The Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies

"There will be the same equality between the shares as between the persons," Aristotle had observed in his commentaries on what he called "distributive justice." Law now took those words, not as a definition, but as a command. Chiat/Days culture had been dissolved by the world's most effective solvent: money. Law was determined not to make the same mistake. He asked the company's attorneys to devise a corporate structure that would divide the ownership of the new company equally among its employees.

St. Luke's is owned by a trust, and its affairs governed by a five-member council. By law, one trustee must be an outside attorney; the other four trustees are divided equally between representatives of the firm's senior managers and it's "rank-and-file" employees. To fill their two slots, the employees hold an election.

On the day St. Luke's was founded, 25% of the trust's shares were distributed equally among the employees. Those who leave must sell their shares back to the trust. The government forgives any gain in share value as long as the proceeds are used to make a major capital investment such as a house or car. But employees need not leave to realize the value of their shares. They may sell part, but not all, of their shares at any time -- a guarantee that all employees are always stockholders.

St. Lukes is revalued every year, along with its share price, and a new block of shares is awarded, again equally, to all employees. So, for example, a new creative superstar who joins St. Luke's will be awarded shares -- but will have fewer shares than a receptionist who's been with the agency since the beginning. "That's the way we get rid of ego and greed," says Law.

Visitors entering St. Lukes have the tendency to gape with the slack-jaws of pilgrims -- this is a company where the physical design matches the philosophy. For openers, the company has no desks. Employees have traded personal workspaces for "brand rooms," large client-specific, glass-enclosed conference rooms where the team for that account meets, generates ideas, and stores work-in-progress. Between meetings and visits to clients, employees take a seat at any one of dozens of computers that they share communally.

"You should see the young people come and visit the company," says David Abraham. "You can see in their eyes this feeling of, 'God.' This isn't utopia, but we've taken away a lot of the things that are wrong about agencies, a lot of the emperors new clothes."

St. Lukes, just one year old, generates annual billings of 45 million pounds ($72 million). It's the fasted growing agency in London, meeting its 1996 revenue target in just the first for months. Clients include the Midland Bank, BBC One Radio, and a line of cosmetics for Boots, a chain of drugstores. Last spring, Ikea awarded its U.K. account to St. Lukes, as did Eurostar, the struggling English Channel rail system.

The walls and shelves of most agencies are abundantly bric-a-bracked with the trophies they've bagged at industry award shows. St. Lukes wins no contests -- for the simple, stubborn reason that the agency refuses to enter any.

Law points to what he considers to be a more convincing expression of industry acclamation: envy. A recent "Impact" magazine poll asked London's art directors and copywriters where they would most like to work. Tiny St. Lukes took third position.

Four blocks south of St. Lukes, a sign in the greasy window of a hotel cafe peddles "Virginia Woolf Burgers." A plaque hovering above a nearby sandwich shop directs eyes to a garret which once sheltered Yeats. A mansion was Keynes's, an office was Eliot's. This is Bloomsbury, ground-zero in the post-Victorian revolt in literature, painting, and morality. The real estate here continues to stimulate dissent.

"We've turned our backs on the advertising village," says Andy Law. The "village," specifically, is the London advertising community, which appears to be equally keen on ignoring St. Lukes.

"The other agencies in town paid attention for about one nanosecond," says Isabel Bird, whose team-building consultancy, The Coaching House, works with many of London's most senior ad executives. "They thought the name sounded silly, like a hospital."

But Bird also senses a deep unease within the industry. "Every single agency I've been to is looking for a new process, because people are dead. They all kind of grab bits of money and success hurls them back. The fun isn't there any more. The Saatchis are calling it 'Dare to Be Different, Creativity in Everything We Do, Every Single Department Has To Be Creative.' Leo Burnett is saying, 'Were in the Idea Business -- Everybody's Going to Be Coming Up With Ideas.' It's the same thing. Every agency is talking about process. And how 'our process should be creative.' St. Lukes is doing it."