Mark Green is the ANZ President of Accenture Song, Group CEO & Co-Founder of The Monkeys, and Chairman of the of the Advertising Council of Australia. He joins Nathan Hodges and Darren Woolley to follow up on a discussion about the various trends we have observed in agency rosters.
One of the examples discussed was the recent appointment of The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, to the NRMA account to manage their advertising and transform their CX.
While not sharing any confidential client insights, he shared significant personal insights into marketers’ changing needs and their impact on the agency world.
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I think it’s always great to have those independently oriented businesses that try and change the game and have a point of difference.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I am 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.
If you’re enjoying the Managing Marketing Podcast, please either like, review, or share this episode to spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
A month ago, I had a conversation here on the Managing Marketing Podcast with my colleague Nathan Hodges, managing director of TrinityP3 ANZ. Welcome, Nathan.
Nathan:
Hey, Darren. Back again.
Darren:
And we discussed the various trends he’d observed in agency rosters. One of the examples we discussed was the recent appointment of The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, to the NRMA account to do more than manage their advertising, but to transform their CX as well.
While our guest today will not share any confidential client insights, he is extremely well placed to discuss the changing face of the agency world.
Please welcome to the Managing Marketing Podcast, the ANZ president of Accenture Song, Group CEO, and co-founder of The Monkeys, and chair of the Advertising Council of Australia, Mark Green. Welcome, Mark.
Mark:
Thank you, Darren. Thank you, Nathan. Good to see you both.
Darren:
And good to see you. And thanks for making time, Mark.
Mark:
Always a pleasure.
Darren:
Look, we live in interesting times. I know that was often quoted as a bit of a curse, but it is interesting times, isn’t it? Because we’re seeing real shifts from the old way people thought about agencies in quite so approaches to a much more laterally integrated, collaborative world, aren’t we?
Mark:
I think so. More and more, we are being asked to solve problems around customer growth rather than be hired to do advertising, or commerce, or siloed activity.
And I think that is probably due to the complexity marketers and chief customer officers are facing around getting organized around their customers, and also, probably around their own internal silos within the organization that they work from.
Darren:
Yeah, I remember it wasn’t that long ago when marketers started talking about touchpoints. That long ago, 10, 15 years ago. And agencies would always think of it as advertising channels.
We never even got into the customer experience beyond that. But now, that’s within the digital world, almost all those touch points have some sort of technology interface into them, even point of sale.
Mark:
And I think that’s been the biggest change and why agencies and consulting businesses are changing how they’re organized. Because everything, the money that clients are spending is very much going into technology and digital and customer experience.
Darren:
Yeah, absolutely. So, we’ve seen traditional agencies take a different approach to meeting this demand of an end-to-end solution.
I mean, in the case of Accenture Song, which was Accenture Interactive for a long time and very tech driven, and The Monkeys, which let’s be honest, was fairly comms, advertising type focus, bringing those together has been one approach.
We’re seeing Dentsu, who have just announced a big change, breaking down their silos. Publicis are talking about Publicis One and having everyone.
What was it that you think is driving this from your point of view? And one of the reasons for being part of that Accenture Song solution?
Mark:
I can speak on my own behalf, probably less so on theirs, but I think from where we sit, Accenture Interactive, the evolution has gone from offering services to offering a holistic solution to clients. And that’s taking the best of both worlds from consulting and agency and bringing them together.
So, I think on the agency side, the strengths of the best businesses in that world are strategic thinking around brand and customer and then creativity and setting a North star and an idea and a platform for a business that can then influence their organization.
And on the consulting side, I feel like they spent more time thinking about technology that underpins customer experience, that drives, I guess, that kind of creation of digital products and digital experiences.
And if you combine those two things, you’ve got a really interesting solution that brings strategic thinking, creativity, digital experience, and technology together. And that’s what we are trying to do at Accenture Song.
So, we talk about unifying brand and experience to fuel growth for our clients, and we do that through marketing, commerce, sales service, and digital products underpinned by data and technology as the foundational elements to it.
So, I think it’s different to the holding company model, which is trying to bring together marketing services. I think most of the holding companies aren’t as advanced in terms of technology and digital experience in that kind of transformation side.
So, I think we are different in that respect, and I think that’s where clients like NRMA are seeing an opportunity to work with us and bring something different, so that particular remit does expand, comes across all those areas.
Darren:
Yeah. And because you are really the only solution in the marketplace that has bought traditional creative marketing, advertising, and consulting together …
One of the things that stood out from the press release from Dentsu in the past few weeks was we’re embracing a consulting model. And yet underpinning that is still quite strong advertising type or agency types marketing solutions.
Now, the reason I’ve raised that is there is quite often a conflict in culture between consulting and marketing. It’d be interesting to hear from you, how has that been overcome with Accenture Song and merging those two together.
Mark:
I think that’s about people. And I think it’s been a challenge in so far as you’re trying to focus on the good bits and not let the clunky bits get in the way.
And we’ve experienced both, like it’s not been a walk in the park. But we are seven years into that and what we’ve seen is unprecedented growth over that time. And frankly, far more interesting work resulting from the combination.
And so, we’re quite some way into the journey and I think we’ve managed to do it well because we’ve focused on solving problems and then trying to kind of change the model to allow for the best of both worlds to flourish. And it’s not been easy, but like nothing great ever is.
Nathan:
So, Mark, this always really interests me. So, just drilling down here on that change and the skill sets that you’re bringing to bear on these emerging businesses that you’re working on … cast your mind back, say 10 or 15 years when Monkeys was more an agency and in the agency bracket versus where you are now, with Accenture Song.
Are you able to characterize kind of how the teams have changed, how the culture and the skill sets of those teams have changed? And how you draft up a resource plan now versus a resource plan then? What kind of people are you looking for? What can you tell us?
Mark:
Yeah, look, it is different. And the differences are what makes it really interesting. And I’ve really enjoyed learning from the areas where I haven’t spent as much time as in the past.
So, like in our digital products team, you’re talking about designers who are looking at growth and finding ways to grow businesses, and also, designing digital products to be relevant today to different audiences.
In our commerce team, you’ve got like engineers and solution architects that are very technology oriented. And then in our service transformation team, like you’ve kind of contact center and AI enabled service solutions. You’ve got very different people again, in that sort of consulting space.
We’ve also brought together the likes of Fiftyfive5 and The Lumery in recent times. And researchers and strategists around segmentation, marketing technology, and customer journeys and customer experience. So, it’s quite a collection of different talent.
So, like if you think about a client solution, you are drawing upon vastly different skills across the board. Now, I think everybody has to be open-minded to actually get the best out of each other in that respect, because you can quite often get into siloed thinking.
And again, so we’ve got those sort of T-shaped people that kind of see the wider version, and then the I-shape people that are experts in their domain, like that continues and people are naturally gravitating to either of those two places.
And it’s really interesting because you just see people that are like, “This is what I do. I want to keep doing this.” And there are others that are just going, “Okay, I want to be the architect of a much bigger opportunity for our clients.”
And people are naturally gravitating to what they’re comfortable with. And like I don’t think you can enforce either way, because we’re still doing a lot of the individual kind of narrow items requested by clients as well as the broader transformation asks.
So, look, it’s just holding lightly onto some of those things and just being open-minded. But yeah, like a resource plan would today looks very different if you’re going across what Accenture Song can do for a client, it’s much different and far more significant in terms of what its impact can have for a client.
So, I think the next evolution of our model is where measurement is really, really detailed and that sort of holy grail around value-based deals and things like that, that everybody’s been talking about forever, I think we’ll start to see a bit more of that as well.
Darren:
Actually, come to fruition in a real sustainable way.
Mark, there was a great session at last year’s South by Southwest with Dave Droga. And one of the things that stood out was he was talking about the need, particularly for creative people (and I think it’s because he knew he had a room of largely creative, passionate people) to embrace technology and to be as curious about technology as they are about everything else in life.
Is that part of the sort of cultural drive that happened through the business?
Mark:
I think so. I mean, Nick Law talks about it as well. They’ve both got a very firm view on it that the world needs creative people in this where technology changes is concerned because they can find ways to delight everybody and inspire people and take them to places they never imagined.
And I think that’s really true because that’s the more optimistic view of where technology’s taking us.
And I feel like a business like Song is very much on that bandwagon. Like we have to try, and our differentiator is our creativity. Like we can’t just do these things. We actually have to do it in a really inspiring and different way.
And I think that’s where we’ve got alignment from global to ANZ and maybe shorthanded by the fact that we’ve known each other for a long time.
I think ANZ can be like the lighthouse for Accenture Song globally because we have a kind of full throttle model here, like we put all the pieces together. I think we have very high standards around creativity, and we’re starting to see the fruits of that.
So, I’ve found that the evolution like a challenge. I think everybody was expecting or hoping or some combination of the two that it wasn’t going to be as good as what it has been.
But I think we’ve managed to actually bring it together in a way that like I feel inspired by. Like I think it’s a kind of the best of what creativity can bring to business in a combination of an agency and consulting model.
Darren:
There was definitely a belief that the size of Accenture because people often don’t differentiate between what used to be Accenture Interactive and is now, Accenture Song, and Accenture the whole business.
The listed company is actually could buy and sell most of the other holding companies. Just its capital value, it’s market cap is enough to probably buy three of the five main holding companies. That’s how big it is. Right?
Mark:
Yeah.
Darren:
So, the idea of them buying The Monkeys, this tiny little agency, and even Droga5, which relatively speaking were tiny little businesses in the US and Australia, just felt like the sheer weight was going to crush it.
It’s absolutely an example of almost the reverse takeover. When a big company takes over a smaller company, but the culture of the small company actually survives and permeates through the bigger part of it. Part of that, I’d have to say would be Dave Droga, wouldn’t it?
Mark:
A hundred percent. I think a very strong character, very resilient, very tenacious. The qualities that you don’t always think about when you think about creative leaders but he has all of those things.
And I think that’s what you need to really stand up and make a difference, as you say, within a very large organization. And I was just there a couple of weeks ago and he seems to be doing fine in his 360-view office in Manhattan West.
Darren:
Well, clearly with these recent property purchases, he likes a broad view of the world.
Mark:
Yeah, that’s it.
Darren:
Let’s move on. The reason I raise that is because what we are seeing in some of the other holding companies is that they’re buying smaller consulting businesses.
And I’m just wondering if the danger is when you buy a small consulting business and put it inside a big marketing company, are they going to be able to overcome that natural weight of culture on those consulting firms?
It seems like the reverse problem, but clearly one that can be a challenge. I’m asking you to speculate because you obviously-
Mark:
Yeah, that’s right, it’s speculation. And it just depends again, on the business and the individuals as part of the business.
Like I think I’ve done two acquisitions so far, and the ones that I’ve done had scale in their domain and they fit our strategy wholly. As in they became the part of the strategy that I was looking for or took over the teams within our business.
So, like for me, well, like I’m looking for, I guess some scale when we are doing an acquisition, and I’m also looking for that strategic fit.
And then the other part of it, you’re looking for leaders that kind of culturally represent what you’re after. And I think all of those things are hard to find and get right.
There are many independent businesses out there with various different skills, but how they will go within a wider organization is really tricky to navigate.
And you’ve been around forever, Woolley and Nathan, so you’ve both seen some that have been successful and those that have failed as well.
So, I think a broad-brush statement on that would probably be ill advised, because it really does depend on the circumstances and the people involved.
Darren:
Yeah. I think it’s the same challenge. It would’ve been easy for the Accenture culture to crush Monkeys and Droga5 at the loss of the very reason that you are being acquired by them.
Likewise, I see the same challenge if you’ve got a large marketing organization such as Publicis. That has a long history in advertising and marketing, then acquiring consulting companies. I’m just wondering how you integrate that culture into that environment.
And likewise, what we’re going to supposedly and hopefully see with Dentsu is how do you totally transform a culture of marketing into a consulting model? because they are very different.
For years I’ve heard agencies say, “Yeah, we’ve got to be more like consultants. They’re cutting our lunch.” Remember when they used to always … well, I think you said it for a while until they came along and bought you, but-
Mark:
Oh, look, I think yeah, that’s right. A hundred percent. But it’s also, dependent on the skill of the people involved. I mean, often overlooked and underestimated.
But I think where we’ve been able to make this work is that we saw the strategic opportunity and we’ve managed to tell a story around why this is important for clients.
And yes, look, I think we’ve also ended up running Accenture Song in both examples of Droga5, and The Monkeys, and us as individuals.
So, we’ve also, been able to set that agenda at the highest level and make sure that the good bits of what we are bringing and what the consulting model brings are kept, and we shave off some of the less desirable bits. And that’s on both sides. They exist, right?
Darren:
Yeah.
Nathan:
Yeah. So, I mean, our industry loves a template and they love an example, and they love to say that something’s dead and this is the future. And it’s really tiresome.
What I’ve always liked is you’ve never really done that. You’ve just said, “Look, we are doing what we’re doing.”
I mean, if you were to just think about it with us for a sec, I mean, is what you’ve done with Accenture Song and the cultural fit and the skillset fit and the way things have happened, is it like a unicorn? Is it one-off? Is it replicable? Is it a trend?
Or is there still plenty of space as far as you can see for all sorts of agency models as things develop?
Mark:
I don’t think it’s a one-off. I think it’s where the future is going. I think what makes what we have unique is its scale. I mean, we are quite a large army now, of talented people and smart people, and get that all pointing in the right direction. And that’s a weapon for any organization.
Now, like the subscale version of that is hard to do because it’s like I think the beauty of what we’ve got is that we can execute. We’re not leaving it on a PowerPoint presentation. We’re actually able to do marketing, commerce, sales, service, digital products.
Like in terms of customer transformation, we can actually deliver it for a client. Now, we don’t have to do it all, but we’ve got the capacity to do it.
And I don’t think you can say that about many of our competitors because it’s quite at on one hand, industrialized. Like in terms of digital and technology delivery, we have 700,000 employees around the world in that space.
Nathan:
Yeah. And with some of your competitors, you do tend to notice when these things are discussed, a little bit of smoke entering the room and some mirrors that you can spot in the background. It’s never quite as credible as the machine that you can bring to bear, that’s for sure.
Mark:
And I think that has been a great realization from walking into this environment is what it actually takes to make sure that when you create a website for every driver in the country to put in their number plate, that it doesn’t fall over.
That it uses the right information, accesses the database in the right way. You can’t just put up the framework, you’ve got to be able to deliver it.
Darren:
Yeah. Mark, one of the things that I have noticed is the success, you’ve also had, both you and David, in maintaining the creative brands, The Monkeys and Droga5. Yet always says part of Accenture Song, just to remind everyone.
But those creative brands continue to have quite a lot of success in the industry with winning the awards and recognition for what would have to be seen as core advertising capabilities. You are winning the advertising awards.
Mark:
Yeah. Look, a bit of both though. I think the titanium success last year with Tuvalu, that was an Accenture Song, Monkeys collaboration, like every bit of Accenture was involved in that.
Started with one of the sustainability studio leaders at Accenture, said they’re looking at trying to preserve the records and national identity of Tuvalu, it’s been approached by the government to do that.
And we then together collaborated on turning that into a digital twin, trying to work out what records and how you would preserve a country in the metaverse and what you would have to create in terms to do that.
And then to promote that at COP, we decided to create an event that dramatized the plight of Tuvalu to put it on the world stage.
So, all of those things are like were deeply integrated, significantly done. Like it’s not just a kind of a digital experience at the end of it. It’s like a full move from the world to a digital world of a nation.
So, that’s a pretty great example of creativity being harnessed in an interesting way. Like we’re still doing the ads, though. Like-
Darren:
I was going to say, that’s a great example. But come on, meat and livestock every year, you do an amazing job for Lamb. You’ve done amazing for-
Mark:
And we continue to do so.
Darren:
And you’ve done that campaign for Sydney Opera House and … sorry, Nathan.
Nathan:
Yeah. Sydney Opera House, I was going to say. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Darren:
Yeah. And the other one … what’s the other one? Oh, and the parting work for Telstra. Some of the best work, the Christmas and then the football. Creatively, The Monkeys just keeps delivering.
People often say to me, “Who do you think is doing the great work?” And I, on the record is saying, “The Monkeys are the new Clemenger Melbourne, when Clemenger Melbourne was the hot agency.”
Remember when we were just starting out in advertising, Clemenger Melbourne was the creative place to work, wasn’t it?
Mark:
I used to work there. Yeah, I think I remember seeing you on St. Kilda Road back in the day.
Look, yeah, and probably to Nathan’s earlier point, like everybody’s talking about new this, old that, et cetera. Like we’ve never really done that. Like creativity comes and lives in many different places. Sometimes it’s an ad. And when it’s a great ad, it’s fantastic.
So, I think part of our model is not we don’t do an e-commerce website for a client or a ad campaign for a client. It’s just the end of also, trying to look at that total customer transformation story, which is a combination of all of those things at once.
Darren:
Because we-
Mark:
Yeah, I think that’s the important part of this. And people sometimes just forget what business they’re in. And advertising is still a weapon for clients and for marketers.
Darren:
Yeah. And there is, as you said earlier, clients still want sometimes the thing that is just advertising, but the thing that’s grabbing our attention is where we started the conversation, this sort of horizontal integration, this end-to-end solution for customer experience.
Of which advertising can be the top of the funnel or it could be communications all the way down to the conversion, the sale point. But there’s a lot more disciplines required across that. And it’s interesting to see how the big agencies are trying to grab that.
Mark:
Yeah. And I think it’s also, taking a step back and what is the strategy, what is the idea for that brand? And it can live in marketing, but it can also live in all these other places.
And some of those kind of one-off ideas at the back of the PowerPoint presentation we can now, make in all their glory. So, it’s trying to do all of those things in the best way possible.
So, yeah, look, I actually think it’s been really liberating for The Monkeys to be part of this, because I think there’s just a greater local and global view of the world that we have.
I think we are collaborating as a global firm. People are working on global briefs and seeing that opportunity as well.
And finally, like if people want to leave Accenture Song or The Monkeys locally, they can also, easily travel to any part of the world and find good opportunities. So, rather than sending our people to Droga5 in New York not by choice, we can actually send them there now by choice. So, we win.
Darren:
Yeah. So, on that, I was really excited to see that you’d taken Tara Ford’s remit and expanded that into Asia, which I thought was obviously a way of carrying the culture of creativity (because Tara’s an amazing creative person and talent) and taking that into other markets.
Is that pretty much the strategy behind that? Or did Tara just want a holiday in Asia and get paid for it?
Mark:
No, no, no. Look, Tara’s had a great impact here in the time she’s been here, just over three years. And look, I think you’re trying to give talented people more challenges all the time.
And we are part of growth markets, which is LATAM, Asia, ANZ, and I think everyone’s sort of seeing what we are doing here in ANZ as a good blueprint. So, we’re trying to roll it out in all through our growth markets.
And Neil Heymann, who’s the global chief creative officer (who happens also, to be from Australia) he’s trying to do that from a global standpoint.
So, yeah, it’s great for Tara and great for us that she can start to influence the region and also, find opportunities for the team here and the teams there to kind of combine as well. Which we did just recently in our tourism Australia pitch.
Darren:
Absolutely. Well, we won’t go into that in any more detail.
One of the things, and I’d like you to put one of your three hats on, which is your chair of the ACA. And that is the rise of the independent agency. Because when the Three Drunk Monkeys opened their door, they were a small independent agency that grew.
How are you feeling about the sort of rise of the independence, particularly around media, but also, creative? And also, do you have any advice for them?
Mark:
Look, I mean, I still think of myself in some ways as having that sort of startup mindset and haven’t quite arrived at the dance.
But look, I think it’s always great to have those independently oriented businesses that try and change the game and have a point of difference.
It comes in waves. Like I think when we started there were happy soldiers. There were Southport, The Monkeys. BMF was still independent, Host was still independent. Droga5 came on the scene for a while there.
And you kind of had this moment where there was some serious competitors. And today, I think we’re having another moment where there are some people that have been in good agencies, have walked out to start their own, and they know what they’re doing.
Like I mean, you came to our first office. I was in charge of new business and a group account director at Saatchi & Saatchi. We were quite young when we did ours. So, I think we’ve learned through 18 years of experience.
And look, I think the learnings that we’ve had, I’ve shared often, but like I think having that sort of NorthStar, really understanding what you stand for, the sooner you can get to that place, the better. Provocative thinking gave us that kind of this is why we get up out of bed every day.
Getting busy and getting work on big clients, and showing what it is that you think is you at your best, that’s really important to kind of prove out your model.
And to some, in some degrees, that’s how I’ve spent my entire career thinking that the next 10 pieces of work have to be better than the last 10, or as emblematic of where we want to take this business, as you’re not looking backwards at the best work you’ve done, but you’re looking forward to what you can deliver in the future.
So, I think all of those things are really important. And you’ve got to work hard to be successful in this game. It’s a service business. So, there are just basic facts around resilience, tenacity, and just match fitness. Like you can’t fake it, you’ve got to be all in.
And I think they’re the ones that are successful. And I think the ones that are great are the ones where you’ve got really talented people and resilient, tenacious, can’t be knocked over individuals around the table.
Darren:
Yeah. And look, because I’ve seen including the Drunk Monkeys, they were, I’ve seen a number of agency startups and I always have a very strong feeling of who’s going to succeed by how clear their understanding of what business they’re in and what they have to offer.
It’s amazing how many people come out of big network agencies and start a business. And you say to them, “Why you exist? Why you?” And they go, “Well, because I’ll be working on your business.” Sorry, that doesn’t work.
Mark:
No, no, no. Yeah.
Darren:
You can never scale. I can’t imagine you being able to work on every part of The Monkeys business now. You have to have good people.
Mark:
Yeah, that’s right. And I think that’s been the most enjoyable part of it, is being able to find opportunities for really talented people. We’ve had so many that have been on the journey for a long time that continue to kind of evolve.
And you get that sort of proud feeling of just seeing success come from within. So, yeah, 18 years, it’s not an overnight success story. Is it?
Darren:
No, it’s not an overnight success.
Look, I just want to finish up with one last observation. And that is that even though we’re seeing this this horizontal integration requirement from clients, a lot of our clients don’t have that same integration.
Paid, owned, earned, and shared in many large organizations can exist in very different parts of the business with not necessarily even chief customer officer having a remit over all of them. And you’ll have social media over here with corporate comms and the call center will be with sales.
And is one of the things that you find being able to offer that full integration that you can overcome that dislocation within the client’s organization? Or is that just another challenge?
Mark:
Oh, it’s a challenge, absolutely. And I think increasingly, customer growth is a CEO challenge, and it has to be tackled there. And that’s what I think is interesting about our offer, is that it is a CEO conversation.
Because I think it does span the chief customer officer, the CMO, the chief digital officer, the CIO, all involved in various aspects of influencing the customer and that story.
So, yeah, that is as great a challenge as it is on bringing teams of varying different talents together. So, it’s on both client innate and our business side to solve for that.
And yeah, look, we’ve seen some great examples where we’ve been able to do that and others where we’ve struggled, to be frank. So, I think our that’s our mission to try and get higher up the food chain to have customer growth as a CEO conversation.
Darren:
Yeah. I think, well, you’re right. That’s ultimately where the buck stops.
Mark:
Yeah. And look, I think that’s got to be CEOs have to be interested in that if they are serious about transformation today.
Darren:
It also, requires something you mentioned earlier, which is robust measurement, so that you can actually show where each part is contributing to that growth so that investment levels can actually be proportioned to the right areas at the right time to deliver that.
Mark:
Yeah. And the other side of it is around showing the value in, perhaps some of the cost out as well. Like it’s how you can actually invest in the transformational bits but take out some of the less meaningful tasks.
And I think that’s the other side of this, which is quite interesting at the moment, especially in the current business environment.
Darren:
Yeah. Mark, I’ve noticed we’ve run out of time. I’m sure you’ve got another meeting scheduled right away. Nathan, did you have any questions to ask before we went?
Nathan:
I’m all good. Thanks for your time, Mark. Really interesting conversation.
Mark:
Yeah, good to catch up and no doubt we’ll talk again.
Darren:
Well, I’ve got a final question for you. I saw something in the media about David Drogas new plans for his property. Has he asked you or asked any advice on those plans as yet?