AdNews asked industry figures for their assessment of 2022 and outlook for next year
Laura Aldington, CEO Host/Havas, and Virginia Hyland, CEO Havas Media Group
This is always a strange time of year for reflection, coinciding with most people nearing peak exhaustion as Christmas looms like a shimmering yet still slightly too distant finish line.
There is no doubt, 2022 has brought its fair share of challenges, but compared to navigating a global pandemic with its associated restriction, isolation and collective stress and grief, it’s been a relative cakewalk for us.
Winning one of the most hotly contested pitches of the year and being appointed global agency of record for Tourism Fiji across our Village was a huge highlight, one of several big integrated wins. We felt like we really found our stride as a Village, unlocking the genuine benefit of combining multi-disciplined strategic thinking, output neutral creativity and specialist capability across PR, social, media, data, CX, CRM, digital, experiential, SEO, SEM and more. We smashed down our silos, and the teams found new ways to collaborate seamlessly and celebrate socially.
We cemented our position as the ‘grown up start up’ – a place where our individual agency brands, which all started life as independents (under a leadership team born and bred in indie culture), have collided with the backing of a major global network. We’ve worked hard to elevate all the entrepreneurism, agility, fun, pace and refreshing absence of politics we’ve always enjoyed, but combined it with more market-leading people policy, operational excellence, access to world class global data, technology and insights, a breadth of capability, and the benefits of scale. The heart of an indie with the head of a network.
The benefit of consistently investing in our people and culture, especially through the pandemic, has paid off in its aftermath with solid retention across the agencies, but like all businesses, we’ve also felt the burn of a red-hot talent market, the likes of which we’ve never seen. Mid-year was particularly challenging as we struggled to fill newly created roles. Being in growth felt like the best possible problem, but at the worst possible time, and we owe our amazing teams, who dug ridiculously deep for us, a huge debt of thanks and gratitude. Happily, we continue to attract leading industry talent who desire to work for a multinational and have the freedom to design the modern agency world of the future.
Looking ahead to next year, it’s shaping up to be….interesting. As mortgage paying individuals at the peak of our financial responsibilities, it is hard to be entirely optimistic on a personal level, but as past indies we know that in a challenging macro-economic climate these are the moments where we can create new, exciting marketing opportunities to jump ahead of the curve.
We sit on the board of directors of our respective industry bodies (the ACA and the MFA), so we’re well versed in some of the bigger themes facing us all next year and beyond. Our hope is that we won’t allow a more difficult context to distract us (at best) or excuse us (at worst) from tackling the issues we urgently need to. Diversity and inclusion needs less words and more action, and it’d be great to see us all come together to deliver more tangible progress on this.
We also need to double down on taking care of talent. As brands face ever more pressure, and resources and budget are stretched ever further, this stress can end up being passed onto our people, who we risk losing amidst a pervasive sense of industry burnout. One of the main areas that could help address this is massive, universal reform on pitching. Our best (and most successful) pitches have been respectful and fair in the ask Vs. the reward. At a certain point, asking agencies to speculatively develop ‘production ready’ creative campaigns and full media implementation plans will need review - it simply won’t be sustainable or fair. The old school siloed pitch bubble is far removed from the day to day working relationship that can massively benefit business.
Overall we’re optimistic! We’re lucky to have each other to lean on in the Village and our global Havas philosophy is so right, we are ‘better together’. This has never felt truer.
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