingly describes it as the "black hole of Calcutta", but the former army man clearly feels at home now that he has his feet under the table.
It has been a busy time for TMS since Marshall joined from Publicis Dialog, following it winning the pitch for Vodafone's high-street retail and point-of-sale work last August and receiving industry accolades for its high-profile "Believe" campaign for Mars. As Marshall makes clear, "Bringing me here was not about sorting enormous issues, it was about making the business more successful." But he feels the agency needs to raise its profile. "My criticism is that we haven't been clear enough about the agency's strengths," he adds.
The whiteboard in his office suggests he's working on this. A potential slogan "Inspiration: applied" is written on it, but whatever the final motto, Marshall says it will be succinct but from the heart. He is also cautious of the word "integrated", which he thinks has been bandied around too readily. While he says TMS believes in integration, he also says: "You can't be outstanding at everything, so we're choosing a few things to be outstanding at."
For Marshall, TMS's stand-out qualities are its imagination and how it executes those ideas. He admires what he calls the business' "operational flair", and says that in the promotional space both client and agency have to be confident about how plans are applied. Once the promotion begins, it's difficult to undo and mistakes mean both sides can be exposed.
When Marshall was first called by headhunters to join TMS, he wasn't initially convinced he was the right man for the role. But the relationships the agency had with its "stunning array of big, heavyweight clients", including McDonald's, Shell and Mars, were exciting enough to lead him to take the job.
Marshall says it was sad to leave Dialog after seven years, during which time as chief executive he'd been part of the agency's growth. "It has been ... no, it is a good agency and I'm very proud of it," he says, correcting himself. But he says he needed new challenges and feels his decision to move has been vindicated by his first few months at TMS, which he describes as incredibly stimulating.
The risks of the promotional world are very different from those he encountered as an infantry captain in the 1980s. He smiles and says, "I was mistakenly under the impression I'd be of great service to my country." He served for four years, including a tour of duty in Northern Ireland, but decided it wasn't the career for him. Instead, he fell into marketing, calling on his marketing degree.
Outside work, Marshall says his three children have taken up most of his spare time in the past 20 years. He loves exercising, the great outdoors and the leafy surroundings of his home in Surrey. When he was in employment limbo between Publicis and TMS, he says, "The garden was clipped to within an inch of its life."
But new challenges lie ahead. He's tight-lipped about upcoming promotions, but admits that Mars has something significant planned for Euro 2008. As P&I revealed in January, several large brands have had to rethink or downscale their plans for this summer. But Marshall says the upcoming campaign is "as big as 'Believe', if not bigger". He cautiously adds that it will be "a humorous, wry, English take" on England's failure to qualify, but similar in approach to "Believe". Rather than galvanising the nation, it may instead be "galvanising us for next time".
He'll say no more on that, but is optimistic about TMS's future. He predicts it won't be difficult to build on what's already there and aims to make the company the most successful brand activation agency around. "We're known, but I want us to be admired and respected."