McCann Sydney: Mumbrella Creative Agency Review – merger offers fresh start for an old school brand
The newly published Mumbrella Creative Agency Review examines Australia’s top 30 ad agencies. Today Robin Hicks examines how McCann Sydney has fared over the last 12 months.
In our survey, McCann Sydney finds itself propping up the rest in a category no agency wants to seen as deficient in – creativity. So it just as well that the agency’s ECD, Michael Raso, who jetted in from the network’s New York office in January 2011, has performed extensive surgery on the creative department. More recently, the reverse take-over by Smart in September promises a fresh start for the struggling Interpublic agency.
Three months after Raso arrived, four of his creative team were shown the door and eight have been brought in, including Neil Flory from Ogilvy Sydney as deputy creative director and Patrick Chambers as art director from Taxi, an agency in Canada.
Campaigns for Newington College and MasterCard’s priceless music series are signs that the creative product is improving, but it’ll be a while yet before McCann’s work is troubling too many awards juries. One panellist remarks: “Exciting new creative department. Too soon to know what effect that will have – but surely the only way is up.”
Another sore point for McCann in our survey is planning, a discipline which also finds itself in new hands. The departure of highly regarded strategy head Mark Pollard to Saatchi & Saatchi New York saw Carl Gallagher replace him from fellow Interpublic struggler Lowe Sydney.
McCann Sydney does not do well in any category, but features outside of the bottom six for talent, integration and momentum.
One panellist, who questions why McCann is in our top 30 at all, says of the agency: “International clients perhaps contribute to size – but what else?”
However, the agency can point to a healthy split between local and international clients that has led to higher revenue and profit at the agency, which, with 60+ staff, is a small office for a member of one of the world’s largest networks.
As a global offering, McCann is better known for client service than creativity. The same appears to be true in Sydney, according to our survey.
Following the Smart merger, the agency looks in more of a position to push on in the year ahead. But there is still plenty for new Australia CEO Ben Lilley to do to prove to the market that the new McCann is more than an uninspiring agency of the old school.
The sense is, however, that the Smart deal is at least a step in the right direction.
To read more about McCann 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.
