Saatchi's Isherwood Retires; New York Hairstylists Distraught

Bob Isherwood is leaving Saatchi & Saatchi where he was the longtime worldwide creative director. Isherwood is best known for helming Saatchi’s win of the Toyota account, and his carefully constructed hair (see historic gallery).

Strangely, the folks at Ad Age’s Creativity couldn’t bring themselves to name a campaign that Isherwood made famous.

Neither could Adweek, which suggested that Isherwood was the victim of budget cuts ordered by corporate parent Publicis Groupe. (BNET reported last month that the French holding company was in freak-out mode over the “brutality” of the economic situation, and that boss Maurice Levy had ordered up a period of “contraction” at his shops.

So what were Isherwood’s big achievements? This old Adweek article lists a few, such as a D&AD gold for Parker pens and a 1982 gold Cannes Lion for a cinema ad for Harper’s Bazaar. (Harper’s Bazaar used to advertise in cinemas? What the hell were they thinking?)

Isherwood is a man concerned with his own legacy. Note the recurring theme:

“I hope I haven’t finished all my achievements.”  — Adweek in 2007

Bob Isherwood has quit his role as worldwide creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi, citing a need to have “more than one life in my lifetime.” — Ad Age on Monday

Isherwood, for his part, said he has no intention of retiring — “that would be a life without purpose” — but rather wants to “do something dynamic and interesting.” He added: “I want to reinvent myself and take on a bigger challenge.” — Adweek on Tuesday

To safeguard that legacy, Isherwood has a web site, heresanidea.com, which purports to give viewers a chance to “read Bob’s mind.” So what is on Bob’s mind as he slinks off to his Miami pad? Heavy plug-in flash animation, confusing navigation (the menu is published sideways), user-generated content, and it isn’t updated very frequently. The last post from Bob is from Nov. 27, 2007. It states:

Imagine you could mix the DNA of two living people to create a third person who would display the talents, looks and, of course, their less attractive characteristics. Whose DNA would you mix and what would the person you create be like?

So, er, it seems Bob hasn’t heard of sex and pregnancy, which is pretty much what DNA mixing is all about.

Ideas posted by others on his site include (spelling and punctuation in the original):

To believe we have the power to change weather, nature, earth, laws, is stupid as its bigger than us. We fight to be more humans and less animals. Change direction. Fight to be more animal. Its what we are.

Hello, can we provide some vendor machine over snow time on the city, so we can take some grit salt from there and spread in front of our walkway like a compact salt solution for walking through the platform or in pathway.

Hello.creativity and retails are running in a row with love

Genius! Ultimately, it ended up crashing my browser.