Chris Barraclough, one of DM agency-land’s most colourful characters, has joined forces with one of adland’s most notorious – Garry Lace – and his business partner Robert Campbell, to boost the CRM credentials of their agency, Beta.
The deal, which has reportedly been made for a nominal fee, sees Barraclough Edwards Chamberlain (BEC) move into the Beta offices. It will trade under the Beta name.
Barraclough claimed: “Together, Beta and BEC provides clients with a range of skills and depth of experience that they are unlikely to find anywhere else in London.”
Beta was founded in April 2009, and although Lace – who has an eventful past as chief executive of ad agencies Lowe, Grey and TBWA – is reportedly no longer a director, he is still heavily involved in the business.
Barraclough started his career in the Eighties, working for the late George Smith at Smith Bundy, and has over 28 years’ experience in the business.
He later joined DDM, where he met his future business partners Simon Hall, Elly Woolston and Duncan Gray. They quit the agency, along with Shona Forster, and formed BHWG in 1991.
It went on to become one of the most successful DM agencies of the Nineties, being bought by Omnicom in the latter part of the decade and rebranded Proximity London.
He left in 2002, and set up BEC soon after. But while his former partner Simon Hall pocketed millions from building and selling on his next venture, Hall Moore CHI, Barraclough’s start-up has never quite lived up to his pre-launch claims of being “the DM version of Mother”.
BEC has a team of seven and works for clients including Air France, KLM, Breast Cancer Care and Currencies Direct.
However, it has fared better than the agency set up by his two other former partners Woolston and Grey. Launched with backing from the Involve Marketing Partnership, the ethical agency United was recently forced into receivership when its parent group collapsed. It is now owned by Mosaic.
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