How Dentsu is building its creative credentials and presence in Australia and New Zealand with BWM Dentsu and BC&F Dentsu

| | No Comments

BWMDentsu.jpgIn the Australian and New Zealand advertising industry, Dentsu has been a relatively inconspicuous, even unknown, agency brand until fairly recently. Since the 2014 acquisition of Aegis Media, the global giant Dentsu has been making its presence felt in Australia and New Zealand.

As a group of some 20 agencies under the Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) banner, the company has upwards of 1,600 employees in Australia and New Zealand. The business works with a range of high profile clients who collectively spend approximately 23% of the advertising market in Australia with around $2.4 billion of media billings annually, according to RECMA.

Its flagship agency brands include media agencies Carat, Vizeum and Dentsu Mitchell, digital experience agencies Isobar and Soap, performance marketing businesses iProspect and Columbus, along with specialists in a raft of marketing capabilities including data (D2D), out-of-home advertising (Posterscope), Sport Marketing and Activations business (MKTG) plus PR specialists within BWM Dentsu.

Until last year, traditional creative advertising was excluded from these capabilities within DAN. However, all that changed with the two key acquisitions of creative agencies BWM in Australia and Barnes, Catmur & Friends in New Zealand. These agencies comprise in excess of 230 people across three cities, creating a formidable presence.

This expansion by DAN into the creative realm is not surprising given the history of Dentsu globally. Founded in Japan in 1901, Dentsu originated as a creative advertising agency before evolving to incorporate media buying. It has dominance in the Japanese industry controlling around 30% of advertising spend and is not only the number one creative advertising agency, it is 80% larger than the number two player based on revenue. Dentsu is a highly creative, innovative and awarded creative business.

Until Dentsu purchased Aegis Media in Australia and New Zealand in 2014, the agency group’s presence locally was significantly smaller. The media arm had a small offering in Sydney, primarily providing media buying services for global clients, and with ownership of retail advertising agency Oddfellows. This all changed last year and with the Group’s roots in creative advertising, adding creative expertise locally is a natural progression for DAN as its looks to offer a complete suite of marketing capabilities.

Simon Ryan Pic (1).jpgDAN ANZ CEO Simon Ryan, who was appointed to the role in February after leading media agency Carat nationally since 2010, says that with a creative agency footprint now well established for the group, integration and growth is a major focus.

Says Ryan: “It’s been fantastic for our staff to have agencies and people within our group with such strong creative credentials.

“The value that the big idea and creative brings to our group is enormous. We then bring it together with technology, data innovation with programmatic, to deliver what our clients need to reach their audiences in the digital economy.

“BWM Dentsu, as it is now known, was acquired in February 2015, when BWM along with its PR agencies became part of the global DAN group. Prior to acquisition, BWM was one of the largest independent creative agencies in Australia with a wealth of experience, having been around for 18 years. With DAN acquiring a 51% stake, the agency became the flagship creative agency brand of DAN in Australia and accordingly has had to adapt to being part of a global giant.  

“In April, we co-located fellow agency Oddfellows Dentsu officially with BWM Dentsu bringing together the retail and brand credentials of each agency. In the same month, we also announced that DAN’s PR services would come together to become a formidable offering in the creative PR space.”  

Paul Williams is group CEO of BWM Dentsu and a member of DAN ANZ’s newly appointed executive leadership team, charged with driving the creative agenda across the group. Fellow founding partner of BWM Dentsu, Rob Belgiovane, has also extended his role joining DAN’s APAC Creative Council to help drive the creative mission of the group regionally. This is in addition to remaining as executive creative director of BWM Dentsu.

At the time of the acquisition last year, Williams said: “This partnership allows us the best of both worlds. We continue to manage our business with a strong sense of independence, while leveraging the enormous skills and assets across Dentsu Aegis Network.”

18 months on, has the partnership evolved as he’d expected and hoped?

Says Williams: “We have seen some key benefits flowing through for staff, clients and our business as a result of the acquisition. We obviously believed there was a strong strategic fit between our two organisations, and we had to bring not only our staff but our clients along on the journey with us and ensure everyone bought into what we were trying to achieve and saw benefit from it.

“From a client perspective, there have been some really good opportunities we’ve been able to bring to the table for clients leveraging the resources of DAN that we wouldn’t have been able to do as an independent. On the flip side, we can add enormous value for clients of other DAN agencies who are looking for the capabilities that BWM Dentsu can offer.

“With our staff, the opportunity is there to work alongside people with different skills and experiences, and to be in an environment where they can continuously learn about different facets of marketing and communications. There’s keen interest in opportunities to move around within the group globally and leverage those cultural benefits. We are continuing to integrate and make sure our staff can leverage all these opportunities and that will continue to evolve.

“A great working example of what we can deliver for clients is the unified DAN offering, a bespoke structure comprising BWM Dentsu, Oddfellows Dentsu and Soap to deliver fully integrated work across every channel, but still offering the simplicity of a single point of contact for the client.

“This simplicity is critical to clients and is supported by the entire DAN community so clients aren’t presented with key brands and individuals fighting for revenue but rather a simple, holistic and contemporary creative agency model that can answer all marketing requirements.”  

Says Belgiovane: “Dentsu are very serious about driving creative excellence across the region and it’s great to be part of that ambition.

“Dentsu was named Advertising Agency of the Year at ADFest in April and the network has been highly awarded at Cannes, winning 21 awards in 2015 alone, so they are very serious about driving creative excellence across the region.”

In New Zealand, the recently acquired BC&F Dentsu (as it is now known) spearheads DAN’s creative offer. Founded in 1996, the award winning and highly regarded full-service creative agency boasts 30 staff in Auckland and is currently recognised as New Zealand’s most effective independent agency and is ranked number one in Asia Pacific, according to the Effies index. Although the agency always puts effectiveness for their clients ahead of chasing glory, BC&FD consistently ranks in the top echelon of creative rankings.

Says Paul Catmur (above, far left with Luke Farmer, Daniel Barnes and Rob Harvey), managing partner and executive creative director: “Since I joined Daniel in 2008 we’ve always been more interested in using creativity to drive effectiveness rather than showing off to our mates.

“Our joining together with DAN was a natural fit as we were the missing creative resource for them, while they have complementary skills to add to ours. As anticipated, we’re already seeing benefits to both sets of clients. Having previously worked in Australia I also know a number of the BWM guys and we are looking forward to building cooperation through those relationships.”

With plans to relocate all DAN businesses including the creative agencies in all cities in the mid-long term, Simon Ryan believes vast new opportunities will continue to emerge in the years ahead for the group.

Says Ryan: “In both our recent creative agency acquisitions, the agency founders remain in
their roles within the agency and they’ve been able to keep their individual cultures whilst integrating within DAN. We’re continually evolving how we all work together across capabilities and across agencies and I’m excited to be working with each of the businesses to bolster our clients offerings as a group.

“We will continue to grow our offering in the creative space and that will include more acquisitions all aligned to our local and global strategic priorities. The benefits of bringing more creative minds and skillsets to our group extend across our clients and certainly our staff, who embrace the opportunity to learn across different marketing skillsets and be able to bring together the people within DAN to deliver results for our clients.”

(Picture 1 L-R: Paul Williams, Jamie Mackay, Rob Belgiovane; Picture 2: Simon Ryan; Picture 3 L-R: Paul Catmur, Luke Farmer, Daniel Barnes & Rob Harvey)