An occasional column with Simon Hadfield, Executive Partner at DMCG Global, an executive search and recruitment business.
This time it is Chris Howatson, founder + CEO @ Howatson+Company, ex CEO @ CHEP.
Apart from a short stint with George Patts Y&R, your entire career in the lead up to launching Howatson+Co was with Clemenger Group. I’m sure this provided you with good grounding and training to now drive your own agency?
I started at Clemenger as a 17 year old work experience kid during my first semester of uni. I couldn’t have been luckier. I didn’t know anything about advertising and found my way into Clemenger through my cousin, Jason. I often wonder where I’d be today if Jason didn’t work at Clemenger.
Clemenger, especially then, was very much a family business with global scale through BBDO. It was still majority locally owned and packed with incredible people. I owe everything I know to my time at Clemenger, and the wonderful people and clients I learnt from.
Howatson+Co is just over 3 years old now, and it feels like you’ve come out of the gates like a scolded cat. What do you put the success down to?
All agencies are made possible by their clients. You don’t have an agency, if you don’t have clients. We were able to start fast thanks to the incredible support of two very special clients – Nick and Jana. Their trust literally made the agency possible. And so I feel an enormous responsibility to be the very best, I and we can be, to ensure they, their brands and businesses are an outrageous success.
This commitment isn’t exclusive to Nick and Jana, but all our clients. To be appointed to a client is a very special thing and something I never take for granted. I guess this might be part of our secret sauce – a very, very clear view of why we’re here and what we’re charged to achieve.
You’re known for being heavily involved in the day to day, is it a fine balance of leading while ensuring delivering also remains on course?
I love the work. I’m happiest when I’m deeply in it and I believe our product is its best when our most senior people are too. One of the great challenges of becoming more senior is you can become further and further away from the work. It’s never made sense to me that senior leaders spend their time on people and process issues. If that’s what they wanted to do, they should have been in HR or operations.
To enable our best to be in work, we have invested heavily in operations and process. They make sure everything runs smoothly, then the subject matter experts make sure the work is great.
It doesn’t mean we don’t take time to think strategically about our business. But this is a small part of the job.
It feels like many of the multinationals are currently struggling and the indies are rising to the top?
Maybe. The Monkeys are a multi-national agency now and I think they are excellent and have been consistently for a very long time. So, I don’t think it’s an indy v multinational thing, rather a reflection of business life stage.
The scope of most advertising agencies is shrinking fast. Production is gone. Clients are making less work. There’s fewer retainers and more project scope. Pitches have become an incredible cost of doing business. AI will automate 60% of what we do.
Multinationals have decades of scale and are having to downsize as those blows come thick and fast. They also can’t expand into other capabilities like media or activation because of competing network brands. So they are a water locked into a narrow scope.
Indies however have none of the incumbent scale, and so are building only the capability they need. But the challenge for many indies is to hit a tipping point of sustainable headcount and clients. Too small and it can be a financial tightrope balancing the skills required and the revenue to support it. The risk being letting down the clients who trusted you by not having the capability they need.
I think the perceived division between network and indy is a moment in time and once everyone is rightsized the distinction won’t feel as significant.
How would you like the agency to look in say 5 years? Is there an end goal?
The end goal is where we are now. The deep enjoyment of creating work that sets a global standard.
We’re not for sale. We’ve put a cap on our growth to 200 people, and the clients who can be serviced under this head count. We’ve even bought a building that won’t let us grow any more than this.
Because we are independent, we have no shareholders. No quarterly earning calls. There’s no need to find 10% growth every year. We don’t have to fire people if we have a few bad months. Or to chase clients or hire people who aren’t the right fit. Instead, we have a very sustainable business, with the best people and best clients who believe creativity is the catalyst of their future growth.
Any work you’ve seen recently that you admire?
I like the latest British Airways OOH from Uncommon. The internet lit up when the Easy Jet ad ran next to it (in photoshop, not real life). But for me EasyJet proved the point of why BA was so right. If you’re a BA customer, you’re flying for the experience, the feeling of BA, not the price. As brand managers we must be more confident in rejecting who we’re not for, as much as attracting who we are.
What have you learnt in the last 5 years?
Everything is personal.
If you hadn’t ended up in agency world, what alternative career may you have fancied?
I always liked architecture. I did work experience there too. But I was only in grade 10 so had to leave after a week. Maybe if I were older, I would have stayed?
What advice would you give your younger self?
The best example you can set for someone, is when you think they’re not watching. My year 12 homeroom teacher taught me that. It’s advice I’ve never forgotten.
Outside of business, what keeps you out of trouble?
Kids and kids’ stuff. School admin is real.
What are you driving, what are you listening to and what are you watching?
‘Stuff you should know’. Most recent episode on Testosterone and Estrogen. Testosterone is apparently a confidence hormone, not an aggression hormone. We know so little about our bodies!
Favourite band?
I’m a 90s kid. I recently saw Blink 182 with a whole bunch of other 40 year olds relieving their teenage selves.
I love The Killers. I also like Taylor Swift, but who doesn’t!
Where is your next holiday?
Next week. Easter school holidays and heading to a Queensland beach with my wife and kids to tap the last rays of summer.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.