Team Publicis Media’s Spark Foundry got off to a flier when it picked up the Cancer Council Victoria account and retained Ancestry.com, globally. 

Astutely led by captain Imogen Hewitt and vice-captain Matt Turl, the agency has risen to become one of the market’s heavy hitters, increasing the media billings it handles by 24.5 per cent to north of $422 million, according to COMvergnce data. To put that into context, the advertising market shrunk by 2.7 per cent and only stablemate Zenith grew billings by more among the top 15 agencies.

Spark added some serious bench strength to its leadership group. This included former IAG group brand strategy director Caroline Hugall, who joined as chief strategy officer. While long serving data and analytics guru Benjamin Petremont was elevated to chief data and analytics officer.

The agency’s success is built on three pillars: providing certainty in media planning; striking the right balance between brand and performance; and creative media planning, which is knowing when to put in a goosestep on the media plan to open up the most effective plays.

Spark also employs a full-service model with all media disciplines sitting within the agency.  This means that strategists play alongside analysts and planners in harmony, translating their outputs to search, social, programmatic and screen specialists. 

And it appears clients are leaning in, with a 70 per cent success rate in pitching battles. In 2023, Spark won Ancestry and Lindt. The agency ended the year with 40 clients, including the likes of Arnott’s Group, HCF, Peters, Toyota and Westpac. Spark prefers to play the long game, with several hanging around for more than a decade.

Just as importantly, Spark’s teammates are loyal, with market-leading staff retention rates in Sydney and Melbourne. It also scored highly in the diversity states; 67 per cent of its leadership team are women and 27 per cent of the team speak a language other than English at home.

Spark employees are able to work abroad for six weeks each year, and the agency has programs that help new mums and dads readjust to work after a period on the sidelines, as well as the ‘Working with Cancer’ initiative, which guarantees 12 months’ salary for employees suffering from serious illness.

Right near the final whistle, team captain Hewitt passed on the Spark Australia armband to Turl in December. Hewitt will now manage Sparks ANZ region and Publicis Media.

The question is whether Turl can continue the agency’s steady rise up the ladder, or will he provide the spark for even greater things to come.