A roller coaster of hype: Can the new regime exorcise the ‘bullshit’ past of The Marketing Group?
The Marketing Group was promising something different for small agencies – be part of a global network but retain your independent spirit. But it soon began to unravel for those who bought into the vision of entrepreneurial collective strength. The share price collapsed, the acquisition of Australian agencies fell through and performance suffered as controversy swirled around the business. Steve Jones looks at the rise and fall of The Marketing Group and how the new management are attempting to rebuild confidence in the business.
When three Australian agencies were named as the latest acquisitions for The Marketing Group, it seemed destined to elevate the young company to new heights.
That was certainly the expectation of management who proudly announced its “largest deal to date” last November, five months after listing on the First North stock exchange, a little-known secondary NASDAQ market in Stockholm.
Just too many bad shirts to take this lot seriously
Blue Highway?
Photon?
I’d say same dog, different fleas, but this set up is even whiffier. “You don’t have to run a marathon, you just run the last 10 yards and you still get the prize”? That was the end right there. And all the new heavyweights running a company only capitalised at 23m? That’s an equally bad sign. Stock Recommendation: SELL (yesterday)
You’re bang on @Jeremy, add the Q Group in there as well. As always with these deals, it’s the lawyers and deal-makers who make money on the margins, and retail investors and the guys that sell their businesses in that get punished…
Anytime you have sometime pushing a ‘model’ rather than being a true marketing/advertising person, you’re asking for trouble…
Another cracking piece from Steve Jones. I’m not sure what I like more; the ordered agglomeration of so much detail or the martini-dry wit.
This venture seems flawed, not in it’s ambitions but its strategy to achieve them.
“Harbour and his Unity colleagues drew up a lofty ambition to build an entrepreneurial version of the traditional holding group. While benefitting from being part of a network, it would be a structure that enabled its agency subsidiaries to retain their autonomy and independent spirit rather than be controlled and suffocated by a bureaucratic head office.”
This is totally at odds with the prevailing thematic of the Global Holding companies of consolidation. It is not often that Sir Martin Sorrell, Arthur Sadoun, Yannick Bolloré and global CMO’s like Marc Pritchard all in faultless agreement on anything but on this they are.
Sir Martin Sorrell as recently as January this year was interviewed publicly stating WPP have the wrong model and that the separate independent brands are a material impediment to meeting global companies needs for better integration and if he could move faster to unwind the independence of brands within WPP to allow better integration he would.
Arthur Sadoun from Publicis in his first address to his global team of employees stated, “you are going to hear me saying BUST, BOND & GROW”, Bust the P&L barriers, Bond across agency brands & Grow by winning more business off the back of better integrated client pitches, as part of his Power of One strategy. His most recent attempt towards this strategy is the AI powered new generation intranet called Marcel where Publicis is able to link up not just people qualified to handle a brief, but to find “the ones who are eager to do it.” A young creative in Sao Paulo, he said, would have the opportunity to work on a Super Bowl ad led out of New York. Marcel is already having a positive impact on business, Sadoun claimed.
I wrote a piece on this recently and it has the video interviews I mention above plus others.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kiss-punch-justin-cannon
Another good read on the nature of the broader holding company thematic of consolidation is in adage.
http://adage.com/article/print.....re/303798/
Great read and important work Steve.