McCann CEO slams ‘shoddy’ media agencies, as agency ramps up media buying offering
Lilley: McCann’s media growth “simply answering the needs of the market”
Creative agency McCann has continued its push to become a major media buying force with the recruitment of a head of media and confirmation it is working with media agencies outside the UM network for the first time.
The agency also added the $5m Australian Unity business, bringing its total media billings to almost $100 million.
McCann Worldgroup chairman and CEO Ben Lilley told Mumbrella that while the agency continued to work with UM, it was also doing media buying for some of its clients through rivals such as Havas Media.
and the hype machine continues
Nice one highlander!
“Answering the needs of the market” and offsetting the decline of your own. All in one shops have always looked like coming back. At least this way the only asset deadline the creative agency will miss is its own.
course dear
It’s interesting to see creative agencies labeling certain media agencies as shoddy when I work at one where not a single one of our global partner creative agencies can deliver a dynamic digital banner or a sequential messaging strategy. In fact some are still delivering us Flash instead of HTML5. Not to mention actually bothering to liaise with us on campaign strategy until after they have developed the idea without knowing what media commitments are in place. Clearly improvements need to be made across the industry as a whole. I hope McCann can live up to these bold sweeping statements once the tables have turned.
Same crap, different spin
Good luck McCann’t.
good call Ben, why limit yourself to a small agency like Mediabrands
Slag media agencies and then hire a bunch of people that have done the rounds at loads of them. [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy.]
So UM are desperate to be seen as a creative agency and McCann are desperate to be seen as a media agency. Feels like IPG need to have a serious chat about their portfolio strategy…
Shame they burned bridges months ago by telling new clients they were offering full service when what they really meant was “We’re sub-contracting your media buy to Havas and in actual fact there is no integration of services”. Once you lose your integrity it’s a hard slog to get it back.
And best of luck to the new media team whose job will be to recommend whatever the creative director tells them to.
It always surprises me that creative agencies who want to change the face of media end up employing people from the very media agencies they are so happy to denounce.
Oh goody, hopefully this is the beginning of the industry slagging each other off. Always good for a laugh.
Hi @Been there, your comment is perhaps deliberately disingenuous. However just in case it’s not, our clients are of course completely – and contractually – clear on our service offering across all areas of our business, not just media. At the front end they benefit from the integration of our planning, creative, digital and production resources all under the one roof. While at the back end, they benefit from us buying for them at the best possible rates, whether directly, programmatically or through a third-party. I would think the only agencies ‘burning their bridges’ in the delivery of any services, whether media, production or otherwise, are the ones trying (or claiming) to do absolutely everything in-house.
On the Australian unity Win? The ads with the weird heads? Shoddy indeed
It sounds to me as if McCann are doing no more than responding to the market, just as Havas did some little while ago. It’s not about creative agencies wanting to become media agencies or visa versa. I would have thought it’s about responding to the client need for strategic comms development in one place and that includes media, unless some media agencies were so busy trying to play in the creative discipline they hadn’t noticed.
McCann, nor IPG, are stupid. However, some media agencies in my opinion have overstepped the mark, flush with their recent (last 20 years) success, dabbling in creative and lording it over creative agencies. They should be careful this is not merely a speed hump but a real and serious trend of advertisers taking the game back toward the place it started.
Alan Robertson
Kinesis Media Pty Ltd
What came first; the full service agency or the need? 🙁
would they be doing this if their business was growing hugely?
i’m always sceptical of these sort of announcements by creative or media agencies saying “we now do this as well” and dress it up as due to client needs.
sounds to me like they need to grow their profits and this is just a new tactic to increase revenues
why is everyone so insecure about creative going into media and vice versa….get a grip people. whether you are in creative, media, production, design etc this is definitely the best job in the country. we get paid to do what we do is awesome