Simon Hall launches new agency

Former Proximity and CHI chief Simon Hall has set up a new agency, Seven Seconds, some 22 years after he co-founded one of the most successful direct marketing shops in the UK, Barraclough Hall.
Designed to offer client companies a raft of online services to boost their ecommerce strategies, the agency will see him work once more with business partner Warren Moore.
The consultancy is based in Soho Square, London, and offers strategy, creative, design, tech and data services. Moore is also involved in a separate agency, Little London.
The Seven Seconds name is thought to have come from the fact that psychologists claim you only have seven seconds to make an impression on someone.
Details are still sketchy and it is not known whether it will be staffed by full-time employees or freelancers. However, the duo’s most recent venture, savvyfriends.com, an online service designed to provide users with expert advice, has been mothballed.
According to the company which hosts the site Comrz, it has closed down “but may make a comeback if the business case is there”. Savvy Friends Holdings, which counts Hall and Moore as directors, continues to trade.
Once dubbed “the ultimate suit”, Hall started his career at DDM in the late Eighties, where he met Chris Barraclough. They joined forces with colleagues Elly Wollston, Duncan Gray and Shona Forster to form Barraclough Hall Woolston Gray in 1991.
BHWG 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. Hall stayed on until 2004.
It was during this time that Hall and Moore first worked together, by then Hall was in a global Proximity role and Moore executive creative director.
They both quit in 2004 to set up the DM division of Clemmow Hornby Inge, Hall Moore CHI, which was eventually rebranded CHI & Partners. The duo left after WPP took a stake in the business, trousering an estimated a £2m each.
Hall continues to take an active role in the IDM as chairman; a role he has held for nine years.
Neither Hall nor Moore was available for comment about the new agency.

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