S.L.: I don't actually think there's been an uptick. We went after Wal-Mart because, to me, there was no better example of a client that really needed a brand transformation. Sometimes you just look at something and you say, "This is our sweet spot. We know how to do this." We went after it because we thought we could really make a difference. With Sprint, it was a different reason: We'd had AT&T Wireless for years. It then became part of Cingular as a result of a merger and so we lost it, and we still had this group of people who had been in the wireless wars and were longing to get back into them again. And so Sprint was just, again, a great challenge. We did Volvo because we're a big Ford agency [Ford Motor owns Volvo], and they asked us to participate, and we did. We probably still do a lot less new business than other advertising agencies.

C.N.P.: I'm sure these were massive undertakings, requiring a lot of time and money, and recently Ogilvy announced some layoffs—

S.L.: I think any company has to always stay lean, but it wasn't because of that.

C.N.P.: Then why?

S.L.: Well, we're just always looking to be more productive. It's part of the nimbleness. And if you're lean going in, then you've given yourself the latitude to hire back in those disciplines.

C.N.P.: You won the Johnson & Johnson account largely because of your firm's background in China, which dates back to the mid-1980s. How big is your operation there today?

S.L.: We have more than 2,000 people. At the beginning, there were maybe 50 people in Shanghai and 100 people in Beijing. They're mostly Chinese, and probably the most eclectic group of employees that we have anywhere. We have physicians working for us, people who come out of the government who are population experts, and Ph.D.'s in various subjects. They're just interested in advertising.

C.N.P.: Ogilvy & Mather introduced Maxwell House, Tang, and some GlaxoSmithKline products to the market. What's the biggest difference between communicating with a Chinese consumer as opposed to an American?

S.L.: When I first went to China, I was told by lots of people that the Chinese would not respond to brands. Unlike other people in the world, they were much too rational. They had grown up, all of them, with a set of offerings based on functionality, so you just tell them what the product does and how much it costs, and they can make a choice.

C.N.P.: Almost the communist ideal.

S.L.: Yes. The truth is that from the moment brands were introduced in China, the Chinese responded exactly the same way people do all over the world. They don't have the brand experience, and they don't know all the brands—so much of this is new to them. But it doesn't make them any less responsive.

C.N.P.: Ogilvy & Mather used to have two co-presidents at its headquarters, in New York, but a single executive now oversees it all. Why the change?