Of Sorrell and Read
Kevin Freedman
Founder and CEO @ Freedman International | International Campaign Experts
Why Martin Sorrell is no Bill Gates, and Mark Read is not such a Bad Boy
We've all heard Martin Sorrell waxing lyrical about how advertising holding companies are dinosaurs in today’s digital first world... The irony being that Sorrell was single handedly responsible for building the biggest, least effective dinosaur in the whole advertising business.
Sorrell left WPP in a parlous state - a sprawling mass of ineffective old time favourites bundled together under his supermarket trolley company. So, he’s the last person on earth that should be shouting from the rafters about how ill-formed the business is - he built it. Did he do a good service to his former shareholders, staff and clients by building a monstrosity with no future? Of course not. He’s no Bill Gates. Sorrell should be ashamed of himself for berating Mark Read. Read is simply trying to mend the gaping holes left by Sorrell’s misguided 30 year ego trip.
Over a decade ago, it was crystal clear that the age of the network agencies was over. Network agencies are slow, costly, inefficient and unable to secure the best talent. And Sorrell did little to help WPP evolve. His best attempt was "horizontality" - trying to get different WPP agencies to present a united team front to clients. In reality, these horizontal teams were oversized, excessively costly and rife with politics. You only need to look at the poor shape of Ford's brand after years of excessive WPP marketing spend.
Martin's WPP strategy is exactly what you'd expect from a finance man - right out of the Trump playbook in fact. It goes something like this: buy stuff with other people's money, pile on the debt, don't integrate it, churn through talent, reward yourself excessively and move on before anyone spots the mess you've made. If he is a smart guy - which those who know him say he is - why did he leave WPP in such a bad state?
Turning to Mark Read, I think he's making the best of a very bad hand. Deleveraging the group by selling part of Kantar was a good move. Plus, it was brave and wise to smash the famous Mad Men agencies JWT and Y&R into other more digitally focused groups. Nonetheless, the legacy of numerous brands and real estate will take a long time to sort out.
Of course, Read was rightly pilloried about his careless comment regarding WPP's legion of under 30 year olds who are now in the vanguard, supposedly, of the business. Age is irrelevant - we all know 30 year olds who are close-minded and unfit for the future of advertising (they think like “Boomers”). Equally, we all know 60 and 70 year olds who are driving the industry forward with new ideas and amazing achievements (they think like Next Generation marketers). It's all about how you think and act - the future belongs to the Next Gen marketers and agency teams.
But if age isn’t a differentiator, how can you tell a Boomer global marketer from a Next Gen marketer? Here's my ready reckoner:
Boomer Global Marketers
- Work with holding company and network agencies
- Don't work with top talent - it might show them up
- Always looking at the downside, covering their ass, afraid to take a risk
- Do not test and learn - launch and move on - take too long over everything
- Hierarchical global v local perspective
- Do not get global / local; over-promoted domestic marketers
- Driven by big creative idea not how it will work globally in local markets
- Not smart with money; hide behind procurement teams
- Play it safe; want the big corner office at an established legacy brand
NextGen Global Marketers
- Work with best of breed agencies
- Want to be challenged by top talent teams
- Comfortable with risk taking, they know it's the only way to succeed
- Fast, test and learn; data driven
- Learn from everywhere and everyone
- Global citizens - they see the world with a global lens
- Social digital first with strong local insights; build global communities around brands
- Smart with money / don’t hide behind procurement - fast decisions
- Entrepreneurial business and brand builders
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4 年A very interesting read Kevin. 20 years ago I worked for a small agency within WPP. I was involved in a couple of those horizontal collaborations and did find the politics and egos could get in the way. In one instance, I was drafted into a crisis meeting with First Drinks, the owners of Thresher off licences, where a number of WPP agencies working around PR, Sales Promotion and Advertising had failed to impress the CEO. I had 4 months experience in retail and POS, but was astonished to find that no one with retail experience had been involved in the project at that point. Thresher had 2,500 stores in the UK, and the WPP agencies were talking about brand presence, recommending that they should brand the tissue paper used to wrap the bottles of wine. The CEO turned to me, asking my opinion as the 'retail expert'. To me it was obvious. I said you have 2,500 stores so focus on increasing footfall and increasing ATV. The ironic thing was that my observations were based on common sense, rather than retail expertise. For businesses like WPP, its important to park egos and politics and focus on what the clients really need. P&G is starting to ask creatives from rival agencies to work together, this could be the new direction for agencies now. If they offer services and solutions that help the client, they will gain more traction and value.