Neville Jeffress AM (1920-2007), advertising executive, founded the information search and collation service Media Monitors. Born at home in the working-class southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah, he joined the Sydney afternoon Sun as a clerk in 1936. After war service in the RAAF and a period working with advertising giant J Walter Thompson in London, he purchased a newsagency in Fairlight on Sydney’s northern beaches. There, he began selling classified advertisements. Throughout his career he was an early adopter of communications technology; his was the first ad agency in the world to take placements over the telephone. Neville Jeffress Advertising grew into the largest Australian-owned advertising agency with offices across Australia and in New York and London. In 1982, Jeffress bought the NSW Country Press and merged it with clipping agency Lynch Pidler Pty Ltd to create Neville Jeffress/Pidler Pty Ltd. The firm grew steadily through acquisitions over the next 10 years, picking up Australian Press Cutting Agency amongst other assets, before taking over Media Monitors Australia in 1993. His company changed its name to Media Monitors. Neville Jeffress Advertising, by that time one of the biggest classified advertising companies in the world, was sold in 1996. When Jeffress died at the age of 87, still with an active role in Media Monitors and looking forward to capitalising on the opportunities opened up by the internet, the company had more than 4 000 clients and more than 500 staff.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Eileen M. Jeffress 2018
© Judy Cassab/Copyright Agency, 2022
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