Amy Dascanio and Justin Ladmore. Credit: Enigma
Enigma has grown its media operation to 35 from six people in 12 years, but the agency's integrated model is making recruitment and training harder as it scales.
The Newcastle-founded agency has quadrupled revenue since managing director Amy Dascanio joined in 2014, while its Sydney operation, established 10 years ago, now has 25 staff across media and creative.
Enigma has 15 clients with more than 10 years' tenure and 28 with more than five years, with growth coming from major new wins such as Australian Pork and organic expansion with clients including Red Energy and NEX Building Group.
The agency's model brings strategy, planning, buying, performance, data and technology into integrated client teams rather than splitting them into separate disciplines.
That creates a recruitment problem. Enigma is not simply looking for people to fill specialist roles. It needs people who can understand how different parts of a media operation work together.
"When the team is built, or when we're actually looking at talent, replacing a role is actually harder because you've specifically built that person's talent," Dascanio told AdNews.
"Replacing it like-for-like isn't always possible because that whole skill set doesn't always exist in the market."
Dascanio said the agency has responded by looking beyond conventional job descriptions and developing people internally.
"We had a guy that used to work with us for over 10 years, a data guy. And again, we didn't have a role at the time, but you can make roles," she said.
That approach has become more important as the agency has grown.
Dascanio joined Enigma after working in investment at EssenceMediacom and was determined not to reproduce the traditional split between traditional and digital media.
"I was very adamant to not split the traditional and the digital. For me, it had to sit as one," she said.
The model was easier to maintain when the agency was smaller.
"I think at the first five years it was probably easier, and then at that five-year-plus it probably got harder," Dascanio said.
Enigma responded by adding specialist capability while keeping those disciplines inside integrated client teams.
"When we talk about integrated teams, it's not integration like on an org chart, as in, yes, we've got strategy, planning," chief media officer and partner at Enigma, Justin Ladmore, told AdNews.
"What we've built is a truly integrated client team where it all sits together."
The expectation is that people understand what other parts of the team are doing, rather than operating inside their own discipline.
"The performance people know what the brand stuff is doing, and the brand awareness people know what the performance people are doing and how it all connects," Ladmore said.
That makes the model harder to recruit for, but it also changes what Enigma has to teach.
AI is now removing some of the repetitive work that traditionally formed part of an agency apprenticeship.
For Enigma, that raises a question about how junior staff learn the fundamentals when some of the work that once gave them that experience can be done by technology.
"For me, I don't think we can force-fit what we used to do onto this new generation. We have to change how we're leaning into what they know to coach them in a different way," Dascanio said.
That is pushing the agency to rethink its Media Academy and broader approach to developing talent.
Ladmore said younger staff generally adapt to the technology quickly. The harder task is teaching them how to assess and question what it produces.
"They're young but the tech part they get pretty quickly," he said.
Dascanio said the ability to ask the right questions is becoming more important.
"I think that's the skill set that's getting lost as new people come through," she said.
She sees the gap as one of experience. Senior staff have years of media knowledge that informs how they use technology, while juniors are still learning the fundamentals.
"I know what to prompt it because I've got 20 years of experience," Dascanio said.
That is the part of the apprenticeship Enigma is trying to preserve.
The agency's integrated model also relies on the same broad understanding of media that AI is forcing it to rethink. People need to understand how channels and disciplines connect, rather than simply learn how to execute tasks within one of them.
Dascanio and Ladmore's own working relationship reflects that approach. Ladmore came from planning while Dascanio worked in investment, and their different perspectives have become part of how they assess ideas.
Ladmore describes himself as the dreamer, while Dascanio tests whether an idea can be delivered and whether it works for the client.
"Then the idea turned into something that was much better because of the questions that Amy put around it," Ladmore said.
That shorthand has become useful as Enigma has grown.
"We don't have to have long meetings with each other to get to a decision. It's really quick because we're really clear on what that end goal is," he said.
The agency's scale has also changed the business it is competing for.
Enigma said winning Australian Pork demonstrated its ability to compete for national business against larger agencies, while long-term clients such as Red Energy and NEX Building Group have grown with the agency.
Ladmore said the agency's Newcastle base, once something it had to work around when competing nationally, is now part of its ambition.
"We want to be a world-class media agency and creative agency founded out of Newcastle. We're not world-class yet, and we're on a journey to do that, but it's basically guiding us," he said.
Enigma is also investing in technology, but independence puts limits on how much it can spend.
"The biggest constraint is sometimes we don't have infinite resources like some of the Holcos," Ladmore said.
He said the constraint has also forced the agency to be more selective about what it builds.
"Not having all the resources at our fingertips has made us work harder for it and being very deliberate on what we're building."
That approach now extends to training.
Enigma has spent more than a decade building an integrated model around people who can understand the craft as well as their particular discipline. AI is changing the work through which younger staff traditionally learned that craft.
The agency's challenge is to work out what replaces it.
For Dascanio, the answer lies in developing the ability to question the technology rather than simply use it.
"The questions, and I think that's the craft and that's the skill set that I think will become more and more important," she said.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.