'Pressure' denied

Press, 18 April 1980, Page 4

'P ressure ' denied

An Auckland-based advertising agency had dropped the Labour Party account because of pressure by big business clients, said the party’s president (Mr J. P. Anderton). , Monahan, Dayman, Adams, and Partners (N.Z.), Ltd, was engaged by the Labour Party after a meeting of the party’s strategy council on April 2. The agency’s plans for the party’s annual conference were to be presented to Mr Anderton on Tuesday afternoon. Early on Tuesday morning he returned from the Mount Albert candidate selection meeting to find a hand-delivered letter from the agency. “Dear Jim,” wrote Mr Alan Bowe, the firm’s managing director, “It is with regret that J must advise that, at an emergency directors’ meeting we held at the weekend, the decision was taken to not proceed with the submission for the Labour Party account. “A number of our existing clients have expressed considerable concern at our possible involvement with a political account and, as we

must recognise that our first priority lies with our existing clients, we have no alternative other than to decline your business.” The director of the agency yesterday admited “misleading” Mr Anderton, “because he felt sorry for him,” but he denied that the agency had been presurred to drop the party’s account. “That is a load of absolute rubbish. We have been under no pressure,” Mr Grant Marshall said. “It is entirely our prerogative whom we work for and Mr Anderton and the Labour Party can go take a running jump.” The agency had no letter

of appointment from the party, and no formal agreement binding it to mastermind Labour’s advertising build-up to next year’s General Election. Mr Anderton asserted that Mr Marshall had voted against the move to drop the party’s account, but had been outvoted. Mr Marshall admitted that he had mislead Mr Anderton by saying that he had voted against the decision, “In fact, I voted for it. It was an unanimous decision. I told him I had voted against it to get him off my back. I felt sorry for him ... It seemed he needed a shoulder to cry on.”