Mark Coad on Mediabrands’ COVID-19 response: ‘We’d rather overreach and give back than ask again’
After six months in the job, Mediabrands’ chief executive Mark Coad speaks with Mumbrella’s Brittney Rigby about handling a crisis in a new business, why pitching has become more humanised since ‘ditch the pitch’, and what media agencies and marketers should be thinking about. Here, in the first part of that interview, Coad clarifies the company’s ‘hiring freeze’, assures staff they will return to full capacity and pay in January, and explains why there’s no more local cost cutting to come this year because ‘we’ve done ours’.
At the end of April, Mediabrands’ COVID-19 response strategy, dubbed ‘Resilience 2020’, was leaked. Newly-installed chief executive Mark Coad had emailed staff, asking them to agree to nine-day fortnights, and confirming there would be a pause on pay rises and discretionary spending, and a small number of redundancies.
But there wasn’t a hiring freeze, according to Coad; he says those were Mumbrella’s words, not his. His all-staff email read: “We will cease hiring for the remainder of 2020 to preserve our current employment opportunities. Our hiring program is on hold, bar critical and exceptional circumstances which will be dealt with independently.
“This means that if a client pauses or radically changes their activity it will be our own teams who will be deployed to new opportunities.”
