Boase Massimi Pollitt
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Boase Massimi Pollitt (BMP) is an advertising agency founded in October 1968 by Martin Boase, Gabe Massimi, and Stanley Pollitt.
The three founders had previously worked at Pritchard Wood, but went their own way after failing to buy the company from its parent. Cadbury-Schweppes had been a client of Pritchard Wood, and BMP's first campaign was for Cadbury's Smash, a powdered mashed-potato mix. Other early BMP campaigns included the Cresta bear ("it's frothy, man"), Hofmeister bear, the Humphreys, and John Smith's Arkwright - all stemming from the brain of creative director and undisputed advertising genius John Webster.
Stanley Pollitt is co-credited with inventing the job discipline, account planning (in parallel with Stephen King of JWT).
In 1977, Havas of France paid £1.5m for a 50% stake in BMP. It later sold its holding back to BMP.
In 1983, BMP floated on the London Stock Exchange valued at £16 million. After a hostile bid by a French company, BMP was bought in 1989 for £125 million ($200 million) by DDB Worldwide, part of Omnicom Group, a giant American holding company controlling many agencies.
A poll in 2000 that selected the UK's top 100 television commercials found that 16 were produced by BMP DDB, of which 11 were created by John Webster. One example was the BMP advertisements for the Barclaycard credit card, featuring an accident-prone card user, later expanded into the character of Johnny English played by Rowan Atkinson. *[1] BMP was also regularly honoured at the D&AD awards in London, Cannes awards, and Clio awards in the U.S.
The company had a strong relationship with the Labour Party, dating from the early 1970s when it placed press advertisements for the TUC, attacking the then-Conservative government's Industrial Relations Bill. BMP created the advertising for the Labour Party in several successive general election campaigns. Chris Powell, BMP DDB Needham's chief executive until 2004, is the brother of Jonathan Powell, the Labour Party's chief of staff, and several people who served in the Labour Party's Shadow Communications Agency came from BMP.
In January 2004 the company name was officially changed to DDB London, in line with the DDB network's (belated) policy of rebranding agencies it had acquired worldwide.
