Jeremy Bullmore Archive Launched

Former Market Research Society (MRS) President Jeremy Bullmore is retiring from his role as a non-executive director of WPP, at the age of 93. To celebrate his work over nearly seven decades, friends and colleagues have launched a portal called 'Best of Bullmore,' showcasing details about his career.

Bullmore (pictured) has been described by industry publication Campaign as 'adland's greatest philosopher', while Marketing magazine observed that 'when Mr Bullmore speaks, the world listens'. He began his career in 1954 at J. Walter Thompson as a trainee copywriter, retired from the agency as Chairman in 1987 after its acquisition by WPP, and then worked within WPP for another 33 years.

He also worked as a columnist for Management Today, Campaign and The Guardian, and published a novel that charts the effect on human and corporate behaviour of a new metric: a Quality Quotient. Bullmore served as Chairman of the Advertising Association, President of The Thirty Club and President of NABS, and was a Patron of the Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR). In 1985, Bullmore was awarded a CBE.

On joining the MRS as President in 2005, he said that advertising owes two great debts to research: 'First, as every Mad Man knows, research can be held solely responsible for all bad advertising, having strangled all the original ideas at birth. Second, as the rest of us know, if you use it properly - if you don't just read it but you mine it, you challenge it, you hold it up to the light and smell it - research can liberate, illuminate and bring credence to the wildest of hypotheses'. In 2017, the MRS launched the Jeremy Bullmore Award for creative development research.

Through the 'Best of Bullmore' portal, his work is now freely available, with content also contributed from The History of Advertising Trust and Haymarket. Former Campaign editor Caroline Marshall managed the project, working with WPP CEO Mark Read and Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs Chris Wade. Read comments on Bullmore: 'There's his razor-like strategic mind, his wit, his ability to engage, enthral and entertain, his analysis of the industry without fear or favour. There's also his generosity and the entirely selfless support, advice and kindness he has given to so many of us over the decades. As he retires, Jeremy represents our industry at its absolute best'.

Web site: www.wpp.com/the-bullmore-collection .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.