LONDON Advertising - Marketing Solutions
Michael graduated from LSE and started his high-flying career at Saatchi & Saatchi working on the British Airways account. Having been appointed the agency’s youngest ever Board Account Director he asked to transfer to Hong Kong where he started working with his creative partner of 30 years, Alan Jarvie.
In 1995 Michael became a Founding Partner of M&C Saatchi, setting up their Asian operations, before being asked to set up offices in New York, London, Africa and The Middle East.
In 1998 Michael and his partner began their 25-year relationship with Mandarin Oriental when they won the account with the iconic ‘I’m a fan’ advertising campaign. Over the years Michael has secured over 100 of the world’s most renown people to take part without paying them, including Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Lucy Liu and Andy Murray.
In 2008 Michael launched LONDON Advertising as a new type of global agency, using technology to disrupt the existing large, slow and bureaucratic networks. LONDON has since run campaigns in 135 countries – more than WPP has offices in.
Michael has helped start-ups on every continent become unicorns, including lastminute.com, Ketel One Vodka and Glo Mobile. Current clients include Air Transat, Mandarin Oriental, Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts, JTI, Crimestoppers International, GB News and Virtuoso.
In 2012 Michael offered a £100,000 prize to find the best digital marketing talent and recruited the Prime Minister to launch it at Downing Street. He incubated the winning idea and secured £4m investment, making it the most invested tech start-up in Europe.
In the midst of Covid he launched a major TV, Outdoor and Digital campaign to promote the benefits of advertising in a recession, which made LONDON Advertising the best-known agency in the UK.
He has also advised Presidents and Prime Ministers across the globe and applied the lessons of political campaigns to the commercial world. He is currently supporting the Ukrainian Resistance Movement on international communications.
Michael is an advisor to a number of CEOs and businesses in the area of sustainability and is a serial investor in the space, having successfully lobbied the UK Government to set up the SEIS investment incentive programme.