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credited with helping Thatcher’s
election victory of May 1979 with their
“Labour isn’t working” campaign.
While London advertising men before
the Saatchis had been fashionable fellows
who were recognised as being creatively
talented, the brothers’ particular
combination of talking-point work
(they were relentless self-publicisers),
financial machismo and political clout
was completely new. Saatchi & Saatchi
had floated on the London stock market
in the 1970s and started an acquisition
drive across the world in the early 1980s,
particularly in the US, which made them,
at one point, the biggest advertising
agency group in the world. Those smart
Iraqi-Jewish London boys had made the
Wall Street bankers listen to them.
Perhaps a little too much. In a very
1980s way, the Saatchis had been part-
authors of a new view of British national
destiny, in which people like them—
“commercial creatives”—should run the
national show. We were global players in
finance, second only to Wall Street. We
could stop worrying about propping up
manufacturing industry, quit panicking
about the North. We should just let these
clever creatives do the wealth creation,
and the problems would be solved by a
trickle-down effect, a sort of National
Champagne Fountain. Everyone would
become energised and entrepreneurial.
It was in this mood that the Saatchis had
developed the idea of a seamless business
services empire, in which they offered a
one-stop shop that included advertising,
marketing and finance.
By the end of 1990 it all seemed to be
over. The brash, colourful, free-market
1980s spirit came up against every sort ofbrick wall. The BA “Face” commercial was
the last of the series of famous campaigns
Saatchi & Saatchi executed for the airline.
Both were under pressure; BA from the
economic downturn; and Saatchi from its
shareholders as a result of an extravagant
programme of acquisitions and, by 1989,low-key—intone a love letter to Britain as
they travel to their flight and board.
It’s all about niceness, wrapped in the
f lag. They talk in short phrases about
why they love Britain. They go from a
sense of style, or one of adventure, to tea,
avoiding anything too difficult. Nothing
controversial, jingoistic or braggy. It’s
likeable but odd, coming just as our
relationship with the world is changing
so radically. And BA itself has expanded
into a merger of unequals with Iberia, the
formerly failing Spanish national airline,
and the Irish one, Aer Lingus, to make a
sort of regional power. It’s all been rather
successful, in a decidedly unflashy way.
If BA was central to the Saatchi
business brand back in the 1980s, then the
association with the Conservatives and,
above all, with Thatcher, was central to
its status in the world. But by March 1990
her poll ratings were down and she was
in an acrimonious struggle with the Tory
men in suits over Europe. By November
22, she had resigned and we saw her,
tearful, getting into a car to be driven to
the Palace for the last time—and we had to
admit that it was really over. As Malcolm
McLaren’s protégés, the Sex Pistols,
had sung in 1977, “there is no future in
England’s dreaming”. The whole thing had
stalled, if not exactly fallen out of the sky.
But out there somewhere was a young
Labour MP, an Oxford-educated former
barrister like Thatcher. Nice-looking
with a toothy smile. Someone who’d had
pop-star aspirations and would go on to
develop a photogenic relationship with
the Britpop generation, and come up with
a nice line of patter about Britain being
“a young country”, full of creative people.
EX Whatever happened to him?
PR
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its declining profits. The City no longer
believed it could walk on water.
BA is turning 100 this year—and it’s
letting us know about it. There’s a new
TV commercial, of course, but that’s only
the half of it, because reaching people and
telling stories is more about social media
now and plenty of people will watch the ad
on their phone anyway. There are events
and “involvements”—nominating BA’s
100 Great Britons, debating the future of
f lying—and socially responsible things
to discuss, from sustainable fuels to the
future of the “customer experience”.
The new TV commercial couldn’t be
more different from the 1980s ads. It is
consciously keep-it-real... modest, even.
A varied group of famous people—people
of achievement rather than celebrities;
even the two most famous actors, Olivia
Colman and Gary Oldman, are prettyHIGH FLIERS
Above: Stars of the latest campaign include Anthony
Joshua, Ellie Simmonds, Gary Oldman and Olivia
Colman. Right: The Sunday Telegraph, March 10, 2019The Saatchiswere part-authorsof a new view ofBritish nationaldestiny, in whichpeople like themran the showVANITY FAIR EN ROUTE
09-19British-Airways.indd 57 17/07/2019 10:03