EssenceMediacom plans measured approach to start ‘fighting back’
EssenceMediacom’s APAC CEO, Rupert McPetrie, has told the Mumbrellacast this week that transparency has been the priority as the new agency manages its new client list.
“One of the brilliant things about forming EssenceMediacom is the client base that we have,” he said, speaking alongside ANZ chief strategy officer, Sophie Price.
McPetrie and Price are on this week’s Mumbrellacast
“We’ve got some extraordinary clients and I often talk to our people about, if you’re sitting in a coffee shop with a blank sheet of paper, thinking about the agency of the future and the type of client businesses you’d want in your agency, you know what, we’re really lucky because we’ve got this list of clients ranging from Google, to NBCU, to Mars, to Proctor, to Adidas, to Sony, to Dell, as well as so many brilliant local clients here in Australia.”
One of the reasons the agency feels so optimistic moving forward, McPetrie said, is that there hasn’t been a major amount of movement as a result of competitive conflict, or not as much as you might expect.
“As we’ve formed a new company, we’ve taken a lot of care to be transparent with clients where there has been a competitive conflict,” he said. “Often by having those very transparent discussions, there’s a way to solve for it. We house hermetically sealed and separated teams, we have different office structures, office environments, and so on, and of course, we’re very used to in the group managing a whole raft of clients from similar or adjacent sectors, and the governance we have on that is second to none.”
Despite this, McPetrie said that in a moment of transition, some losses are bound to come as a result.
“We have lost a couple of clients along the way, you have to be transparent about that.”
Locally, for example, one of those was Lindt, which previously sat with Essence. Mediacom has housed Mars as a client for some time, meaning the agency sat itself out of the former’s pitch in late-2022, with Entain and Tourism and Events Queensland also out the door.
“We’re a business that is obsessed with clients, so we feel every loss keenly. But I think we’ve managed it relatively well overall.”
The agency boasts an enviable global and local client list
How quickly is the agency going to start fighting back on some of these clients, and going to market for new business?
“I guess the answer’s the same as how we’re rolling out our breakthrough approach to existing clients, and to a degree to prospects.
“Every client is different. Every client has their own specific needs, requirements, and challenges that we’re working to help on. And so rather than this being a one size fits all application of all the product capability and talent that comes with EssenceMediacom, we’re looking at it in a very intentional, structured way, as you’d expect.
“As we are articulating the vision, breakthrough, what that means practically here in Australia, for example, as we’re looking at the new EssenceMediacom operating system and all the tools and technologies that sit behind, we’re just planning for every client, and solving for every brief, if you like, and I would love in a pretty near horizon to start talking to not just our existing clients, not just prospects, but also potentially some of those clients that did move away.”
“I think we’ve been really fortunate in the stability we’ve had overall, and part of the reason I think we’ve been able to get that stability is because we’ve been very transparent with our customers and we’ve been really clear on the governance.”
EssenceMediacom went live a month ago, and its new CEO, Pippa Berlocher is set to arrive next month.
Listen to the full interview with McPetrie and Price below from the 15.05 mark.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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