Zenith, Tim Hipperson and St Francis of Assisi’s prayer
There has been speculation that Tim Hipperson’s departure from Zenith is linked to the loss of two of the company’s core clients. However, this theory is flawed, says Dominic Mills. Here, he explains why…
The news that Zenith Optimedia parted company (I choose my words carefully) 10 days ago with UK chief executive Tim Hipperson puts me in mind of St Francis of Assisi’s Serenity Prayer.
You probably know it well: “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Why? Well, the Zenith-Hipperson story is, at root, about change, and media agency chief executives around the world might do well to think carefully about what St Francis said.
On the face of it, coverage in Campaign and elsewhere unambiguously links Hipperson’s departure with those of two of Zenith’s core clients, BA and L’Oreal.
It’s an easy jump to make. New guy joins, two big, defining, clients leave, and traditions of corporate narrative demand that a victim is found. The narrative is further bolstered by the fact that Hipperson is a guy with data, not media, in his DNA.
Yet like all such simple narratives, it is flawed. Let’s start by looking at some of the details.
First, Hipperson joined Zenith in April this year after serving out his six-month notice at WPP’s G2 Joshua.
At this point the BA review was under way, while L’Oreal had already announced its intention to review, and started the process in June. So to suggest that Hipperson should carry the can for BA and L’Oreal, or single-handedly could have saved them, seems grossly unfair – a point made privately to me by a number of senior figures in media-land.
Second, in May Zenith announced that UK chairman Gerry Boyle was packing his bags and heading off to run Zenith’s Asian operations – the same Gerry Boyle who had recruited Hipperson. So, Hipperson joins to find that his two biggest clients are reviewing and his main sponsor was off. The ground beneath his feet had shifted.
I dare say his first thought was: “WTF?”.
Back to St Francis and change. No-one doubts the need media agencies have to find new business models. At one level, they have to get away from the procurement-driven, beggar-thy-neighbour pitches that are all about price (i.e. BA and L’Oreal).
On another, they have to move up the value chain to provide better and different services – of which data surely provides the richest opportunities. Change of this magnitude is unlikely to happen organically, however. It has to be grafted on – with the risk that the host tissue will reject it – and is best done by an outsider.
For this reason, I always thought the appointment of Hipperson, with his background in data, was both forward-thinking and courageous (and courageous here is not a synonym for foolhardy). If hiring Hipperson was about anything, it was about change.
I wouldn’t for a minute under-estimate the difficulty of making such scale or cultural change.
As I understood it, Hipperson’s brief was to move Zenith away from an old-school buying shop and into an integrated communications agency built upon the pillars of digital technology, data, strategy and implementation.
Ironies abound: one, Hipperson’s departure simultaneously leaves Zenith even more exposed to the model it was trying to move away from; two, it makes the likelihood of that change even harder; and three, when the Publicis-Omnicom merger eventually happens, it leaves POG with a clutch of media agencies that all look like clones.
And what would St Francis conclude? I think he would say, albeit more elegantly, that Zenith needs to find its inner steel again.
P.S. Talking of change, Hipperson needs to update his LinkedIn profile – probably with great care – as does Zenith its website.
Sachin Tendulkar: when religion meets advertising
Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, commonly granted god-like status by Indians of all religions, retired last week after a glorious career in advertising.
His cricket career wasn’t too bad either, but like David Beckham, he was a man who transcended his sport to the extent that he became a one-man advertising bandwagon, albeit one without a trace of Beckham’s fashion status or personal flamboyance.
The Indian media estimates his wealth at $160 million, the vast bulk of it generated by his role as a commercial spokesman or, as the Indians prefer to put it, a ‘brand ambassador’.
How much? Well, Forbes estimated he earned about $22 million last year from advertisers – mostly local Indian brands or foreign brands targeting the Indian market. Were he ‘ambassadoring’ in the UK, Europe or the US, this would translate as $60-75 million.
As Beckham’s fortune was linked to TV money, so Tendulkar’s great luck was that his career coincided with exponential growth of TV coverage of the game, India’s economic liberalisation and the rise of a consumer goods oriented middle-class.
Such is cricket’s grip on India that brands – including the most humdrum – throw money at leading sportsmen with indiscriminate abandon. Cement, pens, life insurance, tyres, computer peripherals, petrol, egg marketing co-operatives, toothpaste – the list is endless.
It’s quite normal for Indian cricketers to represent 20-30 at any one time, which even Beckham at his peak didn’t manage.
Whether there’s any strategic consideration behind the thinking is a moot point. And whether Sachin’s ambassadorship for, say, RBS (yes, even they were a sponsor) achieves any cut-through in an environment of total clutter is doubtful.
In India, it doesn’t matter. Association is everything. Indeed, the mere fact that a brand can afford Sachin is a statement in itself.
But advertisers needn’t panic now that Sachin has stepped off the cricket stage. His colleague, India captain M.S. Dhoni, is even more prolific off the field than Tendulkar.