Mindshare Launches New Global “Good Growth” Positioning

Mindshare, the media agency network that is part of WPP, is making a series of new appointments to its senior leadership and capabilities teams to support its new proposition of “Good Growth”.

Today the marketing and media ecosystem is dominated by geographically limitless digital platforms with billions of users. These platforms have connected people like never before and given them the power to demand more from brands – more transparency, more value, more action and more authenticity.

This is because these platforms are not like the ad breaks of old, they are the new countries where people live their lives – transacting, sharing, joining, venting, creating and following and this changes the rules of growth.

In this Platform Age your growth must be able to live:

• Beyond the single moment: Valuing lifetime customer value over short term sales. Getting locked into acquisition churn and burn will not drive sustainable growth.
• Beyond the single sale: If you only focus on optimising the sale it is a zero-sum game. Winning means winning a consumer’s trust, being the brand they value and can align their values with.
• Beyond single platforms: Because to truly grow you will need to succeed across multiple platform ecosystems and your own channels.

All agencies will promise clients growth, but with this approach Mindshare will deliver the difference between flash in the pan growth and ‘Good Growth’ – enduring, diversified, and more sustainable over time because it will align your business ambitions with the views and values of your consumers.

Mindshare Australia CEO Katie Rigg Smith told B&T, “it’s really about understanding that values are transcending the globe. It’s no longer enough to add value to a consumer a product or a service – we also have to align to their values.”

“Good Growth is about sustainable growth that delivers for clients, but also understanding what the client wants in their wider agenda, and how we are aligning to that.”

To drive Good Growth for clients and create the global media agency for the next era, Mindshare is making a series of leadership appointments:

Nilufar Fowler, Mindshare’s current global chief growth officer has been appointed to the newly created role of global chief client officer. Her remit is to ensure Mindshare meets the most pressing needs faced by its clients by creating client communities and connecting them across the agency, into GroupM services and with WPP capabilities, in order to ensure best access for Mindshare clients to the multiple services and capabilities required to drive Good Growth in the platform age.

Dan Reaume, currently chief development officer, Mindshare USA, becomes global chief growth officer, Mindshare. He will take on responsibility for driving the agency’s global growth through business development, leading with how the agency’s new Good Growth proposition can drive enduring and sustainable growth for clients.

Kristina Palmer Shedd has recently joined the agency as Mindshare’s global chief people officer. Palmer Shedd joined from Publicis Sapient, where she was VP Talent Acquisition, and is charged with leading Mindshare’s people operations globally, working to cultivate a good growth talent and transformation mentality, partnering closely with the people teams at GroupM and WPP.

Tom Johnson, currently chief digital officer, Mindshare Worldwide, takes on the new role of global chief solutions officer, spearheading the creation of solutions to help clients drive Good Growth, by combining capabilities from across Mindshare, GroupM and WPP based on client requirement, working closely with GroupM on the development of digital activation solutions.

Johnson will also lead Mindshare’s consulting offer ‘Change’, working with clients in a consultative capacity with a focus on organisational design, operating models, infrastructure, consumer strategy, automation and commerce.

Oliver Joyce, currently head of mindshare worldwide, US, will take on the new role of global chief transformation officer. Joyce will ensure that transformation is built into client Good Growth plans, connecting clients to Mindshare’s consulting offering ‘Change’.

Helen McRae was also recently announced as Mindshare’s new APAC CEO. McRae will help the agency’s clients in the region drive their business forward, nationally and globally, and also help the network leverage the platform expertise the region has developed in areas such as platform commerce to help drive Good Growth. A search for McRae’s replacement as EMEA CEO is already underway with internal and external candidates.

Shane McAndrew, currently chief data strategy officer, Mindshare USA, takes on the role of global chief data strategy and analytics officer, Mindshare. His remit is to build and scale world class agency and client solutions in data, technology and analytics, finding the unique balance of empathy and accuracy in data to allow Mindshare to deliver Good Growth strategies for clients.

Joe Maceda, currently chief instigation officer, Mindshare USA, takes on the role of global chief innovation officer, Mindshare.

His remit is to scale creativity and innovation in media, leveraging the fast-changing landscape and harnessing new approaches, such as neuroscience, as part of Mindshare’s core offering – adding more empathy-based intelligence solutions to the agency’s mix and preparing clients for the future of Good Growth.

Adam Gerhart, Global CEO, Mindshare, said: “Mindshare has always been, and always will be, about driving growth for our clients. Delivering Good Growth in the platform age is about how well you harness platforms, their ecosystems and their impact – for both business and good.”

“It requires a new and more holistic understanding of people, through the marriage of empathy and accuracy in solutions, to ensure brands deliver value to their consumers which is aligned with their own values at the same time – for enduring and meaningful growth to everyone in the ecosystem. These appointments will help us deliver Good Growth more effectively for our clients, accelerating business and advancing the world around us.”

The appointments follow a raft of changes at regional and country level for Mindshare around the world as it evolves its offering. Amanda Richman was appointed Mindshare North America CEO to fill the role vacated by Gerhart’s promotion to Global CEO.

Also in the US, Richetta Teal took on the role of Executive Director, People, having been promoted through the agency and Kevin Johnson was appointed as CEO of Mindshare Canada. In China, Mindshare appointed Ben Condit as CEO and Linda Lin as executive chair of Greater China.

Good Growth is underpinned by GroupM’s ‘Responsible Investment Framework’, with its five focus areas – Brand Safety, Data Ethics, DE&I, Responsible Journalism and Sustainability and GroupM’s stated aim of ‘Making Advertising Work Better for People’ and Mindshare is also actively involved in WPP’s stated commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions in its operations by 2025 and across its entire supply chain by 2030, with media making up the largest element of that supply chain.