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A “Where Are They Now” epilogue for the golden years of Crispin Porter + Bogusky would be endless as seemingly every major shop has a connection back to the glory days of Crispin. Those days are gone, as are the clients—Burger King, Mini, Truth and many more—that benefited from Crispin’s genius. MDC Partners and later Stagwell have made numerous attempts to breathe new life into the agency, even bringing back Alex Bogusky for an 18-month stint that began in 2018.
Nothing stuck and finally two of the remaining holdovers, Hotels.com and Fruit of the Loom, from Crispin’s time atop the industry left in 2020. Now, Crispin is attempting its biggest revival yet by combining four Stagwell-owned shops, CPB, boutique creative shop Vitro, media and performance agency MMI and branded entertainment agency Observatory into one integrated offering.
Stagwell has tasked CEO Brad Simms (who is also Gale’s CEO) and president Maggie Malek (formerly CEO of MMI) with the herculean task of making the agency relevant and competitive in today’s overcrowded sea of agency sameness. It’s an uphill battle that will force the leaders to make tough decisions: should they resuscitate Crispin as the 2024 version of what it once was—an innovation-led shop that shapes culture—or give Crispin a fresh identity behind its fully integrated offerings? The answer will likely lie somewhere in between—and consultants see risks for CPB on both ends of the spectrum.
“Crispin, under those original founders, changed how we as agencies work with our clients, and how we bring messages to consumers,” Simms told Adweek. “The go-to market strategy now is how do you modernize that transformational way of thinking and approach that’s at Crispin’s core DNA and make it modern?”
Where Crispin stands
Simms, Malek and Stagwell CEO Mark Penn are acutely aware of Crispin’s perception in the marketplace.
“A number of consultants just thought Crispin wasn’t even a functioning agency,” Simms said. “That’s a pretty intense piece of feedback: ‘We thought you were dead.’ I don’t think it gets more easy to correct than that.”
Penn told Adweek the industry expected Stagwell to close Crispin in 2021, but Penn chose to stand behind the agency.
“It’s is one of the most iconic brands in creativity and marketing,” Penn said. “We’re proud to support its challenger role and the great team leading it today.”
Consultants see first-hand Crispin’s place in the agency landscape.
“In the last 24 months no agency has listed Crispin among its competitor list or even as an aspirational competitor,” said Simone Mandel, co-founder of consultancy NBZ Partner.
Agency brands are living, breathing things that need to evolve, but still stay true to who they are.
—Simone Mandel, co-founder, NBZ Parner
“If it is brought up though, it’s in the context of what Crispin used to be. ‘That’s what we could aspire to.’ But nobody sees them as competition today,” added NBZ co-founder Rachel Segall.
Ken Robinson, co-founder of consultancy Ark Advisors, stressed CPB should not highlight the old, noting its homepage still touts campaigns from a bygone era. “They need to be forward thinking versus relying on past successes because they may be surprised how many clients will not have heard of them before.”
Update the old or form a new identity?
Crispin has a fine line to walk as it tells its new story while incorporating the spirit of the old.
CPB is now a fully integrated agency. That’s a part of the new story. But as Robinson points out, the industry has plenty of integrated agencies. Stagwell alone has big players like Anomaly and 72andSunny.
Simms and Malek see the opportunity to become Stagwell’s second truly global option by stabilizing the U.S., strengthening its Brazilian and European presence and expanding further in APAC where CPB has an office in China.
Malek and Simms are listening closely to CMOs to understand what they need as they shape the four agencies into one.
When [an idea] comes down from the holding company, people have 20,000 reasons why it won’t work. When it comes up from the grassroots, there’s 20,000 reasons why it will work.
—Brad Simms, CEO, CPB
“In this landscape, where CMOs are worried about money and worried about what’s coming down the pike, I believe that they’re excited about the Crispin name because it has that legacy of like the 360 [campaign],” Malek said. “And that is what CMOs are wanting.”
Once it figures its new offerings, that has to be clearly communicated to clients, consultants and the talent it hopes to recruit.
“Crispin has to put a stake in the ground,” said Robinson. “They need to clarify their positioning and culture against other [Stagwell] mega-shops, as well as the industry.”
Why it may succeed
The decision to combine the four agencies did not come from the top down. The four shops had already begun working together in the Stagwell Brand and Performance Network. The leaders of those shops formulated the idea of one aligned offering, according to Simms.
“I went to [Stagwell] and said, ‘I have an idea for you.’ This is a big idea,” Simms said. “That is the biggest reason why I’m fired up about this being successful. Because when it comes down from the holding company, people have 20,000 reasons why it won’t work. When it comes up from the grassroots, there’s 20,000 reasons why it will work.”
Crispin has gained momentum over the past year by winning clients including TGI Fridays, Dropbox, Old Dominion and Halo Top. Simms said the new business pipeline has doubled in size and Malek added the RFPs they’re receiving are for truly integrated services, something Crispin would not have been included in before.
Since the merger, Malek focused on making sure clients understood they’ll still be working with the same teams, and so far, the new Crispin has retained all of its combined clients from the four merged agencies.
This also isn’t Simms and Malek’s first merger rodeo. Simms helped Assembly merge with ForwardPMX in late 2021, while Malek oversaw the combining of MMI and Media Kitchen last year.
To Robinson, success will boil down to the work.
“They have to talk about their work not about their model and not about their past,” Robinson said. “They’re going to have to work hard to get people to give them those swings. But you know what—[Stagwell Global CMO] Ryan Linder works really hard.”
And ultimately, the industry is pulling for Crispin. Simms and Malek know that, and consultants Robinson, Segall and Mandel all voiced to Adweek that the industry wants to see Crispin alive and well.
“Crispin has a storied history and a really special place in the industry,” Robinson said. “So I would love to see it be successful.”
