Clems Sydney: Mumbrella Creative Agency Review – growth machine in need of a creative lift to ‘stand out’
The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how Clemenger BBDO Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.
Clemenger BBDO Sydney just misses out on our top ten table for its total score in our survey. With a reputation as a solid performer that produces some respectable work for clients such as Hungry Jack’s, Virgin Australia and Wrigley, the agency’s new business-winning streak made up for losing Vodafone, Codral and Air New Zealand; Clems can look back on a good year.
Winning 12 new clients, including Foxtel, Hungry Jack’s and Virgin Australia, which it helped rebrand from Virgin Blue, has seen the agency added 72 new people since September last year. Clems can now be called a genuinely big agency with 164 staff, and reports revenue up by 42% and profits up 86%. But opinion varies among the panel. One describes it as “an excellent all-round performer that’s been on top of its game for a long time now.”
Another calls it a “middle of the road agency that could learn something from its Melbourne sibling.”
The Sydney office gets credit for finding new revenue streams and finding new talent with two sold creative directors now in place in Paul Nagy and Mike Spirkovski. who replaced Richard Maddocks in March last year, and Rebecca Carrasco, formerly of Colman Rasic Carrasco, a more recent hire.
But despite work that has not lacked impact, such as the creepy rabbits for Hungry Jack’s, and the rebranded Virgin Australia campaign, our survey suggests that Clems Sydney’s creative product is a weak spot, with the agency registering its lowest rank for creativity, well out of the top half of our top 30.
Planning is Clems Sydney’s most highly regarded faculty with account management and commercial success the next most highly rated. One panellist notes that Clems Sydney is a solid performer, but needs to produce more magic creatively.
“Outstanding planning and account management. Hopefully the new creative leaders will achieve better things this year. They certainly have the potential to do so. Will be interesting to see the work they are able to produce as it’s been well below the standard of Clemenger Melbourne for years.”
Another challenge is its profile. The agency’s new positioning is to be the ‘stand out’ agency in Sydney. At the moment, it is anything but, punching way below its weight. The next 12 months will be about bedding down its new clients, then stepping up a gear and getting itself noticed with some award-winning work.
To read more about Clemenger BBDO Sydney, including full details on how it was scored by both our expert panel and Mumbrella’s own readers, to view examples of the agency’s work and read its own assessment of its performance, buy a copy of the Mumbrella Creative Agency Review priced at $75. The book features an assessment of the country’s top 30 ad agencies. To buy the book, click here.
72 new people….to make up for the ones that made a mass exodus?
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A freelancer’s observation for Clems and others.
Freelancing around Sydney I’ve discovered something quite remarkable. Almost all agencies in Sydney have creatives who can come up with award winning ideas. But only the awarded agencies have account service people with the persistence and fearlessness to sell the concepts – and then keep them sold.
It’s the suits people!
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@Peter I’ve worked at enough places to call BS on that one. In my experience I’ve seen plenty “designers” and dreadfully few “creatives”.
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I agree with Peter. Plenty of shops that have award winning ideas sold into clients by great creatives, only for the suits to find ways of unravelling them before they hit production.
Anon, you must be working for the wrong places.
However, pointing the finger doesn’t help. We need to find ways of making it work. It’s hard, but whoever gets it right will kill it. I reckon a good start is demanding awarded account service – not just in effectiveness, but also creatively. Pretty hard for a creative to get a gig these days without shiny things, why is it different for suits?
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