"Professionally, an imbalance, I know." As one insider says, "Saatchi either has so many clients in the kids' market it has decided to specialise, or doesn't have any and wants them.""No, we don't have a huge amount of business in the children's market," admits Tirateli. Instead, I'm on my own in a lovely office on Shaftesbury Avenue, surrounded by luvvies through our theatrical and opera work. I was always known for being an exaggerator, and embellisher, over-the- top and quite luvvie-ish in publishing, but now I'm totally luvvie - and it works. It gets me in the right frame of mind for selling.Interview by Scott Hughes. Understanding the culture and psychology of young purchasers has become crucial to the advertising industry, reports Sally Williams; big money is at stake Stefano Tirateli wants your children.
If they're aged between three and 12, he really wants to understand them: how they think, what crisps they like, what pop stars they hate, what trainers are "in", which jeans are "out", where they go at weekends, what they do after school. And, most important of all, what they spend their pocket money on. "pounds 225 a year on average," he trots out, "The Germans have pounds 200, the Italians pounds 180 - our kids have more pocket money than any other kids in Europe." Stefano - "Stef" - knows all about such things because he heads up Kid Connection, Saatchi and Saatchi's new venture: a unit dedicated to marketing to children. Based on the agency's New York model, which has been running since 1992, it has the same name, but is not, as yet, a self-contained unit, or that large - the American unit employs 60 staff, the UK six - and all of those were already working for Saatchi Tirateli is an account manager. I think journalism is where the great writing is now.The big titles I've worked on here are Julie Burchill's book on Diana, Burchill's recent autobiography, and Andrew Roberts's Eminent Churchillians.
And I've sold what is going to be the thriller of the year - a fantastic book called Remembrance Day, by Henry Porter, who's going to be the next Robert Harris. I also represent Cristina Odone, Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Suzanne Moore, Simon Heffer, and Mala Sen, who wrote the script for the film Bandit Queen.I now have the joy of not being in an office, with all that corporate rubbish going on. There were a few writers I'd had at Cape who immediately said they would come to me, and once you've got one or two in the right kind of clique, you end up representing all of them. Because I'd met lots of journalists, I thought I'd target them.
