Global Media Agency of the Year MediaCom Helped Clients See the Bigger Picture During Crisis

It’s one thing to espouse a “People first, better results” philosophy; it’s another to actually practice it in the middle of a global crisis. In 2020, MediaCom proved its devotion to that creed, deciding early on to invest in talent and save as many jobs as possible globally at the expense of short-term losses. “Our ambition was to make sure we came out of it together, our culture intact. We spent the best part of 20 years building MediaCom's culture,” MediaCom global CEO Nick Lawson says. “Protecting that culture was really our No. 1 priority.” The process was not painless, with employees making salary sacrifices or transitioning to shortened workweeks to help save jobs. In the end, the WPP media agency claims it avoided layoffs entirely in the U.S. while reporting a 7% revenue decline globally for the year. The agency’s investment in talent is already paying off as a deep bench helped MediaCom win new business, grow relationships with existing clients and expand capabilities while steering brands through the unique challenges of 2020. In the U.S., MediaCom increased its revenue 4% on the year, despite its commitment to avoiding layoffs. MediaCom also earned recognition for its DEI practices in the U.S. and committed to further progress globally. For its big-picture thinking, ability to provide the solutions clients needed in 2020, new business dominance (to the tune of an estimated $1.2 billion in new billings, according to COMvergence), seamless management of a global leadership transition and commitment to its people and culture, MediaCom is Adweek’s Global Media Agency of the Year. The handoff There was undoubtedly a shared experience in 2020: Just as people thought they had adapted to one major disruptive event, another one was right around the corner. At MediaCom—which was last named Adweek's Global Media Agency of the Year in 2018—that meant transitioning to a new global leader during Q2, the financial quarter hit hardest by the economic crisis. In July, Lawson officially succeeded Stephen Allen as global CEO and didn’t miss a beat. It helped that Lawson, a longtime agency veteran, had a complete understanding of operations as global COO and a plan to transform MediaCom's product offering with comprehensive marketing solutions engaging clients beyond media. “Our instinct at MediaCom has been to promote from within, which is why we have such longevity from our people,” Lawson, who has worked his way up from assistant planner and estimates he’s done about every job at MediaCom, tells Adweek. Last year, MediaCom filled 61% of leadership positions with internal candidates, and a further 10% came from within WPP media agency network GroupM or WPP more broadly. “It’s been one of those agencies that takes succession planning seriously,” GroupM U.K. CEO and WPP country manager Karen Blackett tells Adweek, crediting the practice for both talent and client retention. Helping clients through the pandemic Under Lawson's leadership, MediaCom expanded and evolved its capabilities in service of being a comprehensive partner to marketers and helped clients navigate the worst of the pandemic. The agency quickly developed tools to help clients and planners respond to the pandemic and its effect on media across industries with real-time media supply data and closely tracked information around consumer sentiment, health, media investment and search trends. “We had to create a fluid structure and a different way of working with our clients,” Lawson says. As MediaCom U.S. CEO Sasha Savic explains it, that included partnering with clients to redefine media and investment strategy to support ecommerce and respond to the dramatic business shifts of 2020, which often entailed moving away from traditional approaches to frequently engaging with consumers online. “In many cases, this created a level of complexity for the agency never seen before. … You can imagine how much you have to redefine and reframe the process within the agency," Savic says. In March, MediaCom client Signet Jewelers found itself in crisis, closing stores and unsure of its future. “The MediaCom team was incredible, jumping into the fire with us. We canceled and delayed as much of our media as we could for Mother’s Day, which is [usually] a big holiday for us,” says Signet CMO Bill Brace. “They were really effective at helping us reshape that plan to preserve cash as much as possible.” After Signet reopened later in the year, MediaCom worked tirelessly to create a media plan to address a holiday season like no other, pivoting to digital channels over an extended time frame beginning in September. The result? A more effective media plan at a lower investment, which Brace credits with contributing meaningfully to Signet’s $1.8 billion in holiday sales, equaling the previous year's total in spite of the pandemic. “That would not have been accomplished if we hadn’t developed such a tight working collaboration with their team to be able to start and stop and change on a dime,” he says. “Their people were working all through Thanksgiving weekend. They were online monitoring on an hour-by-hour or even minute-by-minute basis what our performance was on our spending.” Key wins: Walgreens Boots Alliance (global retention: $600 million), Hasbro (global: $225 million), Duracell (global: $100 million), Circle K (global: $90 million), Xiaomi ($96 million), Cell-C (South Africa: $27 million), P&G (Turkey: $35 million), Dabur (digital media, India: $40 million), FAW-Volkswagen (India: $70 million), Honda (China: $58 million), eBay (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg: $16 million), Bayer Women’s Healthcare (U.S.: $30 million). Losses: Air France (multiple markets: $15 million). Strategic moves: Nick Lawson succeeded Stephen Allan as global CEO; appointed Josh Krichefski as global COO; appointed Charlotte Frijns as global CFO; appointed Marina Günther Guzmán as Latin America and Caribbean CEO; unveiled the “Seeing the bigger picture” agency proposition and product offering. Global revenue: -7% YOY (Source: MediaCom); $1.4 billion (R3). New clients and expanded roles MediaCom’s business development team also helped the agency rebound from client budget cuts with a run of account wins, retentions and expansions. This included holding on to global retail pharmaceutical powerhouse Walgreens Boots Alliance—one of the year’s largest media reviews—and winning global responsibilities for Duracell and Hasbro. Global client president Frances Ralston-Good, who serves as client lead for P&G, Sony and Shell, says MediaCom focused on three areas of increased importance to clients: bringing messaging and media closer together, empowering clients to make informed decisions and adapting to a variety of approaches and situations. “The flexibility of the agency is about being able to service those different models,” Ralston-Good says. “There is no [one solution] of how to approach business for a client.” While buoyed by strong leadership, MediaCom’s new business successes in 2020 were a team effort. Savic estimates that at least 250 people participated in pitches throughout the year, some for the first time. Facilitated by the move to remote pitching and MediaCom's decision to save jobs, the approach allowed for deep conversations on prospective clients' marketing concerns and demonstrated the full strength of the team that would service their account. “In this new era, clients want the big-picture idea, the vision and delivery, and they want to be completely confident that the people and talent and the culture is such that you keep talent on the business,” Ralston-Good says. “That is the key differentiator; it’s the people.” More than an agency partner MediaCom began the year working with Uber on integrated planning and offline buying in the U.S., Canada and Australia. During the pandemic, MediaCom demonstrated its ability to act as a true partner as the company reprioritized its business with an emphasis on Uber Eats and pivoted to a more centralized model. “That’s when they started to truly shine, when our business was completely shifted upside down,” says Uber global head of media and social Travis Freeman. “They were always one step ahead, coming to us proactively with recommendations." In October, Uber consolidated the entirety of its global media business with MediaCom. By the end of 2020, MediaCom was such a trusted partner that Uber asked the agency to weigh in on its social media review. “During the pitch process, we consulted MediaCom about who they’ve worked with, who they’re seeing push boundaries in their pulses on culture,” Freeman says, adding that while not a decision-maker, MediaCom’s opinion went a long way. “They don’t feel like an agency partner,” Freeman says. “They feel like part of Uber.” Charter for change MediaCom’s commitment to people and culture has included renewed attention to mental health services and building a more diverse and equitable environment. “The culture at MediaCom is very diverse,” Blackett says. “It’s always been about cultural 'add' rather than cultural 'fit.'” In 2020, MediaCom earned the distinction of being the only media agency in the U.S. to gain recognition from the annual Diversity Best Practices Index list recognizing organizations utilizing established DEI best practices to create more inclusive workplaces. Savic credits recent initiatives, such as a commitment to considering diverse candidates for every position, and claims that about half of MediaCom’s leadership appointments in the U.S. over the past five years have come from diverse backgrounds. Last year, MediaCom formed a Global Belonging Council committed to doing more with its Charter for Change, including accountability measures, educational programs and inclusivity playbooks for planners, enhanced mentorship and sponsorship programs and support for community organizations. “[The council and charter] put our stake in the ground,” says Kevin Johnson, MediaCom Canada CEO, MediaCom Global Belonging Council chair and WPP Inclusion Council member. “We started talking about influencing communities and stating that inequality of opportunity has no place in business.” The bigger picture Near the end of 2020, MediaCom introduced a new “Seeing the bigger picture” agency positioning, offering a holistic approach to addressing clients' marketing concerns that Lawson explains is "about broader, deeper conversations that go beyond media to all of our clients' marketing activity." That seems fitting following a year of rapid consumer evolution that saw clients accelerating a transition to digital and ecommerce that otherwise may have taken years. “Our clients have gone through this extraordinary change," Lawson says. "They’re looking at the way they’re going to market in every way now. Our response is to provide specialist services.” MediaCom’s investments in talent and expanded capabilities should put it in a prime position to capitalize on new opportunities in 2021. “Keeping people and giving them financial security last year was the smartest investment we could have made in 2020,” Savic says, adding, “From all the transitions, we came out stronger, more closely tied to clients than ever. Clients think of us [not as] agents but as trusted partners and advisers, which is a beautiful place to be.” Key campaigns Uber, “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber” Last summer, Uber met consumers with a provocative anti-racist message, timed to the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, that included 13 billboards in major cities across America, telling viewers, “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” “MediaCom really pushed not just our creative agency [W+K] but also ourselves to put the appropriate lens on what we were doing—where we were placing things, when we were placing things, who we’re talking to—so that it didn’t come off as tone deaf,” says Uber global head of media and social Travis Freeman. “That started to pivot some of the creative and how the creative came to life because of their ability to tap into culture that made it authentic and relevant.” The attention to detail and cultural relevance helped lead to a wealth of earned media impressions, and MediaCom also led communications strategy for the campaign. “The placements tied back to civil rights movements. It was to that level that we thought about how this came to life in culture,” Freeman says. "When you see it in real life you got chills. You wouldn’t have got that without the strategy being so granular.” PS5 launch Sony went big with the latest entry in the platform wars, turning to MediaCom to develop its first global media strategy for the global launch of its PlayStation 5. The campaign launched simultaneously in over 50 markets, driving interest for the new system with high-profile placements including a rare branded makeover of the famed Oxford Circus Underground station sign in London. The PS5 launch was a massive success, selling between 2.1 million and 2.5 million units between two staggered launches, according to third-party analytical site VGChartz. Dell, Small Business PodFerence MediaCom worked with Dell to reach small-business owners with free podcasts spanning industries and featuring hosts such as Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis and theSkimm’s co-founders, Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin. PodFerence reached 16% awareness among small-business owners within four weeks, leading to 5 million downloads. Check out our full coverage: A New Rallying Cry Set the Perfect Tone for US Media Agency of the Year Wavemaker in 2020Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year PMG Weathered the Pandemic by Prioritizing People