Marketing veteran Andrew Holt (pictured), the former CEO of VCCP and MD of Clemenger BBDO Wellington and Sydney, has launched a marketing consultancy providing strategic advice to help businesses realise their brands’ full potential and unlock greater revenue growth.
Holt, who has worked at some of the biggest creative agencies in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand during his more than 20-year career, has started The Whole Picture to challenge the marketing myopia that has seen the industry become increasingly tactical and communication centric.
“Brand is the most powerful commercial tool available to any business and yet many are failing to leverage the full potential of it,” Holt said.
“Too often, brand is seen as a cost rather than a fundamental driver of business growth and as marketing continues to get more complex and marketers are pulled in many directions, it is all too easy for the short-term agenda or the novelty of the new to distract from building the brand in a 360-degree holistic way.”
Holt has developed a Whole Brand Scorecard and Whole Thinking Process to focus a strategic spotlight on business and brand challenges across four distinct perspectives. With a ‘collaborative consultancy’ approach, the emphasis is on uncovering actionable insights that will engage the whole business in brand thinking.
He added, “the Whole Picture has been designed to assist marketers take a step back and see the whole brand ecosystem to ultimately unlock greater value for customers, stakeholders and the wider community.”
The Whole Picture is currently working with Adelaide-headquartered BusTech Group which is pioneering Australia’s transition to zero-emission mass transit and Brabham Automotive, manufacturer of Australia’s first supercar.
Christian Reynolds, executive chairman of the BusTech Group said, “working with The Whole Picture helped us unlock value by consolidating our bus brand portfolio and pivoting the business to become an enabler of next generation connected transit solutions – creating growth by providing sustainable environmental and economic change for all Australians.”
Holt added, “the world’s most valuable brands are whole bands and closer to home it’s exciting to see those such as NRMA, Aldi and Xero embracing whole brand thinking, but there are too many Australian businesses, large and small, that are leaving value on the table by not seeing the whole picture.”
Holt has worked with innovative businesses and challenger brands such as Compare The Market, Cadbury, ING, Foxtel, Vodafone, New Zealand Post and Air New Zealand, across his extensive career in advertising.
For more than two years he led the Australian operation of UK headquartered independent network VCCP and worked at BBDO agencies across Australasia, starting as a business director at Colenso BBDO in Auckland before being promoted to managing director of Clemenger BBDO Wellington. Returning to Australia in 2015 he was appointed MD of Clemenger BBDO Sydney and has also worked at Saatchi & Saatchi, Lowe Hunt and DDB.
