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by Johanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) NEW YORK CITY: A slight respite for the consultants on Day 3 of the 2015 AdForum Worldwide Summit (two hours of freedom in the afternoon) gave us time to have a break, catch up on emails or have other meetings.

All of the consultants here have been busy with work in their respective countries; there seem to be less pitches and more relationship/collaboration/training work being done by our community. The IAS has seen the same trend and commented on it in South Africa; I also think that the economy’s unpredictable nature and recovery are playing a role in this.

 

But there is no shortage of agency choices — and the good news is that the network agencies are embracing change as much as the newer startups. There is no question that the main visuals we are seeing in terms of organograms consist of the overlap between tech and creative, and this is where the agencies intend to focus.

Mullen Lowe Group

First up on Wednesday was the Mullen Lowe Group, with CEO Alex Leikikh explaining why he pursued the merger of his agency, Mullen, with long-term industry stalwart, Lowe. Mullen on its own enjoyed 76% growth in the past six years — something of a record — and it needed to expand globally. The resultant agency network, which has offices in 90 countries and 6 400+ employees, is active in 65 markets. We met the top team and learned about the concept of the great “rebundling”, which will see ATL, digital (Profero), media and activation all in one place, enabling the agency to help clients maximise the brand, rather than the channel. The agency revealed a great deal more about its plans but did ask us to keep things under wraps while the internal communications for the agency group is under way. We felt very privileged to be in on the news upfront.

Mirum

Next was Mirum, the global tech group of agencies within the JWT group. Mirum is the amalgamation of 11 different digital agencies started up by their founders and sold into JWT. Our own Quirk is one of these agencies, which will gradually be rebranded Mirum as part of the new process [however, Quirk’s head of marketing, Greg Schneider, denied that Quirk will be rebranded when queried by MarkLives — ed-at-large].

Mirum talked about business transformation, marketing innovation and commerce ie building relationships. Along with many of the digital groups, Mirum is enabling connectivity within the traditional agency set up and also sees itself as competing with just about everyone ie agencies, platforms, tech companies etc. It is a complex world for marketers — making our role as intermediaries even more important in terms of navigation.

 

Walton Isaacson

The third agency was Walton Isaacson, a local North America agency, whose one owner is the famed Magic Johnson. — It has offices in various parts of the country and an interesting proposition for brands that want to reach ethnic minorities with diverse backgrounds.

KBS+

The final agency of the day was KBS+, part of the MDC Group and apparently expanding globally. We met with them for presentations and dinner, and I will report on them tomorrow.


Best
Johanna
@jomcdowell @agencyselection
#adforumsummit

 

Johanna McDowellJohanna McDowell (@jomcdowell) is managing director of the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS), which stands at the forefront of the complex world of agency selection in South Africa, and she is one of the few experts driving this mediation and advisory service in SA and globally. Twice a year she attends AdForum Worldwide Summits as an international consultant, which helps her lead the SA advertising industry forward to keep in line with international trends and remain competitive.

 

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