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Integrated agency thrives in UK environment
Introduction
The popular press loves to talk about the ‘brain drain' that Australia suffers from. But the lists that pop up regularly of Australians who ‘make it' overseas, rarely mention successful advertising specialists. This month, Marketing is addressing that issue. Frank Chamberlin recently called in to see an Australian advertising guru who has been in London for some 16-years.
Article
Integration is nothing new. In ‘Marketing 101' every student learns about the desirability of integration.
Equally, probably all marketers have seen agencies that claim to be ‘integrated' but really just mouth the words.
In the UK , there is one agency, operating since 1998, that has broken the mould and is operating as a truly integrated service provider. The name is “Archibald Ingall Stretton . . .” with partner Stuart Archibald, a former Sydney boy who is passionate about the integrated approach.
“When I got together with John Ingall and Steve Stretton, our vision was to develop a new type of ad agency,” Archibald explains.
“It was to be neither an advertising agency, nor a direct marketing agency, but a specialist integrated agency,” he says.
A mission to transform
The mission of the agency today, as it was seven years ago, is still to be the most respected integrated agency in the UK . And maybe instead of ‘the UK ' that will one day be ‘the world' in view of the success that Archibald Ingall Stretton . . . is achieving.
“Our approach is very definitely to work on solutions to client problems rather than to be predefined by media,” says Stuart Archibald.
“We founded the agency on the basis that clients had definitely changed, media had changed and consumers had changed. But agencies had kept to the same model for the last 30 – 40 years.”
“So we set about establishing an agency that was fairly much in the centre – that would work to client problems rather than have off-the-shelf solutions.”
“As an agency we see ourselves as being able to transform client businesses. That's essentially what we are on about. We are simply in the business of transforming business.”
From the successes that Stuart Archibald and his colleagues are having in terms of holding on to top clients and winning awards, it is clear that while they focus on transforming business they do that in a creative way. “Our creativity is not stifled,” says Archibald, “for you very often need very creative ideas to be able to transform a business.”
Big on planning
One of the distinguishing features of Archibald Ingall Stretton . . . is the agency's approach to planning. “We have four types of planners,” explains Archibald. “There are:
- Brand planners
- CRM planners
- Data planners
- Media planners
“They all work together and therefore the agency gets the benefit of cross fertilisation which obviously leads to a benefit for our clients.”
For this agency, there is no function more important than planning. The agency heads have found from experience, that it is only from perceptive, informed and intelligent planning that outstanding creative work emanates.
“In 1998, our founding client was Virgin.net which at the time was an Internet Service Provider,” says Archibald. “As a somewhat quirky, irreverent brand, this was a client that sort of set the scene for the agency. We handled everything from their advertising through to the direct marketing through to the online.”
“As a new type of agency, you have to have a certain style and Virgin.net as a client helped set the style for us.”
Clients different today
From his experience in the UK , Stuart Archibald is convinced that clients have different expectations today. “We believe that clients are looking for innovation in terms of competitiveness and innovation in the way the agency will work with them. And they are also very clearly looking for increased levels of measurement and accountability.”
“In addition, every client is always looking for ideas. But today clients are not as loyal to their agencies as they once were. They don't care where the ideas come from, and that's why understanding the client's business is all important.”
Stuart Archibald says that being truly integrated means that the agency has a mix of credentials to offer clients.
“We have some planners who are purely brand planners – who really understand brands and positioning. Whereas our CRM planners are specialists on all the touch points that the client may have – as a business we get involved with what clients are doing in the retail area, what they are doing on the phone, we prepare IVR scripts where necessary – the whole lot. While most agencies stop, we go all way through.”
Recruiting the right people
With so much emphasis throughout the agency on integration, what sort of people does Archibald Ingall Stretton . . . aim to recruit? “The brief answer is ‘ideas people.' Above all we want people who are thinkers.”
Consistently, through our research with clients, we have found that more and more clients want their agencies to generate ideas. In order to transform client businesses, we need people who can challenge the status quo and come up with workable innovation.”
For Stuart Archibald, going to work each day with a determination to transform the businesses of his clients, is a far cry from his early agency days in Sydney .
It was in the mid 1980s. He did what was possible in those days. When he finished Art School he took a job in the mailroom at Lintas Sydney. Over time he progressed through Traffic, Production and Account Service and life was very good.
But the excitement of far off lands beckoned and after just four years of Australian experience, he found himself with Grey Direct in London .
At Grey, Archibald worked on a big catalogue business which was a tremendous training ground for him in direct marketing. In the UK , it was in catalogues more than anywhere else that direct became a force.
After time with Grey, there were a couple of other moves, including a stretch in Scotland , before he played a leading role in two very major initiatives. One was Club Card with supermarket giant Tesco and the other was the launch of Windows 95 (still the biggest retail launch of any software!).
Both of these were successful way beyond expectations. Either one would make any advertising professional very proud but Stuart Archibald has his name firmly attached to both.
In the late 1990s, Archibald then had two very rewarding years with DDB London – commonly referred to as the birthplace of planning.
Through all these years, working with top agencies, he was gradually piecing together – subconsciously at first - an alternative approach to integration and a more central role for planning.
A new beginning
It was in 1998, when he found two kindred souls in John Ingall and Steve Stretton, that the new agency was born. From that point on – despite the usual scattering of hassles that any business throws up from time to time – it has been an exciting life with Archibald Ingall Stretton . . . continually outpacing growth expectations.
About two years ago, the agency picked up one of the very biggest accounts in the UK : telecommunications giant O2. “Along with Vodafone and Orange , O2 ranks in the top three in this country, so we were delighted to begin working with them,” says Archibald.
Today, the agency has some 35 full time people working on the O2 account. It is not unusual for anything up to one hundred O2 briefs to be traveling through the agency at any one time.
Stuart Archibald says that he and his fellow partners are quite resigned to the fact that managing an integrated agency is tough. You obviously do not need as many people to implement a brand campaign compared with a labour-intensive direct marketing campaign. “But we now understand the variable profitability of different types of campaigns,” he explains.
“For the smooth operation of the agency, we have a board of cross disciplinary people that looks at the business from a over-arching point of view.”
“It is more challenging and maybe not as profitable for an agency to be integrated, but we pursue this path because it is what we believe in.”
Viewing the Australian scene
Although he has been in London for so long, Stuart Archibald takes a keen interest in Australian advertising and marketing.
“There is no doubt that with the global awards that Australia has won over the last few years, the creative product is currently excellent,” he says. With volumes in the US and the UK being so much greater than in Australia , Archibald sees the economies of scale and the geographical spread as being the major hindrances for Australia . “There is no doubt that with smaller numbers it is tougher.”
Monitoring client/agency performance
In order to give the best possible client service to all their accounts, Archibald Ingall Stretton . . . is committed to half yearly reviews of the agency/client performance.
“It is a full review process covering service, performance in terms of numbers and relationships, where they review us and our systems and we review them,” he explains. “And then we agree on a set objectives for the next six months”.
‘It takes a certain type of client to accept criticism from an agency, of course – although we always stress that it is business we are thinking about not personalities.”
The agency's six monthly review covers such things as:
- How the client rates agency overall thinking
- The agency's understanding of client business
- How the agency reacts to the client
- The agency's perception of competitive forces
- The agency's understanding of client organisational structures
- How well the agency responds to changes in the client's marketplace.
Each individual agency area is graded including account service, creative, production and data. The review process is often a half-day session in order to go through every element of the business.
Numerous agencies have problems with clients rejecting creative work without providing solid reasons.
Stuart Archibald says that the brief is the key in this regard. “We consider the brief as almost sacred and this attitude is followed through by all our people and our clients, too. Our creative work is evaluated in terms of the brief and all feedback is couched in expressions that relate very directly with the brief.”
After some 20-years in advertising, Stuart Archibald is as enthusiastic as ever. “I love the everyday excitement of agency life, and I get a real buzz out of seeing creative ideas that work,” he says.
“It is just fantastic when you get those client calls to say that something we have created is working brilliantly.”
When you talk to Stuart Archibald, his passion for advertising is always close to the surface. He is certainly a great example of an Australian who is working overseas and doing very well. With obviously many successes still ahead of him.