McCann CEO slams ‘shoddy’ media agencies, as agency ramps up media buying offering
Lilley: McCann’s media growth “simply answering the needs of the market”
Creative agency McCann has continued its push to become a major media buying force with the recruitment of a head of media and confirmation it is working with media agencies outside the UM network for the first time.
The agency also added the $5m Australian Unity business, bringing its total media billings to almost $100 million.
McCann Worldgroup chairman and CEO Ben Lilley told Mumbrella that while the agency continued to work with UM, it was also doing media buying for some of its clients through rivals such as Havas Media.
Lilley also fired a shot at “shoddy” media agencies that he claims are dragging their creative partners down.
When asked about McCann’s relationship with Havas Media, he said: “It varies, to be honest. We treat buying the way that we do all other facets of our production capacities.
“There are a number of agencies that we have been buying through and it really depends on a client-by-client basis what the particular requirements are for each client and how we can best meet those,” Lilley said.
“We are not wedded to any one in any particular network; it’s all about just putting together the best integrated package for each client.”
Lilley said that “probably the majority of our buying” continues to be handled through the sister agency UM.
“We have a panel or cross-section of ‘best in breed’ partners – and that goes for everything from digital production through to TV production through to media buying.
“As McCann continues to grow its media capabilities and integrated offering in response to client demand, expanding our team and bringing in the right skills becomes increasingly important,” Lilley said.
“It’s not an offering that we’re pushing, per se, on existing clients or even new clients, it’s more an offering that we know best serves the need of most most marketers who are receptive to it; so when we can take an integrated, strategic, and creative, and media, and digital, and social – and everything else – response to our clients, we do.”
New head of media: Sawyer Joins McCann from Paykel
To support the growing media business McCann has recruited Lyndell Sawyer from independent media agency, Paykel, to take on the role of head of media.
Sawyer will lead a team that also sees the addition of former Maxus employee, Jane Walshe, in Melbourne as media director, Rachel Teh, ex-Mediacom, as senior channel planner and Emma Black, also from Maxus, as senior media account manager.
Further new media hires include Callum Clarke, another Maxus veteran, as media account manager, and Alana Adair as a media account executive.
Lilley said the rapid growth of McCann’s media business was not part of a deliberate strategy but was simply answering the needs of the market.
“The truth is our media offering is only there because, in the first instance we had a number of clients who started talking to us about wanting to better integrate their strategic and creative work we were doing with their media and channel planning needs.
“They weren’t satisfied with what they were getting with their existing media partners and they wanted to se whether we could improve on that.”
He said the agency started working on a more integrated media model 18 months ago and the project grew rapidly from there.
Lilley fired a shot across the bows of traditional media agencies, questioning the viability of their business models.
“We are not the only creative agency that is trying to better integrate our strategic and creative offering with a media offering and I think there is a number of agencies that are having some pretty good success with that now,” he said.
“What I hope that it means is it’s going to improve the offering across the industry as far as waking up a few media agencies, in particular, as to how they can better step up or improve or evolve their own agency’s models because there is nothing harder for us, or other creative agencies, than working with shoddy media partners.
“There are some great media agencies out there, but there are some that are really struggling.”
Simon Canning
and the hype machine continues
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Nice one highlander!
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“Answering the needs of the market” and offsetting the decline of your own. All in one shops have always looked like coming back. At least this way the only asset deadline the creative agency will miss is its own.
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course dear
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It’s interesting to see creative agencies labeling certain media agencies as shoddy when I work at one where not a single one of our global partner creative agencies can deliver a dynamic digital banner or a sequential messaging strategy. In fact some are still delivering us Flash instead of HTML5. Not to mention actually bothering to liaise with us on campaign strategy until after they have developed the idea without knowing what media commitments are in place. Clearly improvements need to be made across the industry as a whole. I hope McCann can live up to these bold sweeping statements once the tables have turned.
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Same crap, different spin
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Good luck McCann’t.
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good call Ben, why limit yourself to a small agency like Mediabrands
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Slag media agencies and then hire a bunch of people that have done the rounds at loads of them. [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy.]
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So UM are desperate to be seen as a creative agency and McCann are desperate to be seen as a media agency. Feels like IPG need to have a serious chat about their portfolio strategy…
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Shame they burned bridges months ago by telling new clients they were offering full service when what they really meant was “We’re sub-contracting your media buy to Havas and in actual fact there is no integration of services”. Once you lose your integrity it’s a hard slog to get it back.
And best of luck to the new media team whose job will be to recommend whatever the creative director tells them to.
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It always surprises me that creative agencies who want to change the face of media end up employing people from the very media agencies they are so happy to denounce.
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Oh goody, hopefully this is the beginning of the industry slagging each other off. Always good for a laugh.
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Hi @Been there, your comment is perhaps deliberately disingenuous. However just in case it’s not, our clients are of course completely – and contractually – clear on our service offering across all areas of our business, not just media. At the front end they benefit from the integration of our planning, creative, digital and production resources all under the one roof. While at the back end, they benefit from us buying for them at the best possible rates, whether directly, programmatically or through a third-party. I would think the only agencies ‘burning their bridges’ in the delivery of any services, whether media, production or otherwise, are the ones trying (or claiming) to do absolutely everything in-house.
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On the Australian unity Win? The ads with the weird heads? Shoddy indeed
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It sounds to me as if McCann are doing no more than responding to the market, just as Havas did some little while ago. It’s not about creative agencies wanting to become media agencies or visa versa. I would have thought it’s about responding to the client need for strategic comms development in one place and that includes media, unless some media agencies were so busy trying to play in the creative discipline they hadn’t noticed.
McCann, nor IPG, are stupid. However, some media agencies in my opinion have overstepped the mark, flush with their recent (last 20 years) success, dabbling in creative and lording it over creative agencies. They should be careful this is not merely a speed hump but a real and serious trend of advertisers taking the game back toward the place it started.
Alan Robertson
Kinesis Media Pty Ltd
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What came first; the full service agency or the need? 🙁
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would they be doing this if their business was growing hugely?
i’m always sceptical of these sort of announcements by creative or media agencies saying “we now do this as well” and dress it up as due to client needs.
sounds to me like they need to grow their profits and this is just a new tactic to increase revenues
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why is everyone so insecure about creative going into media and vice versa….get a grip people. whether you are in creative, media, production, design etc this is definitely the best job in the country. we get paid to do what we do is awesome
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