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The Raleigh Bicycle Company, Nottingham, England.

Mark Whitty [Worldwide]

Anchor 1

I got my start in advertising in London as a 16 year old Studio Messenger. Between deliveries, I pasted-up-ads, modeled Raleigh bikes, took night classes at the Chartered Institute of Marketing and worked in a wine bar.

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One day, brimming with the confidence of ignorance, and driven by the desperate need to increase my £250 a month salary, I cold called my way through the Yellow Pages in an attempt to drum up sales leads.

 

My big break came when a desperate publicity manager at Island Records asked me to rush over to their famous studio in Hammersmith. She'd been let down by her agency and I returned with a brief to design and produce the point of sale campaign for U2's landmark album, The Joshua Tree.

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"Curiosity, tenacity and luck will determine your future, so aim to get lucky!"

Ray Knowles, Fleet Illustrating

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U2's The Joshua Tree. Photo: Anton Corbijn.

I spent 15 years doing-and-learning as an Account Director at large successful advertising agencies in London, Tokyo and San Francisco, on a wide variety of accounts that included Island Records, Smash Hits Magazine, Ray-Ban, Boots, House of Fraser, U.K. Dept. Trade & Industry, GE, Mars, Boston Market, LVMH. 

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On July 4th, 1999, just a few weeks after I was laid off by a cost-cutting McCann, I started my own agency. Our first year was a roller coaster ride.

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But then I got lucky.

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The Wall Street Journal announced that we'd defeated McCann and several other big name agencies in a pitch for a $30M account.

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Payback-is-sweet. I never looked back.

Mark Whitty

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Be a charming guest,
not an aggressive tout.

© WHITTY WORLDWIDE 1999 - 2026 LEGAL STUFF

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