New agency models need to go beyond talk, says local Huge boss
As a number of agencies look to refresh what they stand for and how they do business, Huge’s Australian managing director Ben Skelsey has said it’s time plus effort investment and not talk that gives new business models the greatest chance.
Huge has entered the Australian market with a completely virtual business model that heavily leans on global teams and talent for client work.
Skelsey
It’s methodology that has been talked about a lot in the industry but is often not executed well and can be baulked at by clients looking for a truly local team.
“I think we’ll see it being talked about more but creating a global and virtual company is easier said than done,” Skelsey told Mumbrella. “A few may even attempt it but I don’t think they’re necessarily set up for it. It requires a completely different mindset and you have to be okay with a fundamental shift in ways of working in a radically adjusted organisational structure.
“We have reorganised our entire company for this model.”
Skelsey said there were significant challenges in making such a fundamental shift which Huge had to fully commit to in order to make it work, and that agencies looking to shift the way they were working had a lot to think about.
“I imagine it’d be a challenge with everything from capacity planning to talent management and so on. Do the companies have flexibility baked in and do they have the tools available for those clean and clear ways of working around the world? Do they have the right cadence of project process and so on. Can it be done?
“If companies truly want to stop being beholden to a specific geography and instead focus on delivering the team’s best fit, sure, but it may mean giving up a lot of who and what they are today, whereas this is who we are. It’s baked in.”
When questioned about whether local clients baulked at using an agency model that heavily leveraged overseas talent and whether they also expected more competitive prices because of this, Skelsey asserted neither was the case.
“Clients want results. Clients shopping on price are not going to be a great fit for us or I’d argue in any agency that has the right integrity. Because we’re so focused on results, our clients are looking at the value to get to those results.
“At Huge, we have a product model, so we don’t do rates, over time or hours, and we work on a fixed price product model. Because we work on a fixed price product model, the price is the price. We can quote it quickly and easily once we’ve truly understood the problem we’re trying to solve. The way we talk about the product is we talk about the result and outcome we are going for and the clients match that outcome to the price.”
On local talent for local work, Skelsey suggested that it has so far not been an issue and that clients have welcomed the opportunity to work with a global team.
Baxter previously speaking at Mumbrella360
“Clients don’t blink an eye, and they see the benefit straight away. Indeed we’ve seen it be asked for specifically. I think what you say about cultural nuance, every country probably has that. Just think about it absolutely, so on a macroeconomic scale, there are tons of Australians in other countries creating great work for those countries.
“This is a fundamental part of what we do both as creative companies generally, but at Huge specifically. You become deeply immersed in a brand and a problem and the brief and you understand the cultural nuances of that brief and cultural nuances of the problem in great detail. Then you use that knowledge to punch through with creativity to create a targeted and impactful sort of experience or moment for the audience.”
Huge launched in Australia earlier this year. The agency is led globally by former local industry leader Mat Baxter.
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