When Pete Bosilkovski joined Clemenger BBDO Sydney as CEO just over a year ago, he found clients had polarising perceptions of the agency.
Despite receiving the same experience, some loved it and others didn’t at all.
To resolve this, one of his first ports of call was to introduce two new values within the company: energy and mentality.
“In my opinion, energy beats everything. You can look at a problem in two different ways - one where the glass is half full or where the glass is half empty,” Bosilkovski tells AdNews.
“What’s the energy that you’ve got to look at [a client’s problems] from a glass half full, so you can provide a solution that’s never been seen before?
“You can be talented and have all the skills but if you’re not one who walks into a room and injects oxygen but takes oxygen out, I’m just not sure you’re going to break new ground or innovate.”
The other value he instilled into the agency was one about mentality.
Borrowed from his love of sport, Bosilkovski says becoming “mentality monsters” has been a key differentiator for the agency as it spins itself back into the adland spotlight.
“Having that mentality monster ethos is how we transformed this company and ensured that we became the A team that was providing results that surprised people,” he says.
“Not only that we surprised ourselves but we surprised a lot of our current clients, our prospective new clients. That attracted different kinds of people to the company.”
Like many others, Bosilkovski had plans for 2020 that were halted as some of its clients began to take the hit from COVID-19.
Despite the small bump in the road though, the agency managed to grow more during this year than it had prior to the pandemic.
In the last 12 months, Clemenger BBDO Sydney brought in 26 new clients - both big and small.
Bosilkovski says the agency’s growth during the period came down to broadening the scope of work it was doing for clients and bringing in different talent.
The agency has been hiring for new roles across areas including social, customer experience (CX), (UX) and front end and back end development, as well as promoting internally and bringing in the right freelancers where needed.
“COVID has ignited cognitive diversity in the business because by bringing in different thinkers, it’s just meant we’re thinking about business problems in a very different way,” he says.
With client needs rapidly changing agencies are having to evolve their offering and become more agile.
Acting in “beta mode” has been core to Bosilkovski’s plans to drive change within the agency.
From building out its CX and UX capabilities to creating packaging designs and being appointed as digital agency of record for Tourism Tasmania, Clemenger BBDO Sydney has begun to prove itself as more than just a traditional creative shop.
“There’s a sense of fear of doing something perfect, and when you do something perfect and it fails, then you’re hesitant to try again,” he says.
“I think what’s been our secret sauce is just being able to try things and be very experimental. Formulating a plan but not being scared to reiterate.
“All we’ve been doing is giving it a go and actually putting things into practice. Where it’s worked, great. Where it hasn’t, then you learn.”
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