I worked 18 years with J. Walter Thompson, a 142-year old ad agency which is now being merged out of existence. No part of the name will survive...

Friends, marketers, admen, lend me your ears

I come to bury Thompson, not to praise him

The campaigns that men do live after them

And good is often buried in their brands

So let it be with Thompson. Noble WPP

Hath told you Thompson lacked global scale

If it were so, it was a grievous fault

And grievously hath Thompson answered it

Bigger is better in this age, they said,

And WPP is an honourable group

Adept at mergers and the counting of beans

They speak not of culture, or nurturing of talent

The university of advertising, carelessly discarded

And WPP is an honourable group

They have oft their shareholders’ coffers filled

And they say Thompson could no longer compete

This, to the creator of planning, of media mastery

And WPP thus stabbed him, a murder most foul

I speak not to disprove what WPP spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And WPP hath lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Thompson,

And I must pause till it come back to me.