Description: Personal papers including certificates, diaries, photographs; business papers relating to his time working at Colman, Prentice and Varley, McCann Erickson, CDP and Leo Burnett; papers relating to Yershon Media Management and the Yershon Consultancy, Helsham Service Ltd, Brandman and Yershon Media Assessment
Level: Collection (Fonds)
Reference: HATMY
Alt Ref No.: HATMY-1-4-1b
Extent: 51 boxes
Keywords: HATMY
Admin History: Mike Yershon's CV [provided by him Mar 2021]:-
Nov 1959 - Started his advertising career as a messenger in the Despatch of Colman Prentice and Varley.
June 1960 - Moved to the media department of the agency because none of the six lads in despatch wanted a job in the media department. This reflected media's status as the lowest form of plant life. ITV had been going just four years. It was the only commercial channel and was not yet national
May 1965- Moved to McCann Erickson as a group Media Planner in a department of three.
Nov1968 - Promoted to Media Director.
May 1973 - Moved to CDP as Media Director. [reinvented the 48 sheet posters, introduced 20 and 40 second TV spots, pioneered the placement of double page spreads in early positions - Marketing Week, 9 Sep 1988]
July 1975 - Won Reckitt & Colman Centralised Media Buying with CDP.
June 1976 - Established Portland Outdoor Advertising in partnership with JWT, now the world's largest buyers of Outdoor Media
June 1978 - Moved to Leo Burnett as Vice Chairman.
April 1980 - Set Up Yershon Media Management. The World's first strategic Media Planning Agency
March 1981 - Helped The Football League negotiate the first live football matches on TV.
Nov 1982 - Set up Yershon Media Buying as a separate company to compete against the full service agency media departments. First client was Keith Jacobs, Marketing Director of Bird’s Eye
1985 - Won start up business Direct Line Insurance who went from a handful of employees occupying half a floor in Croydon, to a major force in UK industry and a new womenswear retailer called Next.
Aug 1988 - Sold The two Yershon companies to TMDH Plc and joined their board. Remained chairman of Yershon Media during a three year earn out period.
May 1991 - TMDH sold to Aegis. Joined board of Carat UK as a founder Director whilst remaining in other Yershon role as Chairman of Yershon Group.
May 1992 - Left Aegis/Carat/Yershon to rejoin McCann Erickson as Media Director specifically to save the Coca Cola and Nescafe client where the agency media department was at risk of losing the business.
Dec 1993. Left McCann after saving the two clients and winning Panasonic. Set in place the ability of the agency top separate media from creative if they decided this was the right thing to do. By this time media was front of house.
[Additional material provided by Mike Yershon, 14/9/2021]
Jan 1994 to date Yershon worked from home with the objective of remaining in the industry and using his experience to help CEOs manage their media spend. He set three clients as the maximum number at any one time.
The first client was Peter Wood, now Sir Peter, who was running Direct Line Insurance and wanted to get into Financial Services. Yershon worked with a CEO Sir Peter had hired to build a business from scratch headquartered in Glasgow. The CEO left after a few years to set up a new venture backed by Standard Life based in Edinburgh. He contacted Yershon to help with their advertising, leading to a number of years work where he became involved in their journey to become a PLC. Yershon's initial contact at Standard Life left to set up a new internet and telephone banking service, backed by The Halifax, to be called Intelligent Finance and located near Glasgow. Sir Peter left Direct Line to set up Esure and Yershon helped develop the business from scratch.
Other short term projects have included Go Compare, Look After My Bills, Nestle Rowntree, Budweiser and Knorr Foods amongst others.
Sep 2021 - Mike Yershon is still active in the industry and has recently added a new client called CarsVansandBikes.com which is a start up aimed at competing with Auto Trader