BY PRIYANKA MEHRA
Lindsay Pattison is a woman to reckon with. As UK CEO of Maxus for five years, she transformed the WPP-owned media agency in terms of growing revenue, staff base and profit by sevenfold in a short time. In October 2014, Pattison was appointed CEO of Maxus Worldwide, becoming the sole woman global media leader at Maxus, and succeeding Vikram Sakhuja in that role. Earlier, as Global Chief Strategy Officer, she looked after product, planning, marketing, new business and effectiveness.
With more than 20 years of media experience, Pattison’s previous roles have included time at PHD and Sony Ericsson on the client-side, after starting out at Young and Rubicam in a full service agency environment. A passionate advocate of gender equality and mentoring young women leaders, Pattison has launched ‘Walk the Talk’ to further foster and nurture women leaders at Maxus. Currently, she splits her time between London and New York, in addition to regular travel to key global markets. She reports to GroupM’s Global President, Dominic Proctor. By all means, the media agency business runs in the family – she is married to PHD founder David Pattison.
WHY CAN’T THERE BE A FEMALE MARTIN SORRELL?
A firm believer in being ambitious and leading from the front, Pattison, unlike most of her peers, has absolutely no qualms in asking ‘Why can’t there be a female Martin Sorrell in the future?’ or being vocal about her goals for Maxus to be among the Top 10 agencies globally in the next two Lindsay Pattison believes that Maxus India is a self-sustained market, not only in terms of size, but also in terms of qualitative skills, and is a star-rated agency that has outplayed other markets. “I want to be as good as I can possibly be at my job, in order to make Maxus excel. And I am most comfortable in my style of leadership, because my style is to lead from the front with clear vision and strategy,” shares Pattison on her global role, and the way forward for her as Global CEO of the agency. Here are excerpts from a chat Lindsay Pattison, CEO of Maxus Worldwide, had with Priyanka Mehra on getting Maxus into the global Top 10 agency list in two years, mentoring successors, being ambitious, collaborative and more...
‘Everything that we do is about innovation’
Q] In an interview in April 2014, you had said that you wanted your next job to be Global CEO of Maxus. In October 2014, you got the role you wanted. What next for you from here?
I had said it without realizing how ambitious that sounded, though there is nothing wrong in being ambitious. Any leader should be ambitious. I am really enjoying the role. It’s been about a year-and-a-half now, and there is still a lot to be done, though Maxus has been very successful for the last six years as a global network. We could be better known. We need to grow and produce good work of the standards that we do in India, at the world level. What next? Ultimately, you look up to your boss’s boss, and your boss’s boss’s boss. So why can’t there be a female Martin Sorrell in future?
Q] What is the goal that you have set yourself at Maxus?
We are still outside the Top 10 agencies globally, according to figures. I would like us to be in the Top 10 and I hope we will get there in two years. That’s a very distinct goal and I do think our business would have changed enormously in two to three years as we move to a more programmatic world. The way we structure and hire talent too will be quite different and an exciting journey, but it will be hard to say precisely what Maxus will look like; we continually evolve and will go on doing so.
Q] You just said ‘Why can’t there be a female Martin Sorrell... so what are you doing to get there?
I am listening and learning. I lean hard into GroupM and WPP and try to understand the breadth of work, the business of ‘now’ versus the business of ‘future’. There are many other fantastic female role models within WPP. Also, I think understanding, knowing how to be a nice person and being humble and say “Help me out” or “Can I ask your point of view” is necessary. These are very personal and human skills that lead us today and make us much more human as leaders who focus more on collaboration, counsel, mediation, seeking feedback, giving feedback, just being really open and honest. More mportantly, collaborating doesn’t mean compromise, it just means getting better solutions. And understanding and working hard within WPP is a huge opportunity.
Q] You have spoken in the past about how important it is for current leaders to identify and train their successors. Have you been able to do that?
Well, there are two types of leaders. There are leaders that work with people who are less good than they are, which makes them look impressive and they keep their jobs. Then there are others who keep absolutely brilliant people around them. On my global executive committee, there are 11 of us; I would say at least four of them could do my job. May be not as well as me, though!
Q] What kind of growth are you looking at for Maxus to be counted among the Top 10 agencies globally?
We are looking at minimum 20% growth in two years to get us up. We should be a Top 10 agency in two years.
Q] What is that ‘Maxus gene’ that you look for when you hire people at the senior level?
We have a really clearly defined Maxus set of behaviours and culture that we seek to cultivate. We hire, we trade and we reward against those values. The values are Pace (so people have to work with Pace), Agility, Collaborative and Entrepreneurial nature. We can hire any number of media planners or data scientists based on their skill-set but the ‘attitude’ that somebody has is of utmost importance. The spirit of being entrepreneurial - rolling up your sleeves and getting in there - can be daunting for some people. Everything that we do is about innovation because we don’t have legacy structures. This is good in many ways, because we can reinvent, but for some people it might be challenging because they like to come in at 9 in the morning and leave at 5.30 in the evening. That’s not the reality of our job. You also need to be resilient in today’s media-marketing world, because it is a tough, fastpaced, competitive environment, but exciting, fascinating and exhilarating too. So you need to be resilient to actually evolve. The second is about being curious, and I think the Indian office is great at asking open-ended questions, opening up to prospective clients, having an open conversation and dialogue to understand what they want and then coming towards more collaborative solutions together. The third way of course is about presence - when you come into a room, your senior leader, the clients or other agencies, partners or media should feel your presence because you should be able to have an impact. It doesn’t have to be the noisiest person in the room, it might be that you are very quiet as a person but when you speak, you speak something of value. You have to have a presence. This is something that comes naturally, it is not something that can be taught and learnt.
Q] What are the conversations that clients are having with Maxus today?
More and more clients are under pressure to deliver business because digital offers the opportunity to show results in a more linear fashion. What we need to do is show how traditional media works with digital media and how the two are complimentary because nothing works in isolation. It is certainly not about rushing and putting money in digital media, but about how digital can enhance what they have done, in alliance with traditional media.
We’ll announce big wins soon: Kartik Sharma
The year 2015 was a very challenging year for the industry as well as for most media agencies. Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus South Asia calls it a ‘mixed bag’, with the first half of the year slightly sluggish, followed by a second half filled with momentum in business - the agency added more than 15 new clients and many existing clients added additional mandates in the area of digital and content, bringing new business worth around Rs 400 crore last year.
Last year also saw Maxus play a key role in the Paytm- BCCI deal, a first for a media agency. “The BCCI deal for Paytm is a first of its kind initiative by a media agency which was earlier dominated either by sporting specialist companies or by individuals who claimed to have a lot of knowledge about sports. Our focus in building the sports practice has proven that when we demonstrate value, clients will back us. This year too, you can expect many bold initiatives from Maxus,” shares Sharma.
This year too seems to have begun on a good note for the agency with a bronze at the recently held Festival of Media for their proprietary tool, Synapse. (Synapse is a social TV tracking tool that helps in planning for digital natives effectively, and was born out of a need to be future ready in a digitally charged environment. It has won several awards already including a Gold at the Emvies last year.)Here are edited excerpts from a freewheeling chat that Priyanka Mehra had with Kartik Sharma on the agency’s focus on the Trinity of data, digital/ technology and content, bold initiatives and more...
Q] In today’s scenario of real time data, how does Maxus link investment in TV time to actual sales?
Our proprietary tool T2D helps us link the impact of each TV programme/genre and key business metrics for e-commerce brands such as app download, website and visits, using sophisticated analytical lgorithms. Using T2D, e-commerce brands can adjust their TV plans within a very short window (48 to 72 hours), thereby not only improving their business but also bringing in a lot of efficiency in planning.
Q] Maxus stands for PACE, how have these values grown in the last year?
PACE as you know stands for passionate, agile, collaborative and entrepreneurial. This translates into innovative solutions for clients on a consistent basis. Some of the notable examples of PACE last year included Sports analytics for Vodafone, which proved the ROI of investing on sports like IPL. The study proved that investing in IPL not only improves business but also protects the brand from competitive pressure. This was the first of its kind study which went on to win several national and international awards. The PACE behaviour also translated into three breakthrough initiatives for clients which included:
Synapse – a proprietary tool which marries TV ratings with social buzz, thereby helping planners make informed decisions, particularly around high impact shows. This tool was awarded the Gold in the research category at the Ad Club’s Emvies.
Mesh – our marketing command centre and dialogue engine that reads environmental signals in real time and keeps our clients one step ahead of the curve. We now have two centres, one each at Mumbai and Delhi, fully operational.
T2d – a proprietary tool which studies real time impact of TV on e-traffic (tool aimed for e-commerce brands). Finally, PACE translates into breaking our own benchmarks each year in every aspect of the business which eventually helps our clients grow their business.
Q] What are your focus areas for Maxus this year?
Our focus this year will continue to be on data, digital/technology and content. We call this the ‘Trinity’. We have already announced several big initiatives. The first is our alliance with IOT Bangalore, the world’s largest meet-up group focused on IOT. This partnership will focus on building new products and consumer engagement solutions. We recently launched our new planning framework globally called Change Planning, which uses some cutting edge new tools to answer brand problems. Our teams have been trained extensively and have already started using this across several clients.
Earlier this month, we launched Kaleidoscope, a tool which maps the moods of consumers through data gathered via social media streams on a real time basis. The power of the tool is to identify receptive moments across geographies and tailor-make relevant content and deliver it across platforms.
Q] What are your revenue and growth targets?
We have aggressive new business targets and you will hear about some big wins very soon. We constantly strive to improve each year’s performance over the previous year and this year will be no exception.
