SPOTLIGHT | The End Zone
How do you judge success?
Success can’t be determined through a
spreadsheet alone. There are three key
factors that are critical to our business,
and if those three things aren’t working
in harmony then commercial success
won’t follow. Firstly, we are a people
business and so need to create a culture
within the organisation that energises,
retains and attracts the best and most
diversified talent.
At the same time, we must deliver client
value: establishing strong partnerships so
that we can deliver strategic solutions that
address client challenges and objectives.
And last but not least, we have to deliver
great ideas which provide creative and
effective solutions.
Which projects have you particularly
enjoyed working on?
My role requires a holistic view of the
company, so in a broad sense my 20
years at McCann Worldgroup has been
one huge, challenging and constantly
evolving project. But looking at McCann
London’s recent work, we’re particularly
proud of Survival Billboard for Xbox, which
was Europe’s most-awarded campaign of
2016. The campaign took one of the oldest
methods of advertising (the billboard)
and totally modernised it through an
interactive digital campaign. The result?
Dwell time increased from an average of
eight seconds for a standard billboard to
eight minutes for Survival Billboard.
How has the role of the FD evolved in
recent years?
FDs used to be seen as the guys who held
the combo to the safe; they wrapped
themselves in the comfort of balance sheets
and didn’t step away from their desks. Now
you need to be a true business partner,
both to the CEO and to the company.
I’m very lucky to enjoy a relationship at
McCann London that allows me to support
the business and all of its functions on the
frontline. It’s about staying connected to
what we do and being involved at every
level so that your impact and influence are
felt well before the number lands on the
spreadsheet. It’s certainly not just about
adding things up. And the passion I have for
the advertising industry doesn’t come from
a spreadsheet or P&L.
What underlines your approach at McCann?
I’m not a political or hierarchical person.
If an account executive comes to me for
50
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE
The team at McCann
help I give them the same attention as I
would give my CEO. We all stand in line
together and it’s important to talk to
people and understand the breadth of
the business. I also appreciate people
who come to me with solutions rather
than problems.
What particular challenges does the
finance function face at McCann?
I’ve got a fantastic team which has taken
me a few years to build up. When I arrived
the team was very functional; but I’ve
been able to create a team of proactive,
interactive and commercially-minded
people who understand the importance
of fostering strong internal partnerships.
The challenge for me now is finding the
right talent in the existing marketplace:
people with strong interpersonal skills
who can talk about finance without
sounding like a finance person aren’t
always easy to come by.
And how about the challenges in the
wider advertising industry?
As a member of IPA [Institute of
Practitioners in Advertising]’s finance
business group and as treasurer of the
Advertising Association I am lucky to
be in a position to help tackle industry
challenges alongside my peer group.
The key challenge for the marketing
communications world is the gradual
dilution of our offer – there are no longer
the clear lines of delineation that existed
20 years ago between, for example,
advertising agencies, PR agencies and
even tech giants who are now creating
their own content. While the growth of
technology brings great opportunity, that
overlap can be confusing for clients and
our challenge is to prove that creativity
gives us the edge. Creativity is at the very
heart of the agency; it’s our way of life.
But this presents our other major
challenge: we sell ideas, but what value
can you put on an idea? If a creative
took three minutes to come up with a
ground-breaking strategy that tripled the
client’s share of market and grew their
business, is that worth only three minutes
of billable time? Our goal as an industry is
to become a true partner to our clients -
and that means sharing both the risk and
the reward.
As Tom Lewis, finance director at the
IPA, said: “If effectiveness is all about
creating value for our clients, agency
business growth is about capturing
a share of the value.” Others are
endeavouring to achieve that, but we
have 100 years’ experience on them.
How would you sum up McCann’s
recent performance?
We have excellent talent and strong
client relationships – many of which span
more than a quarter of a century. This
is because we deliver work that has a
tangible effect on our clients’ bottom line
And this is now being recognised through
accolades in the wider industry: in 2016
alone we accumulated over 160 awards
and were named in the Gunn Report’s list
of the Top 10 agencies in the world. Long
may it last… Q
www.mccannlondon.co.uk
dofonline.co.uk