Credit: Kutan Ural vua Unsplash
As coups go, it was almost a stress-free event. The changing of the guard at brand agency Principals was executed without a drop of blood.
Hamish Cargill has taken over from Tom Brigstocke, who has been CEO for 27 years at the Principals, founded in 1995.
“There's lots of different ways these sorts of changes can occur, including as a by-product of being acquired with senior people coming in,“ said Tim Riches, former group strategy director and principal, and now chief strategy officer in the new leadership team.
“But this happened more or less as we expected it to be when we started on the journey, the best part of 10 years ago.”
Majority ownership sits with Riches and Cargill, along with a group of shareholders among staff.
The focus is on stability, continuity and freshness with a team of 75 members.
“From a client perspective, we're trying to make it a relatively seamless transition,” Cargill told AdNews.
“Majority ownership is with us, but we also have a good group of shareholders that all work in the business.
“The 10-year plan was to bring in the new generation of shareholders. We led that charge and others have come in as well to create that sense of a perpetual partnership, which is really what we want to set the business up as.
“How do you create a model that's really sustainable for an independent agency?”
The state of agencies here and across the world, apart from a number of independents, is in flux. CEOs don't seem to last long. Does Principals have a better system?
“We are stable, particularly at the senior level,” Riches said.
“One of the biggest positive consequences of that, from a culture point of view, is that there's a clear sense of who we are and what we're like to work with as an agency.
“It's not easy times in agency land, and one of probably one of the most powerful benefits of continuity is having a critical mass of senior people who have their own individual reputations and connections in the market.
“That creates quite a strong gravitational pull of long-standing relationships, trusted relationships with clients.
“We have that senior team. We probably have a dozen people in the business that are magnets for past clients to keep coming back to.
“A client really needs a trusted partner to do a big brand change. It's not business as usual, it's high stakes.
“They really help our pipeline but we are mindful at the same time that we need to make sure that there is freshness as well. It's not the same old people doing the same old thing.
“I think we've done a pretty good job pulling new people into the business, new types doing new skills.”
But what type of CEO will Cargill be and what will he bring to the organisation?
Cargill said he wants to be known for fairness, decisiveness and client success
“Firstly fairness, around the team, around the way we engage with clients and creating a great experience for everyone on both sides of that.
“I think decisiveness is really important at this time, particularly for independent agencies who do have that opportunity to carve their own path.
“A need to be able to make decisions quickly, to be able to really back the decisions that we make, but also be sure to engage the right people.
“I think that's part of what Tim (Riches) was saying around the senior team but also the great respect we have across our management and our directors for each other and our ability to get in and make good decisions. I think that is something we'll need to keep working on.
“And finally, I want to be known for success. Yes, there's obviously business success and that is something that we will continue to drive.
“Then there's the success that comes from client work delivering beyond expectations, that outstanding strategic and creative work.
“It's a challenging market that we're operating within, and we need to be really agile and adaptive to that as we chart our course over the next few years.”
Principals, as a brand agency, has a lot of project-based business, even the bigger relationships such as NAB over two decades.
“Pitches in our world occur when clients are trying to change course or change direction or do something significant and new,” said Riches.
“Probably the one of the most defining characteristics of the market over the last few couple of years has been the challenge of keeping those big projects on track, keeping momentum, making sure the client has clear mandates for the project and maintaining business appetite on the client side.
“A long, slow, protracted project is huge pressure.
“Definitely one of the key challenges for us is to make sure that we're as smart and simple and outcome-oriented, and on point, as as we can be.
“A couple of years ago we had a bit of an internal revelation and we reset around that desire for simplicity, streamlining, cutting through to deliver outcomes.
“I think that the market's been more or less consistent in terms of the number of significant projects we're fortunate enough to be invited to pitch for.
“But conversions are under pressure for most agencies around pricing, around smart ways of delivering, being able to differentiate yourself from the next player and put the emphasis on value.
“I'd say it's been challenging on the client side, in terms of project mandates and project delivery and keeping momentum, stopping them stalling or falling over.
“It's been challenging on the agency and pitch side around the value equation that you put forward and the distinctiveness of that.”
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