Kirsty Muddle is the CEO of dentsu Australia and New Zealand, and Cate Stuart-Robertson (AKA CSR) is the Chief Client Officer at dentsu Creative. Both have extensive experience in media and advertising with a particular creative focus, and recognised leaders in the industry.
A lot of time and effort is expended by advertising agencies extolling their creativity. It is, after all, one of the creative industries. Increasingly the conversation is now turning to the role and value creativity plays in delivering growth through initiatives like the Advertising Council of Australia’s Growth Agenda with the Australian, but also efforts to measure this value being launched by a few holding companies.
Both Kirsty and CSR share their perspectives on the changing application of creativity in marketing beyond advertising and the challenges and efforts to build creative capability and momentum within organisations.
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You might not see it in a traditional advertising award show. But using our creativity to do different things and make money in different ways. That’s what we are doing.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, Founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management Consultancy. And welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
A lot of time and effort is expended by advertising agencies extolling their creativity. It is, after all, one of the creative industries. Increasingly, the conversation is now turning to the role and value creativity plays in delivering growth through initiatives like the Advertising Council of Australia’s Growth Agenda with the Australian, but also efforts to measure the value being launched by a few of the holding …
Today, I’m taking the opportunity to talk all things creative and commercial with two of the leaders in the Australian creative advertising industry. Please welcome to Managing Marketing Podcast, the Chief Client Officer at Dentsu Creative, Cate Stuart-Robertson, or CSR for short. Hi Cate.
Cate:
Hi there. Nice to be here.
Darren:
And please welcome CEO of Dentsu Creative, Australia & New Zealand Kirsty Muddle. Hi, Kirsty.
Kirsty:
Hi Darren. Hi, CSR.
Cate:
Hi, mate.
Darren:
We’re all here having a chat about creativity. First of all, and this is to either of you. I know we’ve all worked for quite a few years in the creative industries, but do we have to spend so much time talking about creativity?
Kirsty:
I think it makes us feel good, probably. I mean, with creativity, I think we probably overthink it a little bit in terms of what we’re talking about. People talk about creativity every day. because it exists in pop culture. People talk about the things they like and largely that’s born from creativity.
But no, I think we should continue to talk about it as much as we do at the moment. It’s kind of, you need to control the narrative too. So, if you look at the … sorry to get all econometric on you already, but if you look at the Deloitte report that was just done recently, the contribution of creativity to the economy is quite significant. And so, it’s probably worth the chat at different levels.
Darren:
Well, see, because I’m already thinking that was not about creativity. That was about advertising. And to automatically think that all advertising is creative, I think is a flaw in that argument. Advertising certainly contributes, what was it, $83 billion to GDP.
Cate:
I think creativity at the moment is to Kirs’s point something that we live and breathe every single day. However, creative leaders and creativity that sits inside of businesses has never been more important ever before.
And I think creativity about problem solving, business problem-solving, speed, agility, being adaptable has never been more important. However, I can’t live and breathe unless I talk about creative problems every single day. So, yes, I will always default to advertising because it’s what I love, worship, and adore.
Kirsty:
But the creativity, it’s not the creative department of the business. So, our Dentsu media teams are just as creative, but in their own form and their own fluid way. Like our data teams as well. I mean, they’re using their creative ways to restructure data and look at how things are done.
So, I think creativity is a wonderful thing to worship. And the more we talk about it, probably the better for the rest of our business. But I also think people genuinely like to talk about creativity, look at Gruen.
Darren:
No, and you’re absolutely right. Gruen is a high-rating program that largely talks about the visible outputs of advertising, which is the ads. But it’s interesting because when you focus just on ads, the people focus on the creative department. Because that’s the department that agencies talk about as being where the ads are made, isn’t it?
I think it’s a conundrum for the industry because I think every time we talk about creativity, people outside of the industry, who we should be trying to remind them about the value that we create, need to think about that more holistic approach you just shared.
Kirsty:
I actually think good creative people who work in the creative department seek ideas from different places. And so, they’re essentially looking for original thinking. That’s what they’re like, what’s the original thought? What’s the thought that no one else has had? Otherwise, it would’ve been done before. And they look in different places.
So, the one thing that I like about working in this environment is that there are so many pockets for curious, creatively minded people to go and search for original thinking that comes from different places that cuts down that bias.
So, you don’t end up seeing the same communication or the same kind of ideas, or the same style of advertising everywhere, because they’ve got a lot of different stimulation points to inspire original thinking. It’s diversity, in capability.
Darren:
Because Cate, you’ve worked at Google in a creative role, did you see that as part of the advertising industry? I’m interested.
Cate:
Well, look, I was only at Google for a short amount of time, and I went in there as a creative development lead. So, I wouldn’t want to be disrespectful to anything I learned inside of Google. But I would say to you, the one thing I did learn was that at our creative agency and the relationships we build with our CMOs and our business partners, we are seen as the snake that turns the head.
We can really help influence. We understand strategy, we understand business problems, but we’re also not asked to basically comment on the TV ad. We’re asked to shape business problems, horizon one, two, and three. We are seen as a trusted partner.
And in fact, we probably are more choked out than our media guys because of our magic, the way we think, the way we problem solve.
I think where I probably struggled inside an organization like Google is that I went from having the influence of CMOs to being in a much smaller lane. And you’re not encouraged to color outside the lines. And I think Mel Silva would say, I was as subtle as a gun. I was constantly trying to get closer up to the decision-making.
Kirsty:
Are you surprised?
Cate:
I was, I was trying to get close to the — because you go from being best friends with a CMO of Arnott’s Biscuits to only finding them as they walk through to talk to the media guys. And you’re like, “Oh my God.” I struggled with the lack of influence. That’s what I would say to you was probably hardest for me as a creative person.
And I would say Dave Bowman would say the same thing. Some of the other guys would say that, Anna Hunt. We missed the ability to shape the thinking that would impact the sort of work, you miss it.
And if you think we’re just creativity, we’re the ads, it’s so not what we do as a T-shaped organization. And the agility and the speed, fuck I missed it. Alright. Hence forth, hi bing-bong, I’m back, because I miss the influence.
Darren:
So, I think it’s interesting because first of all, people forget that Google, Meta, even ByteDance are really technology companies first.
Cate:
They’re engineering companies.
Darren:
Engineering companies.
Cate:
They absolutely are.
Darren:
And creativity’s been bolted on because they basically raise their money through advertising. And yet I don’t think the wider even marketing audience understands the way creativity works in agencies as holistically as you suggested.
Because there is this thing called the creative department. Now, I’m not saying get rid of the creative department, but it’s really interesting how much of the expression of the industry of creativity is about the ads.
All of the current awards and when we want to show how creative we are, what do we show? Ads and reels and things. I’m just wondering, because you’ve got a number of really quite influential roles. You’re on the board of the Advertising Council of Australia, the ACA, you’re on the board of the AANA, Kirsty. There must be times when these conversations arise or are they too busy?
Kirsty:
I mean, we talk about industry things. So, ad standards and being close to community and self-regulation and then AANA is all about better marketing and better brands and sort of making sure that the industry is where it needs to be, and we have a positive influence on that.
I mean, you always feel as someone that comes from — any client comes to us because they can’t solve the problem themselves. And so, you always come in with a little bit of magic dust. And there’s a way in which I think we present ourselves as an industry or even as individuals that bring that magic to the table in the way we present ourselves and find crescendos and keep people’s interests.
So, you feel that no matter what board you sit on, that through and through, no matter which agency I’ve been in, I’m an agency person because of the way we have got this ability to maybe hold a room or entertain people, I don’t know. It’s part of our job, isn’t it?
Cate:
That’s it.
Darren:
The magic, we do tricks.
Kirsty:
I mean, it’s a really nice thing, I think. And I like to remember this. Someone said to me just remember you are probably … and you get five minutes of your clients, you’re about five minutes of their day, and you can aggregate that into a call. I’ve got an hour with you this week.
But make sure, because often it is the best part of their week if you’re bringing something. Because you’re bringing something that is often quite joyful and has solved a problem, which is a different kind of joy. But I think that’s the nice side of our-
Cate:
So, you’ve got to get very good at close magic.
Kirsty:
It’s powerful. Yeah.
Cate:
Close magic.
Darren:
Well, because you’ve both worked in a number of different creative agencies, do you think there’s a type of person that’s attracted to advertising? And let me be disclosing here. It’s really interesting from my perspective because we’re hearing a lot about people going from agency side to client side and working in house.
But I really think that there’s a personality type that just really struggles with the corporate world. That’s my perspective. Is this an observation that you’ve made as well through your career? Or do you think it is a transferable-
Kirsty:
I feel like it’s quite a nuanced observation, my one, and it might resonate with you, Darren. Is I feel like a lot of lawyers like to join the advertising industry. It is because it’s around how you frame things. It’s still like the study of humans in a way. And there is certain laws and processes in advertising that help you get to, we call it craft, get to where you want to go.
So, it does attract a certain kind of mindset, I think. But largely you sit around a dinner table. I think the people that work in the creative sides of businesses and that includes media or tech or an agency environment, probably have got some better stories than my friends that went to banking instead of advertising.
Cate:
We still play with serious budgets. We still play with serious problem-solving, but we do it with a bunch of people where the conversation and the team pursuit of it all is what I can’t find in any other industry.
That sense of team pursuit lined up, chemist … the things we value in each other is also what our clients value in us. They feel our synergy, they feel our smarts, it’s a very transferrable skill and it’s very intoxicating for both clients.
But also, once you’ve had it good and you just keep seeking it out for the rest of your life. I think once you’ve found the rattle and harm of an agency that’s firing, and I was only talking about it about an hour and a half ago with Tim, one of our planners.
We’ve had moments of it in our creative career and I certainly had it in moments. And I go, that is a high that I will chase for the rest of my life. Clients feel it, we feel it. And all the other stuff that comes afterwards is just the reward of it.
Darren:
When all of that comes together.
Cate:
Oh, my God, it’s like a-
Kirsty:
Momentum.
Cate:
I was about to be very rude then. But I pulled back because I’m on air, but I was like-
Darren:
No, no, we’ve had Mark Ritson previously, so there’s not much language that gets censored here. We just put a language guidance at the front of it, so it’s okay. If you want to be fully self-expressed, and that’s required, please feel free.
Cate:
I think my mom would kill me if I thought it’d be a jizz fest. But that’s what I felt it was.
Kirsty:
I think there’s a certain thing that kind of binds us all together you’ve got to be a student of the industry in some ways.
Cate:
You do, you totally.
Kirsty:
You have to really love ads, whatever form they’re in, communication, whatever form it’s form it’s in. I think wild minds, everyone’s got a bit of a wild mind. And that we just allow people to express that within reason.
In an agency environment where often there’s probably no room for it in some corporate environment, so you don’t get to express it. And so, that’s why people leave. There’s a lot of performance in this industry too, I find.
Like, you could go to an agency in London and feel perfectly at home. Because there are similarities in the cultures and the kind of people that … you very quickly know when you’re not in an agency too, because it doesn’t have that wild mind and fluid culture.
Where a practice area in a consultancy perhaps isn’t as reliant on the different areas of the business to come up with an idea, which is what binds us together, is you really can’t come out with something or a solution for a client without using that entire team of people.
And so, you have to be a team and you have to like each other and then you celebrate together as well. I think you could probably do that in isolation and other businesses unless you’re a startup, which is slightly different.
Cate:
But I used to run the grad program for Clemenger for eight years, and it went through four or five different iterations, and it was a collective choice. You can pretty much pick the moment they sit down, who they are, who will succeed and where they’ll go.
Kirsty:
Yes. This is a good point.
Cate:
And there’s just something about the way people collect their thoughts, the way they present themselves and the way they attack problems that always just go, “You’ll be this person, you’ll be this, you’ll be,” and we watched someone walk past the other day and I was like, “Ah, that guy did end up working for that place. I didn’t think he’d work in advertising, but I knew he’d go there.”
Darren:
So, you mean even beyond just the roles that exist within, actually where they’ll work?
Cate:
A 100%.
Darren:
Right.
Cate:
Where people fit. I mean, that’s probably why I got into recruitment a little bit as well is because you can kind of go, I know where you will be supported and loved.
Darren:
No, you’ve raised that Cate. So, I want to explore it because, I mean, the other big saying is it’s a people industry, it’s a talent industry. It’s all about the talent. It’s all about the people.
So, then suddenly going from working in an agency where what is it? Your biggest investment walks out the door every night when they’re working in the office, not when they’re working from home. But when you suddenly swap across to the recruitment side, it must be incredibly interesting to do that matchmaking in a way.
Cate:
Look, I think it’s really interesting because I rang my recruiter, I rang my headhunter, Karen, and said, “I’ve spent time here, what do I do next?” And I think it was very sympatico.
Kirsty:
Not here, where.
Cate:
Oh, where, sorry. I’d been at BBDO for a very long time, Clemenger for a long time. And I’d gone to Google, and I didn’t think that I … you have that moment of like, “This is not where I’m going to make it.”
Darren:
This is not for me.
Cate:
I think they would agree it wasn’t for them either. Lovely moment where you kind of go the holy grail, this is where I’m going to be for the next 10 years. I was like, “Oh God, my business plan’s going awry. I don’t know where I’m going next, I’m not stalling. Apparently, I don’t have a five-year plan.”
So, basically, I rang going what I do next, and it was serendipitous, she’s like, “You can do whatever you want, but there’s an opportunity here to build back out our creative.” Because the guy started in the agency world, but they were doing a marketing, bigger opportunities inside of the C-suite.
She’s like, “I need someone to come back, who knows the industry.” That’s not me and Anthony, that can make sense of the industry again. She’s like you used to run the grad program, like you know a lot of people would you come and do that?
So, I really went over there to build back out the creative agency arm that had kind of was always their base, but it kind of got forgotten as they got bigger and bigger and bigger. So, I went and did that. But all the principles were exactly the same.
You need to think about the brief differently. And the reason why they were — and I think Karen Taylor was a great mentor for me. She’s like, “Think about every opportunity differently.” Which is why when this opportunity came up for Dentsu, I rang this one and said, think about this. I know you’re a head indie girl, you’re part owner, but this could be an opportunity to do that.
Darren:
So, you-
Kirsty:
She put me in this role.
Cate:
Oh yeah, I put her in this role. Sorry, apologies. That probably makes no sense. But yeah, so it was about trying to find an opportunity to bring people together.
Darren:
And then you put her in this role.
Cate:
She then rang me.
Kirsty:
Well, yeah.
Darren:
You thought she got that so right. I better get her on board.
Cate:
Sorry, I’m going all over the place, but welcome to CSR’s brain. But look, I think it made sense to me about-
Darren:
No, it’s fascinating.
Cate:
But also, the people that I bought in during those two years, I think are the right sort of people to bring back to the industry because I looked at the industry and went, “Where have all the fun ones gone.”
For a couple of years there, there was no Cheryl … there were no Kirsty Muddles running big things. We kind of vanished a little bit from that world.
And I thought we’d lost a lot of our rock stars. And I include, it was at the time when people were leaving, we were leaving the MIMS to go be one of our great clients. We were losing Emily Perrott to go set up her own makeup company. We were losing people to Google.
And I remember someone said they’d been up to the symposium in Hunter Valley and they’re like, “Where have all the rock stars gone?” Howie was just leaving to figure out his own thing. And I thought, “We need to bring some rock stars back and put this one in and said, imagine what you could do with it if you could indelibly, basically build this from scratch with all these great bones, what you could do with it.”
And then when she called me a year and a half later and said, “You put me in, what could we do together?” And I was like, it was a two-minute conversation.
Kirsty:
Yes, it was.
Cate:
It was like, it’s time to come back and build.
Darren:
So, Kirsty, I’m getting from Cate’s monologue there.
Cate:
Sorry, I apologize.
Darren:
No, no, it’s fine Cate. I just needed to find the right word to describe it.
Cate:
It’s who I am.
Darren:
But what I got from what you said is that in many ways, the role here for you is to really build that talent profile. Build the opportunities and have the people that can create those opportunities.
Kirsty:
I was attracted to the role here because it was entrepreneurial. I mean the first thing outside of Japan, for me, Dentsu and that’s what was pitched to me, didn’t really have a creative capability. I had to look under the hood a little bit and go, “Where is that? Oh, it’s Isobar, it’s BWM. They’ve got this amazing plethora of PR brands like Ridgeway.
Ridgeway, it’s an indigenous communications, social change agency that does beautiful work. But back to your earlier point, they don’t package it up in the way that creative agencies package stuff up into nice, neat reels that everyone can touch. Because it’s just not part of culture to do that.
But they had all these amazing capabilities that it just needed someone and something to bring it together to build what could be Dentsu’s creative capability. I wasn’t alone in that. Obviously, there was Fred Levron globally who has now left.
But there was a force of people and Wendy Clark, who decided this would be Dentsu’s time to build a pretty significant creative capability, for me that made my heart build beat faster. Because it’s back to the building mentality.
But also, there was a little bit of envy in the pit of my stomach going, “I don’t think these guys know what they’ve got,” in terms of character licensing capability, our gaming capability that is worth millions and millions of dollars making games for some of the best-known brands, but also retailing games ourselves here.
We did have, like BWM, I would say had had an amazing track record of great brand work. Isobar, I mean, Isobar was probably one of the first digital agencies at global scale that’s ours. And then these pockets of quite specific — if you could pull that together, what can’t Denstu do.
It’s a big transformation though. So, it’s not going to happen overnight. We may have build it all together and gone. Denstu Creative has now got all of these, which is our unified creative proposition globally. Which is made up of 60 different brands and capabilities into one thing. Now you’ve got to make it work together. So, it’s never going to be easy, but we’re starting to see green shoots now. The journey’s not over.
Cate:
No.
Kirsty:
But we are getting somewhere. And we are quite-
Darren:
It’s a work in progress.
Kirsty:
I think we’re halfway through.
Cate:
At least we’re in the same key now. We’re all in the same key now. So, we’ll eventually sing in concert, but we are getting all in the same key. So, we’ll be able to have the same hymn sheet. Like we’re off the same-
Kirsty:
I think globally. I mean, certainly in … so, we’ve got 195 offices or 198.
Cate:
Who are the three you forgot?
Darren:
Who are those three and why are they an adjunct?
Cate:
There’s a lot.
Kirsty:
I was like, please don’t.
Cate:
There’s a lot. They were all different brands not too long ago, and now they’re one brand. We use the same language. We use the same ways of solving problems. I think just that’s unlocking this sort of borderless nature of what we can be, it’s cool.
Darren:
I want to get onto that a little bit later. But just to go back a step, because in some ways what I’m hearing, and I’ve had the same thoughts myself. Is that creative agencies since the 2007, 2008 global financial crisis/recession, have not been investing as much as they should to keep pace with change.
Particularly the large holding companies that are answerable to shareholders that they’ve been much more about controlling cost as they have about building future, to your point earlier about create or destroy. It’s not that they’re destroying, but they’ve been protective of margins rather than continuing to grow and move forward.
And one thing that Dave Droga, said is that the thing about creativity is it has to constantly be moving forward. It can’t get caught up in nostalgia. Because that’s yesterday, you’ve got to be creating for the future. And I thought that was a really good perspective.
In the last, let’s say 10 years, have you seen that transition starting to come back? Do you think there’s a new focus on investing in creativity in all its shapes and forms? And we’re not just talking about getting the hot creative director or the CCO but actually investing in creative thinking across the organization.
Cate:
Like I said, I think there’s been lots of good attempts and I think it’s the speed to action that’s probably been the most interesting to watch. I think for the old hold Cos, and I’ll use a horrific example, but it’s very hard to turn into a Titanic.
And I think those hold Cos were very steady ships for a very, very long time. They were good at big things and they did it very, very well. I think that the Titanics that turned too quickly had to, and you saw the breaking up of lots of really great offerings that couldn’t keep pace.
I think that holding companies have been … it’s been a harder sell, that’s why indies are everywhere. Because the indies are made up of all the great holding company thinkers that wanted to do things with more agility.
Solve bigger problems, solve it faster. I think that some of the ones have turned too quickly had to because it was falling apart. Not to criticize, but I think we know who-
Darren:
I’m interpreting that as when WPP started merging agencies as a way of reducing the catalog of agencies. And look, a lot of people have been critical of brand management, but I’d have to say that even though they may be brands that we know and love as, what did you say, students of the industry.
Cate:
Students of the industry. Yeah.
Darren:
In actual fact, they weren’t that strong a brand.
Cate:
We don’t give anything enough time to grow. I think because we have just been … we have got, I would say a lot of the time those hold Cos have got a really big foot on their neck. So, I think we’ve had lots of really great ideas.
Darren:
What is that foot?
Cate:
I think it’s pressure. I think it’s your shareholders.
Darren:
What’s putting it there? Shareholders.
Cate:
Shareholders, definitely.
Darren:
Demanding quarterly growth.
Cate:
So, I think there’s been lots of great ideas. I just don’t necessarily think we’ve allowed it to dip and grow. So, I think we’ve made lots of changes and I think the outcome of that is that we’ve got a huge amount of indies that are doing very similar stuff to us, but that don’t have the scale.
And I think we are just trying all the big holding companies. I think now we’ve got Scale, and we can do that quite quickly. It’s about how we performance manage ourselves and our clients to think differently about business problems. And I think that’s all I’ve kind of seen in the market.
I don’t know if that’s the answer we’re looking for, but I think it has to be said that we have got less time to proof of concept. But I think what’s come out of that proof of concept is really interesting ways of organizing people around things, that’s what I would say. I think holding companies have got much better of organizing people around a problem.
Darren:
Kirsty is that what having Dentsu creative rather than managing all of those individual brands, creates flexibility? Is that part of the justification?
Kirsty:
I mean, really, if you put the client first, and you go, “Well, we shouldn’t make it complicated for you to work with us.” And if you want access to all of these capabilities, it’s probably a bit complicated to work with us at the moment.
Because you need to talk to all the different … they’re different brands with different P&Ls. So, we’ll send you in lots of different directions. What if we could just make it really easy for you to work with us, that was really why we did that.
I wouldn’t say we invested a lot behind all of those brands. So, it wasn’t as Mark Ritson and suggest that you can kill brands. You can’t always support all of the brands you have. So, I understand WPP’s position on that.
Doesn’t mean those great agencies don’t have a legacy and a history and an impact on our culture moving forward. There’s a lot to learn from some of those brands. But they’ve got a business to run. And I’m sure they will do it all with respect, but they’re going to focus their energies around two brands or one brand or whatever the ultimate decision was.
For us, it was just about making it simple to work with us first and foremost, but also making it simple for us to work together too. So, if we want to solve a problem and put the problem at the heart here, how do we make it easy for us to orchestrate and mobilize the right people or a diverse set of people around a problem without having to jump through hoops or speak different languages?
Not in a cultural way, but different corporate languages amongst the group to get people around a solution and quickly too, because pace is really important these days, I think. And so, why don’t we have 60 different offices in APAC immediately under Dentsu Creative and then take all that infrastructure away.
So, it’s easy for us to work together and easy there for our clients to get the best ideas and solutions out of us. It’s as simple as that for us. It wasn’t simple to deploy and make it happen.
Darren:
Never is.
Kirsty:
But also, the strategy was pretty simple. I think hold Cos, independence, having been in one for 11 years, we have our own cycles. We can work through our own cycles. We’re not working around a shareholder, quarterly RF ones and EPS, we don’t because we can manage our own cycles.
What that breeds though when you’re an in-year cycle is a milking strategy. So, you go, “How do I milk more?” Which is margin. “How do I milk more about the brands that I have and what I have as opposed to thinking about a revitalization strategy?” Which is what the industry needs. And a lot of our brands need is.
how do we with our mature brands or sometimes new brands, refocus what we do around what the customer wants, clients want, what the industry wants, which ideas are our currency, that it’s just the shape of the ideas will probably change.
Is where no one probably has had the time to sit back and go, “I’ve got to stop milking and I’ve got to start revitalizing to change the future of the hold Co. Whereas an indie can do that whenever it chooses to do.
Darren:
They can reinvent relatively quickly.
Kirsty:
You can manage your own margin, decide you’re not going to get a dividend next year because you’re going to reinvest it into — because you’re gearing up for a sale and a beta later on down the line and it’s just different, which is healthy.
And you can keep that mindset in a hold Co because it’s very, very important. But you can also then manage your in-year. But you think in three-year cycles, not in-year cycles. I think that’s the one thing.
If my job was just thinking in-year all the time, I don’t actually think I could do this job well because you have to revitalize and you got to think about now and next constantly. And so, you need to be able to control that too and not just be worried about EPS.
Darren:
I mean, it is quite a challenge because the consolidation, and let’s continue the conversation on WPP. One of the things they’ve openly come out with is we are now the largest creative agency in the world. I’m just wondering where that ever became a benefit. It’s a feature but as a ex copywriter, I’m going, “So what’s the benefit of that?”
Cate:
What else can they say?
Darren:
I know, but it’s like-
Cate:
When you don’t have anything else to … when you’re talking about size, it’s a worry.
Darren:
And what else could they do? They could possibly sing it because, if it was too silly to say it, sing it, they could have a jingle.
Kirsty:
That’s a publicist thing to do at Christmas time, isn’t it?
Cate:
Look, they can own that. If they want to be the owner of that, that’s a clear space for them to own, the biggest agency in the world.
Kirsty:
I could reinterpret that, and I think it might be the copywriting side of it. How do you reframe that? But we talk about intelligence scale, which is why, partly why we acquired Tag, which allows us to do not just 3 assets, 30,000 assets. The capability is insane. 4,100 linguists that can transcreate, my eyeballs. They just bulge at what you can do with that.
But I think that to get impact today, it might be a bit harder than it once was. And so, being the biggest or being able to say that you can deliver scale, which might deliver an immediate benefit to a client if you’re selling something. This is the commercial side of the industry might make sense for some if you’re a global client.
Darren:
A global scale works for global clients.
Kirsty:
Maybe they just want global clients.
Cate:
Maybe they just want them.
Kirsty:
I don’t know. It’s a global agency.
Cate:
But I think it’s one of the things that you don’t have to lever your creativity. You don’t have to leve your people, you just talk about your size. It could be a really safe space for them to be, I don’t know.
Darren:
But then going back to the start of this conversation, I leapt in with, we’d spend a lot of time talking about creativity. It’s interesting where the business decisions actually often get made that feel counter to the very thing that we spend a lot of time talking about, which is delivering the best quality or the most effective creativity.
Kirsty:
I think that’s the difference between a great creative agency and/or even creative business is you put the user benefit at heart and the money will come. And so, craft whatever the form of the craft, is important.
The most important part of what you do is getting that user benefit. What do you want? How do we make it? Think about the solution first and the craft of it. And then if you get that right, then people will pay for it.
But when you go, how much, if you think money first and margin first, and that is at the peril of craft and solutioning properly, then I just realized I’m using a lot of consultant talk there, solutioning ideas. The peril of the idea-
Cate:
I think of the really simple thing for us as well. It’s like thinking about our client base. We would never go out there and say we are big. I think their biggest fear is that they’ll be the forgotten person inside this big organization. I don’t know what the benefit is to them, but I think for us-
Darren:
And absolutely. Two things’ clients will say. One is we want a creative agency, but not one that just does television. And we go, “No one just does television.”
The problem that is still not being addressed is that when we talk about generally creativity, there’s a TV ad or a video that probably never ran on television, but it looks like a TV ad, walks like a TV ad. So, it must be a TV ad first of all. The second one is we don’t want them to be too big because I don’t want to get lost.
Cate:
That’s it, I don’t want to get lost.
Darren:
I just want someone that can solve the problem. Now you must, because you are Chief Client, is that it?
Cate:
Yep. Chief Client Officer.
Darren:
Cate, so you must have these conversations with clients saying what we need is. Is that resonate with you that sort of the problems that they’re facing that agencies should be solving with creativity?
Cate:
Look, clients are really interesting at the moment because I think what I love about it, and this is having been out of the industry-
Darren:
Does paradoxical mean interesting, is that?
Cate:
No, I think that what I get excited about with clients is that more and more of our clients have come from agency world. So, if you look at top 10 CMOs in this country, half of them have come from agencies and they’re filling their ranks in not necessarily the marketing team, but the branding teams have all come from agencies, so-
Darren:
They understand better the capabilities that the agency brings.
Cate:
We also understand that budgets are less, CMOs are in their jobs. I think the tenure at the moment is what, 20 months for most people.
Darren:
It depends on who you listen to.
Cate:
But you go like, that doesn’t give them a lot of runs at the board. So, what they don’t need to do is spend six months with us trying to prove ourselves. So, what I love and why I was attracted to come back into the industry is because I love the fact that it’s becoming, yes, it’s always going to be hard. Yes, we’ll always have the exact same complaints.
But in fact, what’s really exciting about being back in the industry is that there is a sophistication to the way we talk about media and message and the way we talk about modern creativity. That I don’t think they were the same conversations I was having five years ago.
I don’t think five years ago when I was … and this is pre-COVID. So, I appreciate that I’ve come back in a post-COVID life where it didn’t feel as same. The conversations we were having before five years ago was trying to make sense of media message, trying to make sense of all these conversations, trying to make sense of what modern creativity meant for the modern CMO.
More and more of them were leaving the XLT. They were trying to prove themselves. Money was talking more than marketing was. I feel like in the last 12 months, there is a shift in those sort of conversations and creativity in the form of solving business problems has been respected inside of these client teams and we’re starting to see that.
What I like about it is that the budgets no longer mean the solve is immediately, TV. I think our relationships with the media agencies and our clients has never been more important than ever because we cannot rely on other people to set the destiny.
So, I think the triangle of the media, the client and us has ever been more important, which is why I quite celebrate bringing things back closer together. But the problem is always going to be the same. We don’t have much money. We don’t have much time, but please help us figure this out because I need to go and see someone at the board in eight weeks’ time to get approval on that.
The joy of the relationship that sits inside of that and the trust you can build quickly is actually I think, much better than it was when I left five years ago. And I think will only get better. But I think for the clients, the clients are not looking to bomb, but they’re looking to build, but they only have one strike at the dime. So, if we’re going to ask them to spend that, get it right, and I think that’s probably where we’re trying to find that balance.
Darren:
It’s interesting because as you were saying that I was sitting here thinking from a marketer’s perspective, they want to solve problems. And I’ve never met a marketer that has too much budget. In fact, most of them don’t have enough surprisingly.
Cate:
Absolutely. Exactly.
Darren:
And so, we’ve also had 10 years of procurement hacking away at budgets. And I think that’s one of the things that’s driven particularly agencies and some marketers to want to not only solve the problem, but also start justifying the level of investment required to solve it.
It’s really interesting what you’re saying. I’m going to the board. Here’s a conversation that a marketer could have with the board, which is, “We’ve got this a hundred-million-dollar problem, we need to spend $10 million to solve it, but you’ve only given me a million dollars.”
Cate:
And that’s where storytelling’s have played a more important role, which is why sitting outside of the marketing department, inside of the organizations is why Dentsu was so appealing to me, to be quite honest, because we have this delicious toolkit to play with.
Kirsty:
I mean, sure we get campaign, platform idea brand briefs too, we get a lot of product briefs too. So, how do you help me evolve my product? And drive an experience that is going to X, Y, and Z. That’s where you can start to restructure the way you do your commercials, the way that you have a relationship with the client.
Because it’s not transactional, but time and materials based because you’re actually building a product for the client too. I mean, sure we didn’t have that in the place I used to work because we weren’t in soon, we didn’t have the capability that we have here. But we’re having a lot of those conversations where you become really invested business partner of your client.
Darren:
Well, you’re becoming more than just the promotions. You are able to move into advising around product and experience, which is not a thing and help clients with those problems.
Kirsty:
It might always be there, but sometimes we shine a spotlight on things that they can’t see. And that’s actually probably one of the great arts of creativity. You don’t always come up with the idea, you just spot it. And that’s what makes you good at what you do is because you can see what an idea is versus just have it.
Cate:
I mean our business in Sydney and Melbourne are slightly different as well. I think down in Melbourne, our entertainment arm and how we kind of bring together content and PR and how that kind of comes together to solve business problems has been really exciting for us.
And I think we kind of about what it is for earned media to play a role in the marketing mix. I think that’s really interesting for clients as well. I think they’re really some untap and unlock the power of earned media, which has also been a really interesting place for us to go.
Because it allows us to talk about entertainment. They’re the sort of stuff that gets us really excited. Because it’s like you’re living and learning every day and the stuff you get to make for clients, it’s much more interesting. And we’re just talking-
Kirsty:
From an entertainment point of view, sure we’ve got the earn side of things, but we have funds where we can capitalize TV programs. We’ve just made a documentary that isn’t client funded. It’s an entertainment product that we’ll go and monetize as we sell it global. We did that out of here.
It’s interesting where you start to go as perhaps money has moved out of what was building those awesome agencies like George Patsy in Melbourne back in the day where I think that the money has been spread far and few. We’ve probably gone to Salesforce or MarTech, I don’t know where it’s all gone.
But using our creativity to do different things and make money in different ways. That’s part of that revitalization strategy, that’s what we are doing. You might see in a … but you might not see it in a traditional advertising award show.
Darren:
Award show.
Kirsty:
Which is still how we judge each other. Because every time I’m on or with the press, “Where’s the work? Where’s the work?” You mean, where are the ads that are in the award shows? We’ve got heaps of work. Like we’ve just built first and second and third horizon solutions for automotive that will help them navigate, it’s quite interesting.
Darren:
And so, the number of agencies that say to me that we enter award shows because clients want to see awards is absolute rubbish. They’re very happy for their agencies to win awards because it’s great. Celebrate, you’re doing a good job.
But yeah, I say to people the absolute proof that awards currently as practiced by the industry are totally in self-indulgent and bordering on narcissistic is the categories are craft based. If you really wanted to have an award show that clients were interested in, do it by the category of business that the client exists in.
What is the best piece of communication or problem solving for telco? What is the best piece for consumer packaged goods? What’s the best piece for personal care? That’s where they live. We live in the world of the best cinema ad or the best digital ad.
Kirsty:
It’s very interesting.
Darren:
That we need to, I think as an industry to break and where I started in the conversation, I’m sorry if I sort of jumped on you. Was I think we’ve got to stop talking about creativity because it makes people immediately go to the TV ad.
Or whatever the expression is they have in their head. And start talking about how our creativity, sorry, I’m throwing myself in, but collectively how creativity solves problems for businesses in these categories would be much more, if you are writing me a brief. Okay, it would be our audience leaving the business categories they exist in. We need to talk to them in those categories.
Cate:
I only want one award show.
Darren:
What’s that?
Cate:
And it’s just called, I wish I was in the room when they sold that. That’s all I want it to be, because the greatest thing-
Kirsty:
Oh, that’s a wonderful one.
Cate:
The greatest things I ever see anything wonderful in the world, I always go, “I would’ve loved to have been in the room when they sold in.” Like Lee Clow selling in — that is a historical story.
It’s Steve Jobs in the car when he winds around talking about … they’re the things that I go, that’s why I love advertising so much because I see all that great work. And the only thing I think to myself all the time, “How did they convince him to do that?”
Kirsty:
I think that’s an interesting thing, we all sit there and wonder, but clients do want evidence of industry. And so, they do want to see awards but you’re right in terms of which awards matter as evidence of industry. Because they’ll still compare us to our peer group and go, “Well, these guys have got-
Darren:
I disagree, but-
Kirsty:
You are on the side of the bench that I’m not on. But when we get fair and square, show us your evidence of industry, the work, the awards. You go, “Well, we actually probably would have to go back in time. We started, like we won an LIA, we’ve got a few things coming through now, but we are only 18 months old.” So, we just admit, hey, we’re not the most awarded agency in the country yet.
Darren:
So, I saw a hype reel. I hate that term and all the agencies had a great track and bits of their ads cut together and how many awards they’ve won. The one that floored everyone, and I won’t share what agency, was just talking heads of all their clients saying why they couldn’t work with anyone else but that agency.
Kirsty:
Excellent idea, fabulous.
Darren:
And that was so much more powerful than any number of awards. Because awards are seen by clients as it’s nice for the agency, but what’s that got to do with me solving my business? And I think it’s a great way of recruiting talent. If you’re an agency that wins a lot of awards, you’re going to get creative talent here. But I think we need creative talent in every aspect.
Kirsty:
Agreed.
Darren:
And we have it. I have the best account management people are the ones that are creatively driven.
Cate:
100%, I’ve got a topography degree.
Darren:
Exactly.
Cate:
As I say, I’m the best … 100%. I think the funniest thing of all that conversation we were just having about what’s awards, what’s awards, there is a contagious energy that happens once you get-
Kirsty:
Celebration.
Cate:
That’s exactly it, there’s something so important to what we do. We live on kinetic energy and there’s nothing like a sizzle reel of all the things we’ve done in the last 12 months to basically — that’s all we need to do is we just need to keep the energy and momentum is honestly how … we say yet because we can feel the energy inside of our building and the kinetic energy of just a couple of the key guys that we brought in and what we are being able to do and how we are being able to turn up to clients and the story we can tell about why we are here, there’s energy in that.
But then there’s also work, and it’s the combination of the two that gets us excited to get up at six o’clock in the morning and talk about advertising and clients and solving business problems until 10 o’clock at night.
And laugh to the point where we’re almost wet our pants, even though it’s horrific what we’re talking about. But it is such a joy because it’s going to take us a while, but all the points are in place, but the kinetic energy and the momentum is you only wish for this, and the clients are starting to feel it.
Kirsty:
The great test is when you don’t have the momentum though. Like we all get-
Darren:
How do you get it moving? To use Cate’s Titanic, when the ship’s stuck in the middle of the ocean, how do you get it started?
Kirsty:
So, when you’re going through a transformation, it’s hard to maintain culture and keep people excited when you don’t have that momentum because you’re not ready for it yet, quite simply is a challenge. That was probably a year.
And gosh, we learned from that, I learned from it because it was quite a big transformation, but the people that stuck around, have got the resilience. They’ve been through a great change. They’re open to change, which is really critical for creativity, I think. And you’d be proud of this because you’ve — from there with like 100% strike rate for the past 10 pitches.
Darren:
Fantastic.
Kirsty:
It’s good.
Darren:
That’s your momentum.
Kirsty:
But now I feel like I can celebrate that because we worked so hard for it, but you got to work hard to keep it too. So, we get up at six o’clock going, “Hey, what’s today bringing?” But we worked hard for that. Went through the pain to get to that point; let’s hope it doesn’t fall over, which it often can.
Darren:
We’ve run out of time. I know. And I feel like we’re just getting started. Kirsty Muddle, thank you very much.
Kirsty:
Thank you, Darren Woolley.
Darren:
And CSR, I’ll call you CSR.
Cate:
You deserve to.
Darren:
Thank you. It’s been a great conversation. What I do have, and you asked about being in the room. I have a great story about the selling of the Antz Pantz “Sick ’em Rex’ ad, but we’ll keep that for another day, shall we?
