Mike Kirkham: Steadfastness rewarded

06/December/2000

Without his steadfastness in keeping the bankrupt and demoralised rump of AGB Research together after Robert Maxwell's death in late 1991 there would have been nothing for Taylor Nelson to buy.

In the event the improbable merger of TN, then a medium-sized UK agency, with AGB UK, one part of a failed international network, created a new and powerful force in the market research industry.

Kirkham's promotion can be seen as the delayed reward for that contribution as well as for his years of top-level management of various AGB/TNAGB/TNS services.

Born in Hereford in 1946, Kirkham was brought up in Ross-on-Wye. Later he went to Oxford,where he took a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, which led to his first job as an economist for the Milk Marketing Board.

He moved to the marketing side of the Board, was responsible for the launch of Country Life butter and began to take an interest in market research as a client using an Attwood Statistics consumer panel.

Glory days of AGB

In 1970 Kirkham joined AGB Research just after that company (named after its founding partners, Audley Gapper and Brown) had gone public. He worked there, to begin with, on the Television Consumer Audit, which was jointly owned by AGB and the Independent Television contractors.

These were AGB's glory days. It was growing very fast, thanks partly to the TCA, partly to television audience measurement - it won the TAM contract for the UK in 1970 and was to hold it for decades to come.

In 1976 Kirkham switched to managing the TAM side of the company. He recalls that “at that time we had developed electro-mechanical TV meters which recorded on to heat-sensitive tape.

“Members of the viewing panel sent in the spools of tape by post. They also used paper diaries to record what they had seen.

“I realised we had to update this quite primitive technology, which would mean spending money on R and D. I had a lot of support from Doug Brown (the B of AGB) whose protégé I was.

“In the late 1970s we developed electronic TV meters, which were made by outsiders to our specification.”

The 1970s were also the years when AGB began to expand internationally. The driving force in this was the Chairman, Sir Bernard Audley (the A of AGB).

Says Kirkham: “Audley was an exciting man to work for. He had vision and was ten years ahead of his time, because client demand for international service did not exist then to the extent that it does now.

“Bernard rightly held the view that it would make sense to bring together consumer panels across Europe. He took a cottage industry and turned it into a business, parallelling what Nielsen did with retail research).”

AGB got its first overseas TAM contract in Hong Kong around 1980. Also in the early 1980s Kirkham's team developed the PeopleMeter, which monitored individuals' (as distinct from household') viewing.

With this technological breakthrough in hand, the company won a series of TAM contracts, including in 1985 the Italian national contract for which Kirkham pitched together with Dr Alberto Colussi, who at that time ran AGB's Italian subsidiary.

Meanwhile AGB was continuing to grow, buying among other things NFO in America, McNair-Anderson in Australia and 50% of the Survey Research Group in Asia. It became, after Nielsen, the second largest market research group in the world.

“Bernard built a major network,” remembers Kirkham, “but without a coherent offering for multinational clients. Local branches had great local autonomy and did not co-operate enough.”

Coming a cropper

There was an even worse problem, namely that “Bernard began to believe his own propaganda.” This led him to launch his enormously expensive attempt in the late 1980s to wrest the TAM market in the US away from Nielsen.

AGB's methodology may have been technically superior, but when push came to shove American broadcasters and advertisers were not prepared to throw Nielsen over in favour of the English invaders.

Kirkham, who was at the time Joint Managing Director with Tim Bowles of the AGB division Audits of Great Britain, did not get involved in the American disaster until late on, 1988-89, when he helped with the salvage operation.

The losses incurred by the failed invasion led directly to the takeover of AGB in 1989 by Robert Maxwell. The buccaneering entrepreneur's first move was to bring in a bunch of American managers, led by Mark Booth.

“They were not researchers, though some were intelligent but with no real feel for the business. The result was major demotivation of staff and clients. ”

In 1991 Maxwell cleared out the Americans and put an accountant, Michael Stoney, in charge of AGB. But very shortly afterwards, Maxwell died in mysterious circumstances and his business empire collapsed.

At that point Kirkham took the lead. “I talked to everyone here at Hanger Lane to explain that we did not know if we still had jobs but that, if they did not continue working, it would be the end of the firm.”

The outlook seemed grim. “Even the cleaners stopped coming. So we organised staff rotas to do the cleaning.

“Almost no staff member dropped out. I'm very proud that we did not miss a day's supply of panel data or TV ratings.”

It probably helped that staff members did not at first know that they'd lost their company pensions, stolen by Maxwell in his final desperate financial manoeuvres.

“My concern,” Kirkham says, “was that AGB UK was in danger of becoming isolated. I went to see Pierre Weill, of Sofres, to persuade him to bid for AGB UK. I also went to see Klaus Hehl, Chairman of GfK, with the same objective.”

These talks wee fruitless. “Nor were the managers of AGB UK in a position to take it over themselves despite offfers from venture capitalists to help with an MBO, since the company was loaded with debt.

“What the staff needed was a safe home. We had talks with Nielsen, IRI and Lord Hollick, all of whom were possible purchasers. I was surprised when TN emerged as the preferred bidder.”

However, Tony Cowling, who masterminded the TN bid, enlisted Kirkham's support.

“Tony needed to raise about £14 million to buy the business and assets of AGB UK. I helped him do the necessary presentations. The deal went through in March 92 after AGB had been in adminstration for three months.”

Liz Nelson, who had been Chairman of Taylor Nelson, resigned almost immediately after the takeover to devote herself to a series of public service jobs.

(It is believed that she was also disappointed at the refusal of her board to support her view that Taylor Nelson, though under no legal obligation to do so, ought to put up the money to restore the pension rights of the AGB staff.)

TNAGB “faced many problems, including recession,” recalls Kirkham. We had to cut costs such as company cars. Things then improved more quickly than we expected because the company was now being run by people who knew what they were doing.

Kirkham himself became responsible for all continuous research, including TV audience measurement.

Great leap forward

And, bit by bit the now almost wholly British concern began expanding internationally again. It became the UK member of the Gallup International Association, enabling it to compete for international jobs.

The Gallup companies in Denmark and Norway asked to be acquired, but the great international leap forward came at the end of 1997 with the acquisition of Sofres.

Ironically the French financier Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, who controlled Sofres and had declined to buy AGB UK six years previously, was now happy to sell to an outfit run by some of the same people he had previously spurned.

Looking back at the contrast between Sir Bernard Audley's old AGB and today's TNS, Kirkham declares that “We are now a more genuinely international company than when Audley was in charge.”

He also contends that the company is better co-ordinated, thanks partly to its sectoral directorates dealing with, for example, TAM or automotive market research. These are located in different centres, including London, Paris, Philadelphia and Kuala Lumpur.

Heads of all these sections report to Kirkham. This, as well as his great historical services to the company, must have been a winnning card when it came to choosing the new Chief Executive.

© Copyright Market Research News