Features
The American dream: Why it can turn into an Aussie’s nightmare
Henry Tajer rallied an entourage of Aussies around him in the Big Apple, charged with dragging IPG Mediabrands into the future. But something happened along the way and Tajer and one of his key lieutenants are gone. Simon Canning tries to unravel what went wrong and what lessons might be learned.
Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today, I want to be a part of it, New York, New York. Frank Sinatra sang the song and for the past few years Aussies have been humming it as they made their way across the Pacific. But recently success in the antipodes has not been translating to Madison Avenue as easily as their US sponsors might have liked and the industry has seen a retreat of form in recent months as the Big Apple reveals its core.
Brash, ambitious, entrepreneurial and in demand, there was something attractive in the Australian media success story that saw some of our top talents led by IPG’s Henry Tajer lured stateside with brief to shake things up.
Tajer: Lured to New York for his entrepreneurial style
But, faced by entrenched, fearful and slow-moving US counterparts who were wedded to a status-quo economy, the vision has for many unraveled.
The sudden departure of Tajer from the head role at IPG Mediabrands in New York two months ago has been followed by the exodus of one of his hand-picked lieutenants, the widely respected former head of Starcom in Australia, John Sintras.
Mat Baxter: elevated to a global CEO of Initiative
Other hires remain in Mat Baxter, as well as Travis Johnson and Charles Godbold, but a dark cloud hovers over the remaining imports as the impact of Tajer’s removal continues to resonate.
As Mediabrands continues its pivot away from Tajer’s model – a model that was meant to be the future of the business in the US and globally – it is still unclear how far the fallout will spread.
But what really went wrong, and is there a wider lesson on what Australians need to do to succeed in the US?
Sintras, Johnson, Tajer, Baxter & Lomas prepare to take Manhattan | Artwork: Elke Aspillera
Tajer and what came to be dubbed the ‘Australian entourage’ may be victims of nothing more than the fast-paced nature of the changing market.
By the time Tajer had a chance to implement his vision, the powers that be had decided the business model had changed.
But personalities and culture are also being blamed for the decision by Mediabrands to dismantle what had been created by Tajer.
Where Australians celebrate brash and outspoken managers, the US system rewards caution and pragmatism.
“What Henry created in Australia was enormously successful,” one observer says.
“It’s not Australians. It’s the Americans and their very different and regimented way of doing things. Language, tone, they all have a different impact in Australia compared to the US. Personalities lead the culture. It was really a change of direction.”
Sintras: “transitioning” from IPG in a move made shortly after Tajer’s departure was announced
A year into his role in the US after being hand-picked by Tajer to join him, now Initiative global CEO Mat Baxter told Mumbrella in 2016 he believed the Australian approach to the business could be exported, but there was a caveat.
“If you do something here [in the US] you want to be pretty sure it’s going to work,” he said at the time. “Whereas in Australia you can try something and if it didn’t work, it’s like ‘Okay that didn’t work’, and then move on.”
“The ultimate marker of this is do we deliver on the five-year plan that Henry has sold in to IPG?,” Baxter questioned at the time.
“In four years’ time, we have to look back on those objectives and say ‘Did we hit those objectives?’
“You can’t just lift the Australian blueprint and drop it into the States, or any other market,” he said. “There are different dynamics but the essence of the approach, the broad philosophy, is applicable globally.”
Speaking at Advertising Week in New York last year Tajer said he believed he had hired the right people to fulfil his plan and that Australians were often gifted with broader experience because of the size of the market.
“I think the Australian people that we have hired and brought into New York are all exceptional individuals,” he said at the time.
“Australian talent in media scene really stands out because of size of the market. Most have a good all-round understanding.
“We have got people at Mediabrands [in the US] for 30 years and they have been regional television buyers for the south-eastern region and that’s all they have done. That would be the equivalent to being a southern NSW regional television buyer for all of your career which would be a good way to help you to commit suicide.”
Tajer also reflected on the importance of connections in fostering careers – what may have been a prescient comment – with some observers in the US suggesting the “old boys network” on Mediabrands had turned on him.
“In the US where you’ve been to school, which college you’ve attended and what degree you studied determines whether you actually get an interview in a lot of the holding companies,” he said.
“In the US in particular one of the things that I have noticed is unless you have got a really reputable college degree or are from a really reputable college it’s not that easy to just get in unless you are connected to someone.”
He also admitted that his brash style rubbed agency veterans the wrong way.
“I know in my first couple of months people were a bit shocked at how open and how direct I was and what we should do and what we shouldn’t do any more and for some people that was really confronting.”
Asked if he had tempered his style, Tajer said: “To a certain extent yes. I think at the same time others within the company have also adjusted their own approach to receiving feedback and a perspective, but as well as expressing themselves.
Tajer: “In the US where you’ve been to school, which college you’ve attended and what degree you studied determines whether you actually get an interview in a lot of the holding companies”
“It’s incumbent on the leadership of any company to set the tone and the environment. We did a lot around introducing the ‘F’ word into the organisation and the ‘F’ word is not what most people are thinking, but ‘feedback’, because that was something I found hugely lacking in the way we were operating and that’s made it easier for people to know where they stand and feel confident about expressing their point of view.”
But tempering his style seems not to have been enough in a conservative market where many leaders were on big salaries and used to operating in a safe zone where change could only ever be incremental.
“It’s not a risk-taking society,” one insider tells Mumbrella about the culture many Aussies face.
“They are a very conservative society. They are slow moving and everyone at the top levels are paid a lot of money so they are very conservative with what they do. Even marketers and the general industry, if you gave somebody the choice of a possible 30% improvement or alternatively a 1% guarantee, they will take the 1% guarantee.
“There is too much to lose in career and salary and bonuses, long-term incentives and that sort of stuff.”
The litigious nature of the US is another limiting factor, with American executives wary of the blame culture that sees risk taking and entrepreneurism limited for fear that failure will lead to lawsuits.
“They are worried about who will you piss off? Who will sue?,” an insider says.
“There is no desire to move out of comfort zones.”
However, the story is not the same for all Australians. The story of David Droga launching Droga5 in New York has become legendary. Other creatives such as Matt Eastwood worldwide chief creative officer of JWT, Sarah Barclay JWT’s executive creative director in New York, and R/GA’s Nick Law have forged successful careers in the US.
For these Aussies the American Dream is real. But for the Aussie dreamers at IPG Mediabrands, the dream has been washed away in the stark light of day. A combination of culture clash, politics and the fear of change. Tajer and Sintras have fallen silent. The dream remains that.
They’ve done alright!!
https://mumbrella.com.au/cummins-partners-new-york-picks-three-new-accounts-432601
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So, Americans are regimented, cautious, averse to risk-taking, bound by the old school tie, conservative, and litigious. That sounds like the kind of thing Americans say about the Brits, or indeed about us.
Could it be that there is more to this story?
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This article probably explains the departures a little clearer. Just arbitrage. Not really a strategy that had longevity or any smarts behind it. I guess it was easier to hide that behaviour in Australia.
https://adexchanger.com/agencies/behind-ceo-henry-tajers-exit-ipg-mediabrands/
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Dude. I was waiting that someone says the glaringly obvious.
Thank you
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Your name is misleading.
But your claim is on the ball.
Anyone in Australia who knows Tajer well knows how he works. He was a trader in Mediacom.
It worked in Australia. Didn’t work in US.
May be we in local industry need to introspect. And find more scalable models to bring Aussie class to global leadership. As some other Australian leaders are doing already.
Poor John. Good John. Collateral damage.
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I think you nailed it on the head.
Practises like this made me get out of the media industry. Everyone harps on about how the poor clients are affected but we need to look at a macro level at what these actions have done to the whole industry – publishers, media sales, careers etc.
I hope we are witnessing a new breed of CEO coming in that can deliver for their clients, the holding companies and the market as a whole.
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If the adexchanger article has any merit, then there is too much to ‘clean up’ for IPG. It’s not easy for the holding company to hire someone at the global or regional level and then change their mind. The article seems to point towards that angle.
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Kind appears all rather simple really. Australia is a very different market in respect to the US. I wouldn’t say that here it’s a far more risky way of doing business in terms of go for it, fail fast and move on. That;s where people like to categorize the way that business is done.
Reality is that many Australian media businesses lack critical thinkers, not within their businesses but with in leadership roles. Most of what they do has no substantiation. Think about press around publishers launching new shiny things in the press, they are just that there is no context or depth behind it just atop line idea and a sly way of cheap advertising.
One thing that is never going to work is jumping countries and employing the same tactics. As an individual if you move to a new company, country or even client your responsibility is to do your due diligence and learn to adapt to the new way of working. Cookie cutters do nothing but create cookies, not money.
Sounds like some of the issue is people being exposed when they move to a company with a bit more rigor and a base of critical thinkers.
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4 of the 5 are now gone and only Baxter remains. The Tajer entourage cleanout has been menacing. Is the clock ticking on the last man standing?
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Was there in IPG, saw it all coming a mile away and bolted. There was no substance with the Australians. They talked a big game. Swooped in like know it all white knights, and had no grasp on the concept of transparency that was blowing up the whole market. In their eyes, the American were all dumb. They had all the magical answers. The whole thing was a train wreck in slow motion. But apparently not that slow. Roth shut the whole down in under 2 years.
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The aggressive culture that Henry cultivated just cracked open years of IPG’s effort to create something more sustainable and decent. It’s an American holding company and makes more sense that Henry and entourage respected that notion from day one. [Edited under Mumbrela’s comment moderation policy]. It turned out to be a Game of Thrones in Madison Square. The arbitrage strategy, rewarding obscure and high benefits to his selected team [edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] are just a few self inflicting and career limiting moves they made. Thank God Roth saw this much earlier.
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