Independent media agencies report business better than before the pandemic or at least on the way to returning to that level.
Among the areas of focus by the agencies now: Attracting talent, growth, performance for clients, identifying key partnerships and client retention rates.
The agencies also learned a few lessons on survival during the pandemic: The need for hard and transparent conversations with clients; to not be afraid to get hands dirty from the CEO down; closely focus on costs; offer full service to clients; focus on clients that could still spend; client value proposition; emerging growth opportunities; Upskilling and training courses; minimising Zoom calls.
Luke Povee, general manager, Yango, says the agency is back on track for growth in 2021.
The sectors that are doing well include e-commerce. There is a demand for digital services as more traditional businesses realise their future is tied to getting their digital foundations up, running and delivering.
"As a business we are in a far better place than we have been since starting out in 2012 and we have a stronger foundation in place to help our clients grow than ever before, and we are already seeing this convert into success for us this year," he says.
"We are seeing an abundance of opportunity to help brands grow at the moment, things like helping them to identify and find their audience in a world without third party cookies and where first party identity is key.
"Or helping them to create fast, meaningful connections through content. If we are not helping our clients grow through these opportunities, we are simply not doing our job."
During the depths of the pandemic, Yango got creative with space, had hard conversations with clients and everyone rolled up their sleeves.
"We had some excess space in the office which was there to allow for our growth plans across the next 2 years," he says.
"We immediately turned this into a co-working space where we now have a number of other like-minded businesses working out of the area."
The agency also had hard conversations with clients.
"Many of our clients had decided early on to “go dark” from a marketing perspective which is understandable to some degree," says povee.
"We identified however that this could be detrimental to the brands momentum and could cause a long lasting effect on digital performance in particular.
"Being completely open and transparent with our clients about the effect 'going dark' could have on both businesses was a key factor in us getting through the hard time that was."
But he says the key thing that helped the agency survive COVID was to come together as a team and get collective hands dirty.
"For example if junior team members needed a hand with creative trafficking or reporting, senior management/founders would dive in and help," he says.
At McKenzie Partners, client budgets are around 60%-70% of what they were at the same time last year.
"For many of our accounts, we’ve effectively become the marketing arm of their business," says CEO Darren McKenzie.
"We have also found the need for digital assets has increased. Our creative team has been inundated with requests for design, animation and video work.
During the pandemic the agency tightened processes and evaluated costs.
"This allowed us to manage the business through the lockdown period without any negative impact on client service levels," says CEO Darren McKenzie.
"Being a full-service agency was key to our survival in so many ways. It allowed us to focus on other areas when traditional media slowed or halted. Having an in-house creative team meant we could produce relevant creative quickly, particularly with changes in COVID regulations.
"Plus, our web dev and e-commerce capabilities were useful for clients who had to shift the way they did business. Ultimately, we were able to fully support our clients and help them connect with their customers in a more virtual way.
"We focused on the categories and clients that were still able to trade and who experienced some growth over that period. That included clients in the Auto, Home Improvement, Legal and Home Entertainment/Learning industries."
And McKenzie Partners got its team back into the office earlier than larger businesses.
"We ensured we had relevant solutions for clients and that we were ready to react quickly to sudden market changes," he says.
"Our Queensland-based clients were also less exposed to the impacts of lockdowns beyond phase one.
"Like many indies, we have less reliance on large trading deals and are not bound by long-term supplier contracts. This means we can look at new and different solutions as our clients reposition their businesses."
Nicole Millward, managing director, Joy, says the agency survived COVID by dedoubling focus on being of value to clients and created a broader view of how that value might manifest.
"I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t so much grown as changed," says Millward.
"The shape of the revenue base, and nature of the assignments is slightly different to where it was when we went into COVID.
"We are able to act independently, in the best interests of our clients with speed and entrepreneurialism.
"I think the COVID gave a number of clients pause to consider their legacy/inherited relationships and they became more open to new things. That’s contributed to more interest in the sector."
She says some categories have bounced back whereas others have been a little bit more cautious. Financial services, IT, automotive, health and beauty are all growing quickly.
"Consulting, design and full go to market architecture have been very strong over the last 12 months as clients looked to reinvent themselves and their offerings to ensure that they’re on the best footing to face the future," says Millward.
She finds it difficult to get a long term read. There is some brittleness to the economy, particularly in the SME sector, that isn’t showing up in the reported data.
"We are a pretty optimistic bunch (as you’d expect with our name) so I think it’ll wind up being a very good year," she says.
"It’s worth noting that previous strongest year was the year of the GFC."
Nick Behr, CEO and founder, Kaimera, says it has been a two speed COVID economy; those that have been impacted significantly and those that have prospered.
"As most of the larger travel clients and globally headquartered clients are with the big media agencies they would have been hit harder," he says.
"Many of the indies (ourselves included), with a portfolio of mainly Australian clients, have fared better due to the reduced impact COVID has had on our lives and the economy.
"We took some calculated risks early on and they seem to have paid off. We have employed seven new team members (currently looking for two more) and have welcomed several new clients over the past 12 months."
He says more clients are spending at pre-Covid levels than the ones that are down.
"New business wins and diversified services have provided us with strong growth at Kaimera," he says.
He expects the agency to grow by at least 25% this year.
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