Sir Martin Sorrell: He's captured the Young and the Grey. It's a short route to world domination

The globetrotting chief of WPP tells Tim Webb why the advertising giant sees China as the next big stage in its non-stop pursuit of growth

Sir Martin Sorrell, whose views on advertising are aired in publications from Piccadilly to Portland, Oregon, is for once lost for words. This is the man who predicted that the advertising recession at the start of the new millennium would be "bath shaped", and followed this up with his pronouncement that 2005 would be a good year but "watch out for the showers".

So if 2001 to 2003 were the years of the bath, and 2005 is the year of the shower, which bathroom-related metaphor would describe the outlook for advertising spending in 2006? "I am out of analogies," jokes the chief executive of the marketing services conglomerate WPP. He recovers quickly, however, to offer an alternative. Apparently, the advertising world will benefit from a "mini quadrennial", which next falls in 2006. Ad spending, he says, will be boosted by the mid-term US congressional elections, the Winter Olympics in Italy and the football World Cup in Germany.

Sir Martin, despite what he admits are his "crazy analogies", is usually worth listening to when he says something. And if he says something twice, that makes it doubly worth listening. (Sir Martin does not mind repeating himself. His foreword to last year's edition of Atticus, WPP's annual staff magazine, about the importance of being creative in advertising and branding in an increasingly competitive world, was exactly the same as the previous year's. "The central point it makes is at least as valid [now]," he explains.)

He is very excited right now about China, and this is another message he repeats with an almost missionary zeal (though he is armed with his ever-present Blackberry, rather than a Bible). He says that by 2008, the country will represent the second-biggest advertising market in the world after the US, which it will eventually overtake. The size of the population - and the consumer market - presents huge opportunities for companies such as WPP to exploit international brands there and to develop Chinese domestic ones.

Sceptics say most of the population cannot afford to buy the goods and services that the likes of WPP are trying to sell. But as Sir Martin points out, there are already between 150 and 200 million Chinese who can - and, even on the lowest of these estimates, that is more than half of the US population.

In China, WPP already commands 15 per cent of total advertising spending (including related areas like public relations and marketing), mostly through joint ventures with Chinese companies such as Shanghai Advertising Corporation. Over the past year, WPP has won advertising accounts in China for clients including Reebok, China Mobile, Prada and drinks giant Diageo.

The West still has a lot to learn about the country, he claims. Many multinationals make the mistake of trying to introduce brands that are too expensive, and risk losing out to domestic ones. "Clearly there is competition between the two," says Sir Martin. And Chinese companies are far from novices in advertising. "They learn and adapt and implement. The standard of debate within our industry in China is as high as you will find anywhere."

He says he hates the term "developing" to describe economies such as China, preferring "fastest growing". "It's insulting," he says.

The peripatetic Sir Martin reckons he spends about half his time visiting WPP companies and clients overseas. He makes personal appearances to assist them in pitching for accounts.

"I will try and help. I always get asked in when there is trouble. Good news travels fast, bad news travels slower." Last year it was rumoured that to help win the $400m (£210m) Samsung advertising account, he flew to Seoul for a day to attend the opening of a museum sponsored by the family behind the South Korean electronics company.

Such attention to detail seems excessive even by Sir Martin's standards, but he neither denies nor confirms the story. "There is a lot of mythology" about what he does, he says (even he cannot be everywhere at once). But you get the impression that if a bit of mythology helps the WPP cause, he is all too happy to allow it to grow.

He declines to comment on whether he is an obsessive character - "that's for others to say, not me" - but looks quizzical when asked whether he has mellowed in almost 20 years at the helm of WPP.

"I don't like to come second. I am willing to admit that. Maybe it's something to do with my size - all 5ft 6in of it," he jokes.

Coming first is a must in the cut-throat advertising world. Sir Martin wants WPP's profits to grow by between 10 and 15 per cent each year. But with global growth in advertising spending below this rate, the only ways to hit his target are through acquisition, investing in fast-growing markets such as China or (the most common approach) poaching accounts from rivals. "It's a very competitive industry," he admits. "It always has been."

Over the past five years, as the industry has consolidated, Sir Martin has been on a spending spree, acquiring the ad agencies Young & Rubicam, Cordiant and Grey Global, as well as the media buyer Tempus. Analysts quip that "whatever Martin wants, Martin gets" - sometimes, some say, at the risk of overpaying.

His aggressive deal making and account pitching have sharpened the sense of personal rivalry with his counterparts at rival advertising groups. After one triumph, over France's Havas, he reportedly referred to its chief executive, Alain de Pouzilhac, as a "poor little Frenchie". Is his judgement clouded by this competitiveness? "I hope not. It may do. I have a lot invested in this company - there is a lot at risk."

Sir Martin received £2.4m from WPP in 2003, and under a new pay scheme could earn £44m over the next nine years. He says he has had to invest his own cash in the company, with shares to trigger bonus payouts, and so the pay schemes are not risk free. "It's not a case of heads I win, tails you lose. My own money is involved. I would not say it is justified or unjustified. It is what it is."

And the investment has been emotional as well as financial. After all, he has taken a company that began as a wire-basket manufacturer in 1985, turned it into an advertising acquisition vehicle and made it the world's second-largest ad group, worth £7.7bn. He says WPP to him is what football was to Bill Shankly: more important than life and death. "If you're the founder of a company, your attitude is different. It's like giving birth. Everyone who has founded a business feels like that."

With that final analogy, he bids his farewells and is whisked away from WPP's Mayfair offices by his chauffeur - Blackberry at the ready to plot the next move. One thing is clear: WPP is still Sir Martin's baby.

BIOGRAPHY

Born: 14 February 1945.

Education: MA in economics from Cambridge University; MBA from Harvard Business School.

Career (1968-69): associate, Glendinning Associates (marketing), Westport, Connecticut.

1970-74: vice-president, Mark McCormack Organisation (sports and celebrity agents), UK.

1975-77: director, James Gulliver Associates (food retailer).

1977-85: group finance director, Saatchi & Saatchi.

1986 to now: chief executive, WPP.