As one of Australia’s most storied advertising agencies, Clemenger BBDO winning awards is not necessarily headline news. The agency has won Cannes Lions, B&T Awards and everything in between, and ‘Clems’ has been a creative force that has helped shape the Australian advertising industry at home and abroad.
Nonetheless, when Clemenger BBDO picked up a huge haul of silverware at the MFA Awards in September, including the Grand Prix, tongues were wagging at Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse, where the gala event took place.
Clemenger won silverware for its ‘Clash of the Commuters’ campaign with Samsung and Lifeblood for the Australian Red Cross.
The full service advertising agency, founded in 1946, has become synonymous with winning awards focused on creativity and craft, but not so much for media.
Clemenger BBDO has truly announced itself on the media stage, and new chief media officer Stuart Bailey told B&T that its combination of media planning and buying muscle, combined with the creative chops of Clems, makes it an enticing and effective proposition for clients.
“We made a statement at the MFA Awards,” Bailey, who was chief operating officer at Omnicom media agency PHD before joining Clemenger BBDO.
“We’re nowhere near the size of an OMD or an EssenceMediacom, but we’re not just going toe to toe, but outperforming them.
“We also won two awards for Lifeblood (on top of the four for Clash of the Commuters), which is more than most other agencies picked up, and that was from our Melbourne team. “So it’s not a one hit wonder. We’re doing this across multiple clients because we can leverage that creativity of being a media team that is part of a creative agency group.”
Bailey was hired to build its media function and capabilities, while the agency has been busy adding high level talent across the board.
The new look leadership team now includes Lee Leggett (CEO), Stephen de Wolfe (chief creative officer), Stuart Bailey (chief media officer), Simon Wassef (chief strategy and experience officer), Suzanne Croxford (chief experience officer), Thomas Penn (managing director), Mark Gretton, (chief technology officer), James Greaney (chief data officer) and Lindsay Bennett (head of communications).
A lot of Clemenger’s media team—which numbers north of 50 staff in Melbourne and Sydney—arrived from CHEP when it merged with Clemenger and Traffik.
Bailey’s media team includes senior figures such as Frank-Daniel Curcio (head of product), Bryce Cameron (head of investment), Patrick Sands (client partner), and Ben Cunnington (Samsung client lead).
Clemenger BBDO strategy director Sophie Gallagher played a key role in the award-winning Clash of the Commuters.
Clemenger BBDO currently handles around $120 million in billings—of which half is pure media clients—and has access to OMG’s scale, tools and automation, combined with Clemenger’s creativity, data, tech and experience.
“The big blocker historically with creative agencies, and having media and creative under one roof, has been the depth of those capabilities. But we have access to those capabilities within OMG—I was head of product and previously head of investment, and we understand how to leverage the best of OMG,” Bailey said.
“But we’ve also got incredible capabilities within Clemenger in the experience space, in tech and data space, which I would say is more creative.”
Bailey believes that Clemenger BBDO’s media division stands out from the pack because it integrates holding company media muscle within a creative environment and operates seamlessly from end to end, rather than sitting within an agency village or a bespoke offering led by media.
“One of the key things for me over the last 25 years, when I talk about the top three things that clients will be unhappy about, whether it’s number one, two or three—is the integration between creative and media agencies,” Bailey said.
“It’s always a bug bear, the ways of working agency villages is sometimes an issue. The benefit of having an integrated offering, with a strong media and really strong creative offering, is that when you get it right for clients like Samsung, it can supercharge the creativity. It’s simple things like having one connected strategy team across media and creative, and having one process that works across creative, media, data and tech. That brings everyone together for a brief like Clash of the Commuters, and we have great talent bringing that to life.”
Bailey is banking on his belief that there are many clients—which range in spend from $20 million to $70 million—who will find this connected approach appealing.
Clemenger is the media agency of record for Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, and both Samsung and Latitude Financial are onboard with the full service approach.
Since the merger, Clemenger has picked up two additional clients in Kmart and Colourbond, and B&T is aware of other examples, which are under client confidentiality, in which having a strong activation element helped Clemenger BBDO win the pitch.
“I’m hoping in the next year or so we would have seen good, sustainable growth. We’re not looking at $150 million to $200 million clients and trying to bring three of those in a year. We’re going to be trying to build a base on servicing current clients and bring in maybe two or three a year, but not lose one or two through the back end.”
