M&C Saatchi Sydney: Mumbrella Creative Agency Review – Winning new business by keeping it simple
The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how M&C Saatchi Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.
If new business was the only measure of the success, M&C Saatchi Sydney would be untouchable.
Named agency of the decade in a survey of new business performance by The Agency Register in 2010, M&C has gorged itself with new clients: David Jones, Building Brand Australia (Austrade), ING and Eftpos. Not only that, it has managed to hang on to existing business, including giants Woolsworths, Qantas and Optus. It also picked up the advertising account of Masters, Woolworths’ new hardware store chain.
Now with around 350 people, M&C Saatchi Sydney is by some distance the largest agency in Australia – remarkable considering the company did not exist here 16 years ago. Led by the two Toms, Tom Dery and Tom McFarlane, global chairman and regional creative director, respectively, the agency has built its success on keeping things simple, which has been key to nailing down large retail clients. Rivals would say low prices is another.
“They have a winning formula they haven’t departed from,” comments one panellist. “A disciplined creative approach, which they refer to as brutal simplicity of thought. There have been situations when clients and agencies have wanted to use more complex tools kits. M&C argued against that, stuck to their guns, and it has paid off.”
Another panellist notes: “There is a danger that the massive number of retail accounts could make the agency over-processed. But I don’t see evidence of that yet.” If there is a question mark, however, is the agency’s creative product – M&C gets a relatively low score in our survey for creativity.
For an agency so big on retail, M&C Saatchi has built a decent digital operation in Mark and a design arm in Make. “M&C is up there – capable of exciting work, especially in digital and direct through Mark. It has managed to integrate very effectively, using its two design offers to bring in additional revenue and Mark’s work to give it a digital edge, as well as additional revenue,” a panellist remarks. Unsurprisingly, M&C earns its highest rank for commercial success.
To read more about M&C Saatchi 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.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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These reports are such a joke. Telling us what an agency is like from the outside looking in. Yeah that’s credible.
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Hi anonymous,
Thanks for your comment. When we conducted the survey, we called it the creative agency perception and performance study. We used the word perception deliberately.
I’d argue that is important to an agency’s business prospects how the industry views it.
As well as surveying Mumbrella’s readership, we also polled a panel of experts – pitch doctors and headhunters in the main. The sort of people who recommend to clients where to place business, and to recruits where to work. Credible, I think.
But if you’d like the agency’s own views, we do cover that too. The book carries a write-up from each agency offering its own perspective too.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
” If there is a question mark, however, is the agency’s creative product – M&C gets a relatively score in our survey for creativity.”
Proofread before upload, homes.
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Anonymous. One Word. Burn.
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Hi John,
Thanks for flagging. Now amended in the electronic version.
Making me something of a hostage to fortune, I think that’s the first typo we’ve found in the book.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Keep the ad for xmas. Have the deer!s all wear rudolph ears
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here’s another…. ‘Woolsworths’
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