OPINION: PERSPECTIVE - Networks rant flies in the face of client orthodoxy.

It's always good fun when an advertising figure that matters goes ballistic in public. The account of Maurice Saatchi's rant on page ten of this week's issue is the angriest broadside that Campaign's encountered in a long time. However, in a world where Kevin Roberts' 'lovemarks' also count as serious business pronouncements (see http://www.saatchikevin.com), that is not saying much.

First, let me give you a flavour of Saatchi's speech that was delivered at a Sydney conference recently. The networks' thinking, he says, is that 'if they can eliminate creativity as a discriminator between agencies, they can sell bundled-up services at a discount price'. The motive is that 'networks have a vested interest in driving out creativity. They want advertising to become a commodity market where price is all.'

Leaving aside the idea of whether he is right or wrong for a moment, it is possible to be highly sceptical about these philosophical utterings.

Even Saatchi himself admits that they mark an extraordinary volte-face.

The Saatchi & Saatchi early history, after all, was entirely based on the notion that size matters. The brothers' legendary offers to buy much bigger players from their very earliest days showed this thinking in action from the outset.

Each successive stage had to have something that caught the imagination, made the headlines and made the Saatchi story more than the straightforward progression of a company up the profits ladder. The brothers set out to make money, certainly; but that came remarkably easily and after a few years was not enough.

The next idea was to show that a hotshop could become the biggest in the land. The one after that was about helping Thatcher win the 1979 election.