Freud and Ginger

Geri Halliwell was drawn inevitably to one man to help launch her solo career. MARK JONES profiles PR wunderkind Matthew Freud

FIVE minutes after Matthew Freud had finished telling me why a short profile of him could not possibly interest more than a tiny coterie of media people, a writer friend rang. "I just wanted to pick your brains," he said. "I was thinking someone should write a book about Matthew Freud - do you think anyone would be interested?"

I naturally assumed this was no mere coincidence. Obviously, the Freudian network had swung into a sophisticated double-bluff manoeuvre designed to make me think that the issue is not whether a profile would be going too far - but whether it were enough. Perhaps the Royal College of Psychiatrists could invent a new illness. Freudian Paranoia - a condition suffered by media people harbouring a neurotic obsession with the power of a 34-year-old PR executive. The originator of that psychosis will not be interviewed about his wealth, his power, or indeed anything about Mr Freud. He is a deal more publicity-shy than any of the celebrities whose time his company trades in. Well, some people are naturally shy. Matthew Freud, son of Sir Clement and his wife, the actress Jill Freud, brother of Emma, is not. He is self-denying because it makes sense. He trots out the old phrase that PR is an invisible art. He tells friends that Sir Tim Bell's emergence from behind the throne of Mrs Thatcher and her business friends diminished Bell's effectiveness; and that is a fate he wants to avoid. As one showbusiness writer put it more bluntly: "It's not so much that Matthew has done some pretty wild things in his time. He's done them with journalists." He used to be more forthcoming. In the mid-1980s, when I worked on a media trade magazine, I remember Freud begging me to write his profile. At that time, not long out of the RCA press office, Freud PR companies would come and go with a speed that deceived the eye; and on this occasion I got the clear impression that he wanted a couple of cuttings to show the bank manager. Perhaps I was mistaken. He says he doesn't recall the incident. It doesn't matter, anyway, because the final incarnation, Matthew Freud Associates, soon nabbed The Big Breakfast, Planet Hollywood and, the wins that finally made him a serious player, Pepsi and Sky. In 1994, he sold up to the ad agency group Abbott Mead Vickers for GBP 2 million. There have been many such marriages over the past decade, most of them conceived cynically and ending badly. This has worked. Abbott Mead has taken over from Saatchi and Saatchi as Britain's biggest agency, and its image is as caring, thoughtful and 1990s as Saatchi was brash, opportunistic and 1980s. Freud has benefited from the solidity of that reputation and the agency has benefited from the solidity of Freud's profits. Freud cleverly exploited a gap in the market left by PRs who became overexcited about "strategic visions" and "marketing mixes". They declined to get newsprint on their hands. Freud's people have never been so squeamish; they are publicists. They get their hands dirty. Whenever journalists congregate, particularly on the trading floor of the showbusiness exchange, you will hear them moaning and sympathising with each other about Freud's. Freud has more sense than to take his status for granted; it's a precarious business and he has had some big frights in his time. An editor of this newspaper once forbade any dealings with his company after Freud was ill-advised enough to bike over a bottle of champagne by way of thanks for a perceived favour. Vendettas abound, most notably in the offices of the Mirror. Freud's has jilted the paper in favour of The Sun more often than Tony Blair's office has, which is saying something. Imperceptibly, though, Matthew has risen above the skirmish and into the private chambers of Mr Blair's Britannia. He has 95 young publicists eager to get their hands dirty on his behalf; doubtless Geri will already have been passed down the line. He can concentrate instead on helping Peter Mandelson spin the Millennium Dome, or recruiting fresh young members to New Labour, a cause he evidently believes in as strongly as his father espoused the Liberal cause.

Copyright 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.