Meet Mark Coad: 'A Father, Funny Man & Calm Leader'
If The Media Edge was Coad’s career coming-of-age period, his time at Omnicom Media Group would thrust the country boy from Freshwater Creek into the national spotlight, forging a reputation as one of the industry’s most respected and formidable media bosses.
In part two, B&T explores Coad’s OMD and PHD years, his shift to IPG Mediabrands and what he enjoys outside of work.
In the early 2000s, DDB and Clemenger’s media departments united to form OMD. Its Sydney office was going strong, but Melbourne was having some difficulties and its headcount dropped to 10 people.
At the time, Mark Coad was rebuilding The Media Edge – as we discovered in Meet Mark Coad: Adland’s ‘Lovable, Loyal Larrikin’. The agency was starting to gain traction in the market when Clemenger Group chair Robert Morgan came knocking on Coad’s door to convince him to join OMD Melbourne to “make a fist of it”.
“Media Edge was where I cut my teeth running a setup, but OMD was my first proper grown-up job,” Coad said. “I went in as the MD and took on an agency. And the remit was pretty straightforward – put OMD Melbourne back on the map.”
At the time, OMD Australia was led by CEO James Greet, head of trading Peter Horgan, strategy lead Paul Payne and digital lead Leigh Terry.
OMD Melbourne’s clients included Dulux and Arnott’s but scaled after Clemenger Harvie added its media department, bringing in clients such as Mazda and Village Roadshow.
Coad’s first job was to rebuild the team and bring in new expertise, such as local trading and strategy leads, that would allow OMD Melbourne to raise its market profile.
Soon, the wins began flowing in with OMD Melbourne picking up dairy giant Fonterra.
The Glory Years
Coad’s tenure at OMD Melbourne came to an end when APAC chief Mike Cooper promoted him to OMD Australia CEO – a role he described as “pretty daunting”.
Nationally, the business had just won Telstra and was gunning for Johnson & Johnson, Westpac and Tabcorp.
“That’s when that group of five kind of came together and we started to find our form,” he said. “You felt like you’re playing in the big league and OMD was the biggest show in town. Some would argue that Mitchell’s was bigger, but we were way up there, and we were pitching for big, proper blue-chip banks, cars, FMCGs, the works.
“Leigh, Horgs, Payney and I shared an office, and we had a blast. We had found our groove and for a few years we won multiple agencies of the year and employer of choice awards. On one night we picked up nine MFA Awards. When you look back on your career, that period was a major purple patch.”
After a wave of success, Coad was being groomed to take over OMD’s APAC leadership but wanted to stay in Melbourne with his young family at the time. Instead, he opted for a move sideways to run Clemenger Harvie (now CHEP Network) for a couple years. It was a move he didn’t enjoy, admitting he felt like “a fish out of water”.
Horgan perhaps best described this period: “Coady was seduced by the lure of the creative agency crayons, grew a euphemistic ponytail and went over to run CHEP in Melbourne. But he then decided he missed us too much and came back to become CEO of PHD.”
Coad’s flip-flopping between creative and media agencies once earned him the moniker, ‘the Israel Folau of advertising’, but he knew where his heart lay.
The PHD years
Coad convinced Morgan to let him take the reins of the then fledgling PHD Australia in 2012, only three years after it had launched in Australia.
At the time of joining, PHD was primarily a Sydney agency (formerly Barry O’Brien’s Total Advertising) but had just won ANZ Bank as a client and required a Melbourne presence.
“My job was to turn PHD into a proper grown-up media agency. It was slightly larger than a startup, but its billings would be towards the lower end of RECMA rankings. By the time we left, we were number three or four.”
Major wins under Coad’s watch included Unilever and the Volkswagen Group accounts.
“I loved PHD. When I look back on it, it probably took a year or two to get the right people in place. There were some very good people, Toby Hack was a case in point. Excellent operator, but he wanted to go back to the UK,” Coad said.
“So, we brought in a lot of the right people to formulate the A-team and set about it. I look back with fond memories, we had a lot of fun, worked hard, won many awards and pitches. There was a real sense of achievement.”
What's he like to work with?
A colleague and friend that Coad mentored is PHD Australia’s current boss, Mark ‘MJ’ Jarrett, another OMD alumni who joined PHD as managing director overseeing its Sydney operation in 2016.
Jarrett said of Coad: “He’s just such a genuinely good and caring person that is focused on the people in the team and the right outcomes for them.
“He is always so positive, his glass is definitely always half full no matter the situation, and he is incredibly knowledgeable…once you get into the depth of a subject, he’s got a huge level of knowledge.”
MJ recalls how Coad’s positivity encouraged his PHD colleagues to create a Coad bingo card for positive sayings, or Coadyisms.
Others who have worked with Coad recall his calmness, empathy and ability to distil complex information into easy to understand soundbites.
Meissa Fein and Sam Geer, who now lead Accenture Song’s media arm, both worked with Coad at IPG Mediabrands, where they were leading Initiative through a purple patch.
“He screams dad,” said Geer. “One of the best things you can say about a leader is I’ve never seen him panic; you don’t feel that frantic-ness even though I’m sure he’s under a lot of pressure. It’s nice to have a safe, calm and consistent figure when everything around you feel pressured.”
Fein admires Coad’s ability to “cut through the bullshit”, explaining: “I vent sometimes about frustrations and he never pushes back. He’s always empathetic in the way that he talks you through that. He tries to feel what we’re all going through and be on the journey with us.”
The IPG Mediabrands years
In 2020, Coad joined Fein and Geer when he decided to take the helm of IPG Mediabrands, a position that had been vacated by Danny Bass six months earlier.
The decision to join IPG was about “scratching and itch that hadn’t been scratched”, and Coad was convinced to make the short walk from PHD’s Eveleigh offices to Mediabrands in Surry Hills by his old mate Leigh Terry, who is the IPG Mediabrands APAC lead.
“There’s a lot of offshoring happening throughout the industry, because a lot of those tasks can be done more efficiently elsewhere,” he said.
“When I came to Mediabrands, it helped inspire one of the biggest projects we’ve worked on, which is a whole transformation piece around automation, and removing all of that menial stuff.
“So, we’ve now invested a heap of time and money in the development of automated ways of working bots, and transforming the whole back end of the business.”
Coad describes the digital transformation of media planning and buying as well as the breadth of skills now required as the biggest change he has observed over the years.
“The progression through media agencies used to be linear,” he explained. “You bought regional TV, then you bought Metro TV, then you plan TV and so on; it was a very linear career progression.
“Now, with the explosion of skill sets in here, I wouldn’t know how to do the jobs of most people in this building.
“It changes your role because you’re not leading by example; you’re leading by inspiring and motivating people, and being able to identify and find the skill sets we need.”
He said that clients now expect media planners and buyers to drive growth and rely on media agencies for their counsel and strategic thinking.
He believes a lot of the grunt work will eventually go the way of automation and AI technology executing campaigns, rather than physically buying spots and impressions.
This transition to automated media buying has been going on for years, but Coad reckons that strategic thinking will become even more critical.
“Clients aren’t in the business of buying media, they’re in the business of growth, and how we can best advise them to achieve that growth will be our strongest proposition going forward,” he said.
Coad has also had to lead transformation on the leadership front for Initiative when Fein, Geer and Chris Colter left to join Accenture Song.
Recently Coad installed Jo McAllister to take the reins of Initiative just before Omnicom Media Group announced plans to acquire IPG Mediabrands.
It’s not beyond reason that Coad may one day reunite with Omnicom Media Group.
Coad's legacy, children & charity
Reflecting on his career, it is the human touch where Coad has excelled. He told B&T he receives no greater joy than nurturing the business leaders of today and tomorrow.
“I’d like to think that the businesses I’ve worked in have been better for it and that I’ve played a role in promoting people’s love of the industry and their own development, whether that’s things they’ve learned from me or even if it’s learning what not to do,” he said.
“I’m quite proud that I’ve been able to have an enduring career in what is now a fairly young industry, and I can keep leading good businesses.”
Outside of his day job, Coad is a loving father to Amelia, who works as a digital manager in PHD Melbourne, and Sam, who is studying agriculture and wants to become a farmer.
Sam told B&T he looks up to his father as a top bloke who inspired his own interests in farming and the great outdoors.
“He’s a very funny man. I wouldn’t tell him, but most of my jokes are just his jokes recycled,” Sam said.
“He is incredibly supportive and I don’t think he’s ever actually yelled at me, surprisingly, even though there were a few times he should have.
“I’ve said to him before that if I become a dad, I want to be exactly the sort of dad that he is. I’ve always looked up to him my whole life.”
A childhood memory that sticks out for Sam are annual Boxing Day trips down to Metung in Gippsland and being forced to listen to hours of cricket on ABC radio.
“Being a kid, I was never that interested in cricket, so I’m sitting there listening to these blokes talk about nothing on the radio, while dad is sitting there loving it. Most of our childhood memories come from Metung. It’s a very special place, very relaxing. We used to love going fishing on the boat.
Aside from family and farm, Coad spends a lot of time supporting the MFA as a board member and is heavily involved in charitable causes such as the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Commando Welfare Trust and The Variety Bash.
He has brought many friends in the industry to join the Variety Bash, including Service Now’s Tim Clemens, oOh!media’s Chris Freel, Procurement Australia’s Stephen Chaur in his police car-themed fundraiser across the country.
“Advertising it’s a wonderful industry and I love it, but there’s so many other ways in which you can make a contribution, whether it’s to the local community or your city you live in or people who need it more than you do,” he said.
Coad told B&T that although he is not near retirement, he would like to think his legacy is leaving the agencies he has led in better shape than when he found them and, importantly, raising the industry’s profile and talent along the way.
Coad’s cousin and industry stalwart Andrew ‘Billy’ Baxter believes his legacy will be defined by those he has raised and developed in the industry.
“When you look back at Mark, there’s been an incredible amount of future CEOs that have worked for him,” he said.
“That’s a pretty strong legacy when you’re helping build the next generation.”
Omnicom Media Group boss Peter Horgan added: “He was there for the incredible growth for OMD in the late noughties when it went from a mid-sized agency to a market leader.
“He has grown so many careers and given so much back to the industry through the MFA, charitable endeavours and makes everyone love this industry.”
After an hour and half speaking to Coad in his Surry Hills office, and also with several folk who know him best, it becomes clear to B&T that Coad’s legacy extends well beyond advertising. There are few more generous and giving media executives in the country who devote their time and efforts to helping those in need and the local community.
It’s little wonder Sam, Amelia and so many of his mates and peers in the industry look up to the country boy from Freshy.
