Who cares, wins

Welcome to a midweek edition of Unmade. Today, the tumultuous state of the local arms of global creative networks.

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Black T-shirts, green eyes

One of the good things about writing Unmade on a near daily basis is that a new development can send a piece on an entirely new trajectory at the last moment.

I thought today’s note was going to be a somewhat downbeat look at the state of Australia’s creative agencies.

This was against the backdrop of the closure of VCCP’s Australian operation (after a decade of unfulfilled promise) and Clemenger BBDO’s loss of Ford back to WPP after just four years.

Then, over breakfast, I belatedly caught up with the new campaign work from NRMA Insurance. And just before I headed down to my desk to write this, I listened to the latest episode of Black T-Shirts. There are reasons to be cheerful. We’ll get to those.

First though to Clems. This week it emerged that Ford Motors is giving the creative business back to WPP in Australia after just four years with Clemenger BBDO.

That was the first time in decades that Ford had looked outside of the WPP family. The motor company’s relationship with J Walter Thompson, or Wunderman Thompson as it is these days, predates the agency’s 1987 takeover by holding company WPP. In the US, the agency’s relationship began with Ford in 1910, and in Australia in 1943.

That came to an end four years ago when Ford ditched WPP as its creative lead globally, going with Omnicom’s BBDO instead. Locally that’s Clemenger BBDO.

The move has not worked out. After just a blink of an eye in global brand terms, Ford has moved away from BBDO. Globally, Wieden + Kennedy will take the creative lead.

Australia is not among the nine countries where W+K has an office, potentially leaving the door open for Clems to hang on to the business locally, if it deserved it. Instead, the work has gone back to WPP.

That says something about the state of Clemenger. To understate matters, it’s not the agency it once was.

Under the leadership of CEOs like Peter Biggs and Nick Garrett and creative talent like James McGrath and Ant Keogh, Clems Melbourne was the yardstick locally and even globally.

In any given pitch, Clems Melbourne was the agency that rivals had to beat – and they knew it. You’d walk into the agency to find an actual wheelbarrow loaded up with trophies. Open on my desk is the Mumbrella Creative Agency Review book from a decade ago. Clems Melbourne was the only agency to score itself ten out of ten. Our expert panel agreed, declaring them “a world class agency”. In late 2019 we named it Mumbrella’s creative agency of the decade.

The seeds of the decline were there before the pandemic. Omnicom made a hash of its succession planning. Chris Howatson, who had transformed Clems’ sister agency CHE Proximity, or CHEP Network as it is now, was promoted across both groups. That blocked the career path of the ambitious and talented Nick Garrett, who moved on. And when Howatson later became disillusioned by Omnicom’s treatment of staff during the early months of the pandemic, he left for startupland. The succession plan was in tatters.

Gayle While spent 11 months as CEO before being replaced in 2020 by Jim Gall, who came over from Clems NZ.

In turn Gall’s departure was announced a couple of months ago, to be replaced by the UK-based Aussie Dani Bassil. Recognising that the scope of the group has shrunk, when she eventually starts in the new year, Bassil will lead a merged national operation including Clems Sydney and Clems Melbourne. For years the two offices were fiercely independent of each other.

With a vacuum until Bassil starts, it’s perhaps no surprise the agency was unable to hang on to Ford. The Clems website feels like nobody much cares at the moment. The agency stopped tweeting and posting press releases to its own website back in March.

Two months on from her being announced as the new boss, there’s still no reference to Bassil on the Clems website at all. Indeed, four years after his departure, Clems still lists Garrett as its CEO in one part of its website.

In another area of the site Jim Gall is still listed as the boss.

The Clems of old would never have been that sloppy. Like I say, it gives the impression that nobody there cares any more.

Which brings me on to Black T-Shirts.

If you only listen to one podcast episode about the world of advertising and marketing this week, I suggest you make it this one. Telstra CMO Brent Smart and Thinkerbell strategist Adam Ferrier talked to Australia’s greatest advertising export, David Droga.

They’ve done some pretty good episodes (the one with Allan Johnston was an absolute cracker) but today’s episode featuring the world’s most awarded adman, is rather inspiring. These days Droga is global boss of Accenture’s creative consultancy Accenture Song. That puts him in the same family as The Monkeys.

Droga talks convincingly about the need to care enough about doing a great job. When he talks about his dislike of places where okay work is tolerated, it may well resonate for many people working in this industry, both agency and brandside. The system has a habit of grinding everything down to mediocrity.

“Caring is out of scope, but we do it anyway” was what he’d tell Droga5 clients.

And perhaps that’s what it actually takes to get distinctive work out into the market.

Which brings me on to NRMA Insurance’s work which launched this week. The new position is “Until then we’ll be here”.

Although he doesn’t appear in the credits, this must have been one of the last pieces of IAG work Brent Smart had a hand in before heading across to lead Telstra’s marketing.

It’s unlike any other work currently on air. Created by hotshop Bear Meats Eagle On Fire and produced by Revolver, the creds are full of people famed for caring about the work, including chief creative officer Micah Walker, director Steve Rogers and Revolver boss Michael Ritchie.

It shows, and it’s heartening to see. At the end of the podcast, Smart and Ferrier ask Droga what slogan he’s put on a black T-Shirt. His answer: “Who cares, wins”.

I do hope so.

Unmade Index on the jump

The Reserve Bank’s relative timidity in responding to surging inflation by putting up interest rates by just 0.25%, rather than the feared 0.5%, put rocket fuel into the Unmade Index yesterday.

The index of ASX-listed media and marketing rose by 3.04%, taking the index back above the 700 mark.

The index opened the year at 1000 points, meaning it is still down 30% for the year, however.

Yesterday’s biggest percentage jump came from research house Pureprofile. Of the media owners, HT&E saw the biggest improvement, growing by 4.6%.

Time to leave you to your day. I’ll be back tomorrow with my take on this afternoon’s SBS Upfront.

If you’re in Melbourne, don’t forget to take a look at out Marketing in 2023 event, which is only two weeks away now. Click on the ad above to secure your ticket.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

tim@unmade.media