“Our first real client was Monopoly – as a start-up we had nothing else to do.”
That’s how Rita Rowe found herself and co-founder John Williams touring the UK looking for locations for the 1987 UK Monopoly Championship.
“I doubt if any other agency would have expended the time and the cost of this research, let alone the cost to us of actually implementing our rather grandiose plan. We really had no alternative. I hate to think what would have happened to our little agency if we’d not won the contract,” said Rowe.
Mason Williams was established in 1986 and probably not a spoiler alert, but they did win the contract.
Indeed, that “grandiose plan” came off as they planned a Gala Dinner with guests including Prime Minister Ted Heath, Monopoly Ambassador Gyles Brandreth, Andrew Lloyd Weber and the cast of Phantom.
“Budgets were very different in those days!” she added.
The Manchester start-up won UK Agency of the Year and the PRCA Sword of Excellence largely on the basis of the campaign.
World Monopolies followed in New York, Monaco (using real money for the final round) and Berlin.
It led to a 28 year relationship with Hasbro, who took over from Waddingtons, looking after not just games, but introducing My Little Pony on the Cover of the Telegraph Magazine and re-launching Furby and the creation of a Furbish language.
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John Williams added that while they still work with games clients, they have become increasingly involved in hospitality, a move which became a massive risk during the pandemic.
“Hospitality has been great for Mason Williams,” he continued.
“But Covid nearly killed us off. We were big in hotels, restaurants, celebrity chefs and overseas destinations, all of which more or less shut up shop during the Pandemic. It’s really only in the last 12 months that we’ve got back to our pre-Covid levels.”
The agency currently represents 70 hotels across the UK and Europe, but Manchester remains it home.
“I remember when we launched the first high-rise hotel in the city,” said Rowe.
“The Hilton, 47 floors up on Deansgate sticking a long finger up in splendid isolation in a low-rise city. Now when I drive around it is impossible to remember those not so far off days. It’s like Chicago out there.”
Mason Williams also represented Manchester during the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, opened the Printworks complex with Lionel Richie and orchestrated Manchester Christmas Celebrations – once featuring Noel Edmonds as Father Christmas apparently descending from the Town Hall roof.
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“… And we were also lucky winning the account to open the Radisson Edwardian Free Trade Hall hotel,” Williams continued.
“Lucky because the marketing team had reviewed several other Manchester agencies and decided none of them were exactly what they were looking for – until by chance someone asked who had (very successfully) introduced Selfridges to Manchester. Which was us. That break, and the pretty good job we did, led directly to us taking on our first big London account – to open the dramatically re-furbished May Fair Hotel under our slogan “the Re-birth of an Icon.’”
That led to them opening a London office in 1999, which now accounts for the majority of its business.
When the Radisson Edwardian contract ended, because they couldn’t handle its global work, Williams explained they had to think about another way forward:
“I realised we needed international presence. I searched for a solution which became joining IPREX, the world’s largest collection of independent global marketing agencies and service.”
Williams served as EMEA Director for a number of the 14 years its been a member and its led to the agency handling the American-side of Niagara Falls and a potential project in the Deep South next year.
It also, (stand-by parents), introduced Mason Williams to The Elf on the Shelf brand, which it launched into the UK.
“It’s just been an amazing adventure,” concluded Rowe.
“We’ve done great work with great colleagues for great clients. We’ve developed careers for 100s of people and spawned several breakaway agencies most of whom have adopted our working practices. Retire? Obviously we’ve thought about it but the time has never seemed right. We’re entering an exciting growth phase at the moment with some huge projects over the next 12 months. After that who knows?”
