The man who sold the world

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Kevin Roberts sees growth in India, China and Brazil, but says politicians are busy talking up the economy and should no longer be believed.

Saatchi & Saatchi boss Kevin Roberts thinks the global economy cheerleaders are about to get a nasty shock, with social disorder becoming the next phase of the financial crisis.

Kevin Roberts likes to shoot from the hip, and during the space of our one hour meeting, the Saatchi & Saatchi Global CEO fires a lot of bullets.

On what lies in store for 2010: "People will turn to drugs, and violence against weaker people."  On the region's advertising awards:  "A shambles." On giving away free content on the internet. "Stupid."  On the state of the newspaper industry: "Despair." Even legendary CEO Jack Welch gets a kicking for being guilty of "small ideas", and before we finish, I too take a bullet for being "way behind the consumer".

Bizarrely I still come out of it having thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Roberts, fresh from mixing with Bill Clinton and George Lucas in New York, has a rare gift for telling people how bad they are - and then being thanked for it. He did a pretty good job of this last time he was in Dubai, announcing that the standard of advertising in the region was "crap."

Does he realise he caused such a stir? "I hope so. I actually believe that great things come from great conversations."

Right now, Roberts' "great conversation" is on the state of the global economy. The recession appears over, the credit crisis is confined to history and the World Bank is forecasting growth of 2 percent for next year - while Goldman Sachs believes 2010 could actually produce 4 percent growth.

Roberts is in no mood for such talk, dismissing them all as "100 percent wrong" and suggests the worst is yet to come.  "This is not a recession. This is a reframing of the world. Consumers are never going to go back to spending more than they earn. This was fundamentally a problem of consumers saving nothing and spending what they didn't earn. Recession is over but the bad times are here.

The only people that can borrow money are people that have money, and they are the people that don't need it. Unemployment is 70 million in the world. Consumers have moved, but companies have only moved on one level to cut costs. They haven't moved with consumers. They think everything is going to be great again," he says.

So just how bad will things get? "It will be tough next year because the stimulus packages are not stimulating. They are not working. The social costs will go through the roof. 70 million unemployed means more violence, more drugs, more alcohol abuse, more crime. It is already happening. You will see a social crisis in urban developed markets. Think Chicago, London, Mumbai.  20 percent of 16-year-olds don't find a job so they don't spend. They get pissed off because they believe they deserve it... People will lose hope and turn to drugs and violence against weaker people, their wives and children."

Roberts does see some growth, particularly in India, China and Brazil, but he is quick to point out that discredited politicians are busy talking up the economy and should no longer be believed. "Not a single person saw it coming, no president, no CEO. They say they did - complete nonsense. Toyota didn't see it coming. P&G didn't see it coming. And the severity was a surprise. Everyone in the Treasury got it wrong. Every journalist got it wrong. Every consumer got it wrong. None of my clients saw it coming."

Job creation, or lack of it, according to Roberts, is where the problem lies. The ideas of legendary CEO Jack Welch, based on the concept of business existing to create shareholder value, are "mostly small ideas... Unemployment is the biggest killer. If you are not employed you have no hope, no self esteem, no dream. You have no way out. We are not creating jobs."

Controversial stuff, but then Roberts is used to controversy. On his webpage he declares: "I have never believed that extraordinary results come from ordinary actions so I am attracted by extremes. I demonstrated the point when my Canadian Pepsi Team blew away Coke to become number one in the market. We celebrated by machine-gunning a Coke vending machine on stage at a conference. Risky? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. Memorable, inspiring? You bet."

 And his impressive track record means that when he talks, it is time to listen.  Educated at the Royal Lancaster Grammar School of which he is now a Sponsor Governor, he started his career in the 1960s at the London fashion house, Mary Quant.

He went on to be a senior marketing executive for Gillette and Proctor and Gamble and by the age of 32 he was CEO of Pepsi-Cola Middle East and he later went to become Pepsi's CEO in Canada.

He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1997 and under his leadership it has grown in revenue year-on-year and consistently swept the boards at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.

In 2002 he developed the Lovemarks marketing technique - based on the idea that the strongest brands are the ones that establish an emotional connection with the consumers. The idea won the agency a landmark $430m contract with JC Penney - and Roberts last year launched his second book on the subject. His job today is to "inspire" 7,000 staff, not to mention the small matter of running the creative campaigns for some of the world's biggest brands.

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