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Dear Editor,
So Steve Harrison looks back at 2005 and laments a death of start-ups (Campaign Annual, 16 December), citing a lack of willingness to pin one’s name above the door. Where I wonder has he been looking? In a year when we (Stephens Francis Whitson stapled our names to a door, and enjoyed considerable and reasonably high-profile start-up success, we can look around and see quite a number of others doing the same.

Yes, the results may take some time to appear on the industry radar, but hats off to the guys at Personal, BLAC, Hall Moore CHI, Catchpole & Friends and, yes, Wand for “buggering off and allowing the next generation to make its mark”.

Steve can be forgiven for not having had notice that Martin Troughton, his former business partner, was also going to put his name on a new agency door. But to overlook almost completely a thriving and successful start-up culture in which the participants have claimed some significant client business (and agency scalps at pitch) seems oddly unusual for a man of his omniscience.

Neil Francis, Creative Partner, chief bottle washer

Stephens Francis Whitson
London SW1