BBH Turns 30 Today
'BBH celebrates 30 years of zagging today. Long may it continue'... Sir John Hegarty
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, or BBH, is 30 years young today. Young by international agency standards, old by boutique agency standards. For 30 years, BBH has been at the forefront of an industry that is constantly evolving, seizing on new opportunities, technology and, yes, ideas. Remaining independently managed, they have been able to keep their vanguard reputation while also growing with offices now in London, NY, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Shanghai and Mumbai. In typically modest and understated style, BBH will not be making a huge splash about this milestone. Nigel Bogle sent as email out to the global team this morning to mark the occasion:
"There is one other very important lesson that John, John and I learned before we started BBH. You cannot create a great agency or do great work without great people, working well together. We have been privileged over the last thirty years to have brilliant people join us all over the world and in many cases build their careers with us. Everything we have achieved as a business is down to all of them. Thank you to every single one of them for making BBH the very special company it is today."
BBH launched in 1982 (in case you’re not great with math), when the advertising landscape was a simpler place and brands expressed themselves with print, television and radio ads only. Their first ad was for Levi’s and showed a black sheep going against the crowd. The black sheep became their logo and, in the ad world, it is as iconic a logo as any the agency has helped to develop and it is important to the agency culture, reminding all staffers that “when the world zigs, we zag”.
Adverts like “Launderette”, also for Levi’s, helped cement the agency’s global status. And from “The Lynx/Axe Effect” for Unilever, to “Keep Walking” for Johnnie Walker, to “Make the Most of Now” for Vodafone, BBH has made a huge impact on not only the advertising world, but also the global popular culture.
Where will they take us in the next 30?
Happy Birthday
