If it’s Monday, it must be…anywhere in the world. From a travel perspective it’s been the busiest start to a year that TBWA Worldwide president and CEO Troy Ruhanen can remember in quite some time.
He’s spent much of the first quarter visiting clients and offices across the TBWA network. That included a visit to Canada, where TBWA took the unusual step of merging the struggling DDB with Juniper Park\TBWA last year and recently appointed a new creative lead to oversee both agency brands.
New business is slow at the moment, so maintaining strong relationships with existing clients is essential. “[W]e’re spending a lot of time with clients everywhere and looking at more things we can develop with them so that we’re not just considered an advertising-only agency [and] much more about delivering the total brand experience,” said Ruhanen, who marks his 10th year with TBWA in July.
Ruhanen spoke with Campaign about the network’s new leadership team led by CEO Eve Rémillard-Larose, the January appointment of chief creative officer Adam Reeves across both DDB and Juniper Park\TBWA, and why he thinks the standard for creativity across the industry has become “pretty bloody average.”
It was about a year ago that you ran the ad “The last big ad from the last big agency on Madison Avenue” which mentioned the end of “old advertising and the dawn of a whole new thing.” How far has TBWA progressed on that journey?
We definitely are advertising-plus. I don’t want to say we’re not about advertising because we do it, we love it, and we do it well.
[Many top brands are] not interested in just getting an advertising solution. [They say] ‘I have this problem or opportunity, what’s the best way to do that?’
To confine yourself to a convention like [advertising] would be not great for the future business, or creative opportunities. We’re definitely about the total brand experience—there’s no doubt about that.
We’ve got this whole approach that we have and looking at other ways we can provide solutions for them. It’s been going really well. Last year we grew 14 of our top 20 global accounts, which is pretty good.
So, does this kind of outlook mean that you’re competing with the consultancies for business?
No, only because I don’t think they’re very good at completing things. I think they’re very good at starting things. I think we’re far better at actually identifying something and driving towards a solution and getting something out in a timely fashion, and doing it in a much more creative, compelling way.
Accenture bought Droga5 for a reason, because they knew they couldn’t do that. The others are trying to do that organically, and quite frankly when we go up against the consultants, we win nine times out of ten. I don’t fear them at all.
In the last few years, we’ve added 34% to our strategic payroll globally. We’re at 11,000 people [worldwide] so you can imagine how many people that is. I think a lot of the other consultants … don’t do it in as compelling as fashion as we do.
Agencies have found themselves in the service culture, and that’s a very dangerous place to be. We’re much more in the product culture, and that’s a much more provocative and interesting place. We feel we can control our destiny much more that way.
So you feel organic growth is the true barometer of success.
There’s nothing better than clients seeing value in you as a partner. It gives me more joy many times over than winning a piece new business. A lot of new business, and how many times do you see this, they’re in for three years and they’re gone. There aren’t as many clients that are in it for the [long haul]. We’ve had business like Apple for over 35 years. I get more joy out of seeing that success happen.
I like hard work that keeps getting better. There’s nothing better than seeing your fifth campaign [for a client] being the most successful. It means you really sweated it, and you understand it. That’s joy.
The classic advertising portion of it is flat. Where real growth is coming is in other dimensions—new lines and services and new skills, new experiences we’re creating. That’s far greater than new business growth.
We recently wrote a series of articles for our launch as Campaign about how Canada can become more of a power on the world stage. Can you provide some commentary on the work you’re seeing here, and is it the kind of work that can extend beyond our border?
I give no slack to any market in the world. When I worked at BBDO, the best agency we had in the network was New Zealand. That’s an agency under 100 people. No one is able to claim size as a barrier. Right now, Uruguay is an interesting agency for us, with a creative department of about seven people.
It really isn’t a matter of size; it’s a matter of what level of innovation do you have inside your company?
I think Canada is underrated as a market. Canada is a real market for us. It has tremendous potential. We’re really excited about the opportunities with our new leadership team, with the mindset of disruption with Adam [Reeves, the Canadian-born creative who joined TBWA\Group as CCO for JP\TBWA and DDB earlier this year], and I really see no reason why Canadian work can’t be the standard for the world? Why has Thailand been it? why has Brazil been it. Why has New Zealand been it? Because they’ve just decided to be it, and that’s how they do it.
One thing about Omnicom is we’re not one solution only. We’ve got much more flexibility to our model. If we can take the best of the best and then apply it to particular client need, that’s in the client interest. It works for me, and I’m very happy.
You’ve alluded to Adam and his dual role with both DDB and JP\TBWA. Does that create difficulties or opportunities, and was there a specific rationale as to why you chose to do it that way?
In Omnicom, we’ve had a few markets around the world where you’ve seen the Omnicom advertising group develop where you’ve got one leader of a group in a market. There are obviously benefits to being able to share certain assets inside our portfolio that can be scaled across all businesses.
We saw a great leader there, and saw no issue with being able to share that. With Edmonton with DDB, and with Toronto largely TBWA, you’ve also got a fair bit of separation, even though some [agency] brands do co-exist geographically, there’s enough scale difference between the two. I don’t think we have any issue there on attention and competitiveness.
One thing about Omnicom is we’re not one solution only. We’ve got much more flexibility to our model. If we can take the best of both and then apply it to particular client need, that’s in the client interest. It works for me, and I’m very happy.
Adam’s been in place since January. Can you talk about what he brings to the role?
I’ve known Adam a long time. I used to work with him at BBDO in New York, and I’ve seen the quality of his thinking, his craft and expertise, and his ability to drive teams to get a standard of work that is not just popular, [but] able to drive impact.
I know some of his other history through some sister agencies like Goodby—which are very planning led organizations with great creative standards. I love rigour turning into solutions, and I know that Adam appreciates that tremendously. That’s important for us, because we’ve got disruption as our methodology and our process strategy. He has a crazy good energy and, this is underrated in our business, he’s very kind.
Being able to work with people that have empathy and also have understanding and are good listeners and just want to do the right thing. I think there are some very selfish people who have come and gone in our business, and he’s not one of them.
In an interview from Cannes last year you called the general level of creativity across the industry “pretty bloody average.” Do you still feel the same?
You’ve got to understand, I have a very high bar. We will critique our work on Apple just as hard as we critique anything else.
I think that a lot of work, to be frank, has been lost behind purpose. I think we’ve forgotten about the product. In the end, I think it’s been soft work that I don’t think is driving business. We want real work for real clients to make real impact.
I’m a bit tired of seeing a body of work [for a client] that I bet you doesn’t belong to that agency six months from the time they’ve won that Gold award. I just think it’s bullshit, and I’m just so tired of this game. If that’s the standard, then I don’t want to be part of that standard.
I really want to be part of seeing great McDonald’s work, or great work on Pepsi. It doesn’t have to be for big clients, it just has to be real clients.
And it doesn’t have to be “save the world.” It has to be “We have an ice cream to sell, and we found the most unique way in which to do that.” We all need companies because we’re all working for someone. Selling products has been forgotten, and I just want to get back to that and see it done brilliantly.
I’m optimistic. I’ve seen some work on some clients getting better and I think we’ve got some more focus right now. Not just us, I mean the industry. I just really want to see Cannes stand up and continue to improve on its criteria and its juries.
