M&C Saatchi: backing young artists will help win recruitment race

This isn’t an earth-shattering approach to finding talent. Advertising and the art world are old friends. Many creatives first train at art schools before making their way into agencies, and many working creative directors and art directors keep their hand in as artists on the side, so links between agencies and institutions aren’t unusual.

But it’s given M&C an additional way of reaching young, potential recruits at a time when fewer and fewer university graduates and school leavers (especially from lower socioeconomic backgrounds) are considering advertising as a viable career path.

“The Saatchi Gallery has a phenomenal reputation since its inception for shaping contemporary art in the UK. Association with a gallery gives you a contemporary opportunity to see what’s coming down the line and to influence what’s coming down the line,” M&C non-executive chairman Richard Thompson explains.

M&C is the gallery’s principal patron, a title that comes with considerable investment in the charity (though he co-founded both organizations, advertising and art impresario Charles Saatchi wasn’t involved in the setting up the patronage, Thompson says). Throughout 2022, the gallery and the agency ran the inaugural Art For Change prize, open to emerging artists everywhere on the planet. The winners had their work exhibited at the gallery and split £20,000 in prize money.

Talent access

In more immediate terms, the partnership has helped forge links between the agency and working creatives – and advertise itself as a potential destination for their careers.

“Some of that talent will never want to be in the commercial world. But some have shown an interest and it gives us a chance to actually tap into a whole tier of creative talent that we would never have come across, that would never apply for a job,” he says.“ There are certainly individuals that we will take on and nurture and incubate.”

The project turned out to be more successful than anticipated, with over 2,500 entries from 110 countries. “It enabled us to activate the gallery relationship in all of our 30 offices around the globe in a way we never thought possible,” he says.

Arts support

Thompson hopes the prize will continue in some form beyond M&C’s initial run as principal patron. Cementing that relationship and continuing its own investment in the UK’s contemporary art scene through the prize and other initiatives will also provide an agency to give back to the art world which, the chairman notes, provides the initial push for so many advertising creatives.

“The industry cannot bemoan the lack of originality, risk and creativity if it’s not prepared to support the next generation,” he says. “I do think as market leaders in the creative sector we have an obligation to invest in emerging artistes.”

Arts education is one area in which agencies can provide support, he suggests. It’s also an area which the current government is uninterested in supporting – as illustrated by its 2021 funding cuts. “You cannot undervalue it, particularly in a country that’s got the creative credibility that Britain has,” he says.

The broad decline in British college students taking ‘creative’ A Levels [pre-university qualifications] such as art and design is “a great shame,” he says. “If people aren’t doing A-Level art, then they won’t see it as a potential career. As much as algorithms can solve lots of advertising problems, a great piece of creativity still can sell a brand better than anything.”

“If parents don’t see us involved in something like this, they might not want those children to sit those exams because they don’t think it’s going anywhere,” he adds. “You can have an incredible career. But if you don’t take a liberal art, that could prohibit you from going very far.”