G o i n g G l o b a l copy revisions flying back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, S&H and Y&R pitched and won the promotional assignment for the entire Burroughs-Wellcome portfolio of both OTC and prescription drug products. Following on his success in Australia, Corcoran was asked by Hennessey to transfer to Australia to continue to work with the new Y&R Advertising parent company and to set up offices in Japan and Europe as well. Outposts in Tokyo, Frankfurt, London, Paris, and Milan were soon up and running. Was the S&H network the first true global network? Yes and no. According to Corcoran, "Early on, as the international S&H offices were being developed, we were incorporating best practices from S&H New York as well as from their parent company, Young & Rubicam, then one of the most successful global advertising agencies. From Y&R, the Sudler offices received and standardized a Creative Work Plan that became a common, universal tool for work on clients in all offices around the network. But, at the same time, there was a fair amount of apprehension about the local S&H offices working together. Most of the offices, especially in Europe, reported into the local Y&R office, and not directly into S&H New York." Up until then, international agency offices worked primarily with locally produced administrative systems. As Y&R had already perfected a global means of communicating within its own network, the S&H offices were quick to take advantage of the Y&R system, with the result that communications and coordination between S&H offices became much more seamless. These efforts yielded some of the earliest international campaigns, including those developed for Leo Research Labs (Nicorette), Merck, Sharp & Dohme, Hoechst, and Novo. "In those days," Corcoran noted, "there was still so much 75
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