By Johanna McDowell. “How did you help your clients thrive during the pandemic and lockdown”was the theme of last year’s second virtual AdForum Worldwide Summit, 30 November–9 December 2020. Because of online conferencing, we were able to meet with agencies from Cape Town to Helsinki. Here’s the rest of my report.
Some key takeouts for us pitch consultants were:
• The era of the independent agency is just getting started and is growing exponentially
• The groups are marshalling their agency assets into solutions that will work for clients
• Platforms are the future
• Business results drive everything
• Creativity remains in top position at every stage in an agency evolution, no matter what the agency discipline may be.
Beacons of overwhelming optimism
Neverland is an independent agency of 20+ people and growing fast. Its objectives are to get an unfair share of talent, to be a “brand” as an agency, and to be beacons of overwhelming optimism. With these in mind the agency has set about securing clients, and has 10 good names already, including NBC, Jacobs, Heck Foods, Campari, Solgar, End Youth Loneliness, Kellys and Unilever. It also managed to produce a commercial, “Make this summer happy as Heck”— one of the first in the industry after lockdown in 2020 — for Heck Food. A very refreshing outlook at this highly active startup agency.
Gary Vaynerchuck started Vayner Media some 10 years ago. From very humble beginnings, it’s now an agency of 1000 people with offices in New York, London and Singapore, and is focused on digital media, creative, production and social media. It told us that, in competitive pitches, it comes up against every type of agency because of the variety of work that it does. Clients include Mondelēz, Lift, SKQ and Pepsi. Revenue in 2020 would have been US$170m.
It sees itself as the “agency of now”, responsive to consumers, and with a culture of kindness — especially within the agency. Its ideal brief would be a media and creative one that will drive business results. The agency sees itself as having an entrepreneurial approach, with kindness. It was an interesting session, although we only met Vaynerchuck, a very endearing character with his own humble beginnings in New Jersey.
LLYC is a PR and communications agency that’s moving into the integrated advertising space. Started in Madrid some 25 years ago, the agency is now very strong in Latin America, in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world as well, as in Miami in the US. It positions itself as agency for story doing (not story telling); liquid modernity; technology and transmedia; and ethics. It has a total of 450 clients across its businesses — all very varied — and +600 consultants.
Case studies were shown for McDonalds — The Last Straw (environmental); Scania; BBVA — chocolate makers — a sense of cocoa to recover the sense of taste; and “Invisible loneliness”for the BBK (bank) Foundation.
“Designing a more human future”
Always a highlight at AdForum, R/GA is committed to “designing a more human future”. It noted that the second half of 2020 was much more active than the first half. It also told us that it believes that transformation no longer describes what’s happening and that we’re in an era of “post-transformation”, with 80% of consumers wanting brands to solve social problems. Its point of view is that “the future belongs to the brands and businesses that are harnessing tech for human needs.” And how are clients responding to this? CMOs now have the responsibility for brands/tech/humanity. Human brands — such as Nike and ESPN — are upping their tech; tech brands — such as Uber and Airbnb — are upping their humanity.
Where R/GA sees its role in this new world is as an agency that designs businesses and brands for a more human future and it believes that brands are becoming “an operating system”. With brands guiding much more than marketing, brands are involved in experience, business decisions and defining product development. Innovation happens at the intersection of these and this is where R/GA acts. It showed us examples via a case study for Nike and Google, where Nike Adapt BB shoes have the first in-game shopping experience powered entirely by voice. This “Hey Google — ask Nike”is also an example of brand as an operating system. Other case studies for Samsung and Verizon demonstrated the respective brand responses to lockdown.
R/GA sees 2021 as continuing at speed, with the agency looking for more and more opportunities to design a more human future.
It was a very concentrated session, with little time for questions, which was a pity as R/GA sessions normally have lots of questions from the consultants — but there’s been a change in leadership in that earlier last year, Barry Wacksman, chief growth officer, left to pursue a startup of his own. He’s certainly missed.
“Challenger” mentality
Uncommon (we met this extraordinary agency 12 months ago in person at AdForum in London) had another year of great successes. Now 65 people, it has a global presence and won AdAge’s 2020 International Small Agency of the Year. Its most recent work for ITV included assisting the brand to develop a “challenger” mentality and to produce campaigns for Mental Health in Britain — “Britain Get Talking” and a coronavirus response campaign. B&Q was another case study, which focused on the opportunities created through lockdown and people being at home, noticing the things at home that need fixing.
Next up was the highly successful VCCP, which took us through some remarkable work and treated us to a very enjoyable session. “Built for this time” is how it sees its agency, which challenges siloed thinking by saying that “it only works if it ALL works”. So, not just the ATL traditional advertising work but also less obvious BTL marketing communications. It cleverly structured its session of 90 minutes into discussion followed by ad breaks, where it showed its work from the previous 12 months.
It had a tough year, with turnover down by 13% and profits down by 20%. Nevertheless, it came through by focusing on client relationships, looking after its people, cost management and maintaining its ambitions and focus. So far, during lockdown, it’s won six new clients — all of those pitches happening virtually. It believes it’s more streamlined now and talked about the three challenges it took on:
• Rigidity of brands: some adapted; some didn’t. VCCP focused on adaptability, agility, UX and CX for brands such as O2 and Mondelēz Cadbury’ Heroes.
• Pessimism: it stayed optimistic and helped people “escape” through work for Meerkat Movies, Meerkat Meals and Meerkat Music. It convinced one of the world’s biggest bands, “Take That”, to reform and record from four different locations in lockdown.
• Wastage: what sort of period will it be when we rebound from this pandemic? The Roaring Twenties or the post-WW2 “rationing” years? VCCP believes it will be both, with revenge spending happening as well as a ration era of being more healthy, etc.
Its strategy is to be agile, cohesive and empathetic, with timing being central. VCCP sees a few reasons to be cheerful: location has become meaningless; global clients have expanded from five to 10 during this period; and its office in Singapore was voted 2020 Agency of the Year in Southeast Asia.
We were shown lots of wonderful work, including Christmas ads. Altogether, it was an exceptionally rewarding and stimulating session.
“Stay inside”
Publicis Groupe was another highly anticipated session, as we hadn’t had a chance to talk to the group for three years, thanks to restructuring and repositioning itself and its many companies. The charismatic Arthur Sadoun kicked off by explaining what its strategy had been as covid-19 hit: “Stay inside”. This theme meant don’t go outside of the group; stay home and work; don’t use freelancers; save on costs — and develop strategies to adapt — people, clients and business.
Its vision for 2021 is that we’re living in a world dominated by platforms eg Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. Publicis is built to help clients win in this platform world. The four imperatives are real identity; scaled, smart media; direct eco systems; and dynamic, diverse and disruptive creativity.
Its case study for Walgreens demonstrated how data, business transformation and creativity could create a “growth loop” on Amazon as an example. This growth loop, which was to be shown to the Publicis Groupe staff at its global conference the following week, is how Publicis will unlock growth in this platform world.
It allowed a lot of time for questions, which was great, as there were many from the consultants. We gained a better understanding of its own MARCEL platform, and it advised us that, as far as pitching is concerned, it has the following four viewpoints: it’s there to help the client transform; if clients want breakthrough work, then they should choose Publicis; it keeps its promises — especially with media; and the people in the room on a pitch will be the people in the future of that business in the agency.
A very confident session from this agency group — well worth the wait!
Client testimonial
Pablo (meaning humble) is another agency that we met in London in 2019; this agency is going from strength to strength since inception. In 2020, it was Campaign’s No. 1 New Business winner, a mighty achievement for the 75 people of Pablo. Teamwork is the hallmark of this agency, it seems, and no wonder — as it was founded by two partners who are former rugby players! This session as an interview conducted by AdForum’s Peter Cowie.
How did it get to no 1 in new biz? Great training and the ability to adapt quickly.
What is it proud of? Teamwork. It didn’t lose sight of objectives and it reinvested in the agency. It grew its creative department at a time when many others were shedding people, and it changed the shape of its agency by building its internal capabilities.
What did this enable? A more proactive approach to clients and prospects meant more opportunities to win more work and more new business. It decided it couldn’t demonstrate agency culture as it couldn’t invite clients to its offices. So, it gave up the offices and paid that rent to “Shelter”, a charity for the homeless — staying true to its agency culture. It was also first to market with several initiatives.
What is the one thing that achieved this remarkable new business success? A deep team, highly skilled.
A client testimonial from David Wheldon, Royal Bank of Scotland CMO, was an interesting feature of this session and he shared some of his experience of working with Pablo. One of the agency’s initiatives was a CMO-sharing session series, so that CMOs could “share the pain” of their brands and experiences during lockdown; it’s something that will never be forgotten by the people who participated, according to Wheldon.
“Truth to meaning powered by integrated intelligence”
McCann Worldgroup Europe plays a lead role in 10 out of 12 of the main clients in the IPG Group. It positions itself as helping brands to earn an meaningful role in people’s lives. “Truth to meaning powered by integrated intelligence” is its approach and operating system. It demonstrated this to us in a series of case studies from Microsoft and Hollaback (a street harassment awareness initiative) to L’Oréal —we learnt that, in 2021, the “I’m worth it” positioning will be 50 years old —a cause for multiple celebrations during this year, we’re sure.
IPG offered us a chance to look at how it’s streamlining its business, after what we saw at the June 2020 summit. It’s developed a grouping of its PR, sponsorship, sports and entertainment, social, digital and reputation management agencies — DXTRA — which launched at the end of October 2020, and the idea behind this is to provide clients with one point of contact for all of these services and agencies, with the intention of connecting around consumer needs. There are 28 best-in-class agencies, such as Weber Shandwick, Golin and Octagon, and 7000 people globally in 24 countries. We saw a reel of the various work that’s been done within DXTRA in order to demonstrate the offering.
A big development in the IPG group — one to watch.
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