I have held off writing about the departure from Saatchi & Saatchi of my good friend and colleague, Bob Isherwood. Partly it’s because I am having difficulty imagining what the place will be like without him, and because I’m enjoying memories of challenges overcome, ideas unleashed, and the fantastic times we’ve had together.
Bob was already a mainstay of Saatchi & Saatchi when I arrived. In the early days, we’d talk for hours about Saatchi & Saatchi as an ideas company and what it meant to our clients, our people and to the ones who matter most – consumers. For Bob who has been in advertising all of his life, the shift was bold and courageous. Over the years he has been up and down more award stages than he can count. He had a serious investment in the advertising industry while I had just jumped in from the client side, but he was passionate about the potential of ideas to make sustainable emotional connections. He always understood that an idea is not an idea until it engages consumers.
Bob has always had great instincts for what’s important, whether it’s the juice in an idea or the spark in a untested young creative’s eye. Simply having Bob Isherwood in the room has cracked countless campaigns and sent hundreds of creatives back to the drawing board with a brilliant solution to what seemed like an unsolvable problem.
Saatchi & Saatchi was founded on the belief that “Nothing Is Impossible.” Bob’s ‘footprint in the snow’ are the words “World Changing Ideas.” We stay dedicated to both.
Sail well my friend.
