Death of The One Centre bad news for the whole industry
There’s a good piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald about the demise of The One Centre, which is in administration and seems most likely to be wound up.
I only visited a couple of times, but it certainly made an impression. With the interior decoration and high tech gadgetry, it would have made a good lair for a James Bond baddie.
Clearly the downturn is going to take out a few agencies out of the game, and push others into mergers. But for me, The One Centre may be one of the saddest departures because it was a different proposition – for all the somewhat pretentious language, it was great to have an agency that believed in the importance of what it was doing and dedicated to trying to get a seat at the client’s top table.
(As an aside, the SMH reports that a trigger of the collapse was the failure of Nakheel, controlled by the royal family of the UAE a country experiencing the global slowdown worse than most, to pay its $1.5m bill. If that’s the case, then the various Australian agencies doing work for Emirates and Etihad, the two UAE royal families-owned airlines, might be well advised to check that their accounts are up to date.)
When things get better, it will be interesting to see what becomes of its founder John Ford. I’ve often heard it said that Australia is poor at letting people move on from failure – Rosemary Herceg made that point at Ogilvy’s recession-busting session last week. How Ford is treated when he tries to move on and do something new will be a good test of that assumption.
There’s never much to celebrate when an agency goes down, but this one feels worse than usual.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Tell that to someone who didn’t get paid their last month’s salary
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Hopefully John Ford will be treated well. He started that company from scratch, managed to build a global list of A+ clients. He’s clearly a smart operator and can actually get something new started. Anyone who does not understand the energy and commitment that goes into doing that is a mug.
Also we should not get too smug we don’t know the facts but most companies in this space would be in deep trouble with a $1.5 million bad debt. Sometimes it’s just bad luck that gets a business into trouble.
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John Ford seems to keep bloating that Nakheel figure. It will be 3 million soon.
If you talk to people who worked there a major factor for the place going under was because Mr Ford used it as a vehicle for his ego and forgot about important things like clients and new business.
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1.5M debt like Topia eh?
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Its a sign of the times and agencies like bullseye who hang on to a few clients then lose them wonder why all of a sudden they are in trouble.
Utopia-ha .Good business people see that coming and agencies like the one centre should be a lesson to any up and coming business.I met ford a couple of times and its clear it is one thing to be an agency and another to be a business.
ego-ego-ego oh the mighty can fall
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I’m not sure if any of the anonymous commentators have run a business but a huge bad debt is capable of killing most small businesses. John had built a high growth business. Generally that means the cash reserves are taking up paying for the expansion. They were turning over around $10 mill I understand. The $3 million is 30% it’s very difficult to come back from that. How come we can’t see John as a clever bloke who had a shitty break. Americans are much more tolerant of failure than Australians. You can’t be a perfect human being and get one of these started and you had to have some hubris to do what John did.
Regarding Bulleye I know nothing of the gossip but they would be one of less than 10 agencies in Australia doing over $10 million in real turnover. They’ve done pretty well in what is basically still a cottage industry with most of the business in the sub $2 million category. Good high spending clients are hard to come by and I suspect the guys at Bullseye have tried as hard as they can to optimise the client list. This stuff is way easier to commentate on that it is to get right.
The industry needs companies like Bullseye they have done good honest client pleasing commercial work. They also started from scratch without the support of a major agency. If they are in trouble it’s not a good thing our industry is being dumbed down and devalued by traditional agencies trying to look like they can do web work. Buy a TVC and get a microsite for free!
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good comments Simon
The online agencies should stick together as a group and get the respect they deserve.
Now is the time the “Online association” if there is one in sydney should stand up and fight like Simon is.
bad debt can affect any industry team or business and sometimes it is just bad luck.
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Simon. If TOC hadn’t made some outlandish claims on their website about who and what they was doing for certain clients and had the decency to warn their staff about the possibility their wages, holiday pay and entitlements being under threat, then maybe more of us would view John ‘as a clever bloke who had a shitty break’.
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we have read so many comments about toc but i truley believe their failure was down to them over spending on THEIR agency and NOT concentrating on their wants and needs of their clients….i saw the campaign and the interview with jf and had no idea what they were ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! we have heard both sides to the failure ot this agency but we have NOT heard from john ford !!! what does he say ??????whats his opinion of all this ? can i also ask where did they get those beautiful cream lounges from ?????
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