Ad Effectiveness Pioneer Binet Steps Down

Les Binet has left his role as Group Head of Effectiveness at agency Adam & Eve/DDB, after nearly forty years at the company and its predecessors.

Binet (pictured) joined the planning department of BMP in 1987 as an Econometrician, and served as Head of Econometrics for sixteen years (the firm became BMP DDB Needham in 1989), as well as founding its research-oriented DDB Matrix Division, which he led for twenty years until December 2018. Since 2019 he has worked part-time as Group Head of Effectiveness - responsible for measuring and helping to optimise the impact of the firm's ads - while running his own firm Binet Consulting, and serving as an Advisor on the Board of the Journal of Advertising Research.

Quoted on news site www.bandt.com.au , Adam & Eve/DDB Chief Executive Miranda Hipwell said: 'Les has been such a fundamental part of our agency for so long; his decades of intellect, guidance and insight will continue to lead our effectiveness thinking as we move forward. We will miss Les, though know he's not too far away, and thank him for all he has given the agency over such a long and successful tenure'. Binet's six books on marketing effectiveness include the much-quoted The Long and The Short Of It.

Binet read Physics at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, then studied at Edinburgh University where he acquired an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence, completed in 1985 [that's just for anyone who thought AI was new]. His research focused on the use of computer models to study the way human beings process language.

Web site: www.adamandeveddb.com .

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