Creativity in crisis has turn out to be a running theme in marketing. Ad agencies, facing a wave of disruption, are falling under sharper pressure as the fundamentals of the business drift further away from big brand-building ideas toward performance marketing. As creative agencies attempt to shake off a repute as tech laggards and look to reignite growth, latest tactics are rising in popularity — and coming with steep learning curves.
Customer relationship management (CRM) and certifications in platforms like Salesforce — previously unsexy areas for creatives averse to direct marketing — have gained traction amid this sea change. CRM has found fresh purchase with consumer-facing CMOs in addition to they seek services related to first-party data that may combat intensifying signal loss.
“CRM provides such a wealthy understanding of audiences and it helps facilitate data-driven creative,” said Jay Pattisall, vice chairman and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “[Creatives] are the last agency type, in case you will, to essentially pursue this strategy.”
Enter FCB/Six, a unit inside Foote, Cone & Belding that has won a spate of latest business and recently expanded into territories like India which can be shaping up as necessary agency battlegrounds of the future. FCB/Six’s winning streak, embodied in 15% revenue growth in 2023, has been driven by what leaders at the Interpublic Group-owned agency view as an neglected value proposition: Bringing a creative mindset to some of the drier conversion-based marketing spaces, including Salesforce. The group doesn’t break out specific revenue figures.
FCB Global CEO Tyler Turnbull
Permission granted by FCB
Analysts say FCB/Six is indicative of the way industry winds are blowing, where the agency landscape’s creative stalwarts must adapt or wither in the face of shifting CMO needs. Clients include Jeep owner Stellantis, supermarket chain Sobeys, QuickBooks and Škoda Auto. Earlier this yr, FCB/Six was named as the CRM agency of record for Mazda Canada.
“FCB/Six has done a powerful job of marrying creative with data,” said Greg Paull, co-founder and principal at independent consultant R3, in an email. “Because CRM is core to their deliverables, they’ve gone further than typical creative agencies on this space.”
And while specialties like CRM may carry a repute for being boring, or at the very least an odd fit for the usual creative toolbox, part of FCB/Six’s pitch is that this doesn’t necessarily should be the case.
“This is a canvas for creativity that we predict is undervalued and underleveraged,” said Tyler Turnbull, FCB’s global CEO and a key architect of FCB/Six. “If we apply higher pondering to that space, we may also help our brands grow and win.”
A network under pressure
FCB/Six’s double-digit growth contrasts with broader struggles at IPG, which has contended with a slowdown in tech spending, the sudden loss of large accounts and bumpy efforts to show around once-darling digital specialists like R/GA and Huge. IPG is currently exploring “strategic alternatives” for each of those agencies. The network, a member of promoting’s Big Four, began the yr by selling Hill Holliday and Deutsch New York to Attivo Group, a marketing services upstart based in New Zealand.
IPG reported organic growth of 1.7% in Q2, with net revenue totaling $2.33 billion. Those results were in step with Wall Street’s expectations but landed lower than the organic growth rate of rivals like Publicis and Omnicom. The sudden departure of the Pfizer business in the spring rattled the network. FCB’s Chicago office in May laid off 9% of its staff as a consequence of the Pfizer blow while the larger IPG Health division cut 5% of its U.S. workforce in June.
FCB/Six, which has gathered force over the past eight years, could possibly be viewed as a future-proofing bet. FCB/Six is bolstered by insights from IPG offerings like Acxiom, the data-marketing firm the network acquired for $2.3 billion in 2018, and Kinesso, a market-intelligence group that debuted a yr later.
“CRM provides such a wealthy understanding of audiences and it helps facilitate data-driven creative.”
Jay Pattisall
Vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research
FCB/Six tends to play a quieter, behind-the-scenes role in step with its remit around data management and activation. That’s to not say its scope is small: FCB/Six aids in every little thing from data governance — an area of rising priority for CMOs concerned about security and compliance — to enabling higher personalization on channels like email, digital and social. For small teams like that of Scene+, a Canada-based loyalty program jointly owned by Cineplex’s Galaxy Entertainment, Scotiabank and Empire Company, FCB/Six is crucial for constructing data systems that may scale personalized creative work while ensuring proper governance is applied.
“They have the technical expertise in terms of how we manage our customer data in the way that’s most effective and effective,” said Lisa Doke, executive director of marketing at Scene+.
A competitive set
The initial revival of CRM took hold amongst agencies in the media and commerce verticals — think Dentsu’s acquisition of Merkle, from 2016 — but has, over time, come to influence many features of the marketing pipeline.
“[Creatives] were slower to take this up as a method because they simply come from a special world,” said Pattisall. “The data literacy will not be as high inside the creative agencies across the board because it is in comparison with media agencies or digital agencies.”
Other players wedding CRM, loyalty and creativity include Publicis’ Digitas and Razorfish and Omnicom Precision Marketing Group, in keeping with Pattisall. CRM and similar precision-oriented tactics have also guided recent dealmaking and streamlining initiatives.
WPP’s merging of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R into VML and Ogilvy resurrecting its Ogilvy One brand dedicated to direct marketing are some recent examples. VML executives have seen increasingly high demand for CRM and loyalty related services in 2024, Marketing Dive previously reported.
“They are likely to be the larger global network corporations which can be doing this because they’re the ones that see the advantage of scale,” said Pattisall. “There’s a trend where that is beginning to occur and these are the early examples of it.”
A vital hire
FCB/Six today has a global footprint but its origins are found up north, in Canada. The brand was spun out of an email marketing services offering called Rivet, in 2016, with the aim of improving FCB’s know-how in areas including front-end design, user experience and data-driven marketing. FCB/Six picked up traction over the course of a number of years, broadening scope in North America in 2018, but sped up growth on the back of a vital hire in 2021.
FCB Global Chief Data and Intelligence Officer Tina Allan
Permission granted by FCB
Tina Allan, then at Omnicom’s BBDO, was serving as a judge at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and was impressed by FCB’s work on “Whopper Detour,” a widely praised campaign the agency handled for Burger King that used geoconquesting tactics to divert traffic away from rivals like McDonald’s. Susan Credle, an IPG fixture who this yr was appointed as the ad-holding group’s first creative advisor, formed a reference to Allan, eventually drawing the executive to FCB.
“When Tina got here in, it was some extent where we had an enormous ambition for where we desired to take the FCB/Six brand. We desired to take it from Canada to the world,” recalled Turnbull, who began at FCB Canada. “Things accelerated from that.”
FCB/Six has won over 50 data and performance assignments since Allan joined the business three years ago. The executive, who was promoted to global chief data and intelligence officer of FCB late last yr, has spearheaded the push into international markets, including India, that analysts perceive as providing a strategic advantage. Headcount doubled in 2023 because of launches in Brazil, New Zealand and London, while FCB/Six had added an extra 200 employees to date this yr, contrasting with layoffs elsewhere in the sector.
“A data led agency with a world footprint is a highly competitive proposition.”
Greg Paull
Co-founder and principal, R3
“More and more global marketers are attempting to streamline agency relationships with their partners,” said R3’s Paull. “A data led agency with a world footprint is a highly competitive proposition.”
Agent of ‘change management’
While FCB/Six’s trajectory has been upward, following that path hasn’t come without its snags. One of the first projects for Allan was streamlining a patchwork of talent and platforms that were present when she signed on to FCB. In her terms, she was tasked with “change management.” Allan explained how it will probably be harder to shake up a company that’s already doing well versus one which is on the skids and in need of a wholesale reinvention.
“I only consider in double-digit growth,” said Allan. “I get my hands dirty. I believe so much of people don’t.”
“Media is great, but media is simply one customer touchpoint right away. Especially as we move into commerce, which is a big focus for us, the world’s going from brand to purchase.”
Tina Allan
Global chief data and intelligence officer, FCB Global
While Allan declined to get into specifics, her agenda involved moving employees off of legacy platforms that now not gelled with FCB/Six’s roadmap. The executive viewed one of her biggest obstacles as historical talent in developed data roles who needed to ditch their old ways of working and relearn the ropes. A drive for simplification and stronger internal alignment raised some hackles but proved needed to get the engine up and running for FCB/Six.
“The pruning was about so much of traditional, I’d say generic, product offerings that didn’t really offer you real-time insight,” said Allan.
Since that first yr, Allan’s three strategic priorities have been connecting ad tech and martech through deeper partnership with Salesforce, including providing training and certifications for workers; identifying addressable audiences to bridge creativity and media; and leaning further into data via IPG assets like Acxiom. That attitude helps FCB/Six capitalize on a growing appetite amongst CMOs for performance marketing, embodied in higher spending on channels like retail media, widely viewed as the fastest-growing area of digital.
“Media is great, but media is simply one customer touchpoint right away. Especially as we move into commerce, which is a big focus for us, the world’s going from brand to purchase right away,” said Allan. “Most agencies are going to sit down of their swimlanes. We’re not in that business.”
Future pipeline
Looking ahead, Turnbull’s philosophy is one of optimism and what he calls a “never-finished spirit” for FCB/Six and the broader FCB agency, which has grown at the global level for five consecutive years. Account wins, equivalent to the appointment as CRM agency of record for Mazda Canada, underpin momentum stemming from FCB/Six’s differentiated capabilities. Announcing the pick, Mazda executives specifically called out expertise with Salesforce as a reason for deeper partnership.
“From a brand new business perspective, we’ve never had more opportunities globally than we now have right away,” said Turnbull.
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