Adweek
Universal McCann: U.S. Media Agency of the Year '09
CEO Matt Seiler on the power of momentum, his best decision and why he has no mentors
Jan 18, 2010
For much of the past decade, Interpublic's Universal McCann was one of the most beleaguered media shops in the industry, having lost huge accounts like General Motors, Coca-Cola and Lowe's. By 2008, the agency was stable again, thanks largely to the efforts of then-worldwide CEO Nick Brien and his team. When Brien was promoted to CEO of IPG's media management arm, Mediabrands, he hired Matt Seiler to succeed him as UM's CEO in August 2008. The stage was set for UM to complete its turnaround and Seiler delivered in 2009, his first full year running the company. Seiler revamped the management team, hiring media company veteran Jacki Kelley in April to run North America. Seiler and Kelley immediately went to work on the offering. The biggest change: a new approach to working with media owners in a bid to maximize those relationships. In May, the wins started coming in quick succession -- Dyson, BMW, Schwab and others, capped by the the Chrysler account in December. All told, UM added nearly $1 billion in new business (excluding Chrysler, which takes effect this month) and posted an impressive 11 percent revenue gain to $191 million. For completing its turnaround with its best winning streak in seven years -- without a single loss -- new management and a fine-tuned offering, Universal McCann is Adweek's U.S. Media Agency of the Year for 2009.
Adweek: A lot of things went right for your shop in 2009. What was the most important lesson you learned?
Matt Seiler: The criticality of getting the team right. And that when the team is right it shows in everything that you do. From a new business perspective, there is nothing more appealing to a prospect than a team that is absolutely consistent. At least as important is that we really like each other. It's very seductive to a potential client, I think, to see how much the agency team has confidence in each other and likes each other. It makes the client feel comfortable and happy and liked.
Other lessons?
The power of momentum. It's that "when you smile, the world smiles with you" thing. Once we had the team right, it felt fantastic. The first exposure the team really had to a prospect was Dyson and after that BMW, and immediately after, Schwab. It feeds on itself.
What was the biggest surprise last year?
The whole thing. I keep pinching myself because I can't quite believe how much this team accomplished in a year. The adopting of the new positioning, the esprit de corps, picking up nine new pieces of business. We retained all our existing business and grew in lots of different directions with existing clients.
What's the best decision you made in '09?
Hiring [North American president] Jacki Kelley. [The fact] that she comes from a media-owner background is part of what makes her a phenomenal leader for the agency. And she reflects the promise of what partnering with a media owner is. She sort of represents the other side of the table in everything we do. The [Media Owner Relationship] team underneath her is all about that. ( READ AN INTERVIEW WITH JACKI KELLEY)
Describe your management style
Hopefully trusting. I absolutely believe that the people of UM are beyond capable of delivering. I believe that Jacki [Kelley] and I are here to empower people to do what they're great at doing and not to stand in their way.
Who are your mentors?
[Bewitched's] Darrin Stephens is my mentor [laughs]. I don't think that's a very rich vein for me, sadly, and I really should analyze that. I haven't had mentors. I've had a few really terrific bosses and without pandering [current boss Mediabrands CEO] Nick [Brien] is the best that I've had, but it's a little late in my long-toothed career to be considering Nick a mentor.
Any missed opportunities?
We have not yet hired the head of the team that will oversee our Media Owner Relationship team. That kind of troubles me. I'm very anxious to do that.
Did you have someone in your sights?
There's been a couple of people we liked a lot. It's a really critical hire, though. It's a big statement to the media owners, the clients and the people here. So the importance of the individual is great.
Would you call that your most innovative move in 2009?
Yes, and it will be the most innovative thing we do [this] year.
Who do you least like going up against in a pitch and why?
It's not so much an individual agency. I least like being in a pitch that has been called for cost savings and pits everybody against each other. I least like being defined by our peer set. I would love to have more opportunities to compete with creative agencies. All media agencies should define the business that we're in specifically enough that we have a competitive advantage to make it impossible to throw us all together.
Beside your CrackBerry, what's your favorite digital gadget?
I would say my DVR. I do not watch television when television is on, ever.
Describe yourself in three words
The first three that popped in my head were "in a hurry." This is going to sound totally gross, but as I envisioned [my Christmas break] there was a big part of me that didn't want it. I'm so excited about what's going on here [in some ways I was thinking] let's hurry up with this whole Christmas thing because there's a lot of cool stuff that we'll be implementing in the new year that I can't wait to do.
Talk about the new Media Owner Relationship initiative.
The connection between agencies and media owners hasn't worked as well as it could because the link [has been] the buying group. There's tremendous power, influence and connectivity between media agencies and media owners, but the right people weren't necessarily talking to each other. The relationship shouldn't be just about going to the upfront and buying television and running messages. That's missing the opportunity of the incredible stuff that exists ... that we ought to be taking advantage of, [such as] what's coming out of the studios, what's possible on the airwaves. To not tap into that is ludicrous.
So it's about resetting the whole relationship?
Yes, start again. The truth is all the media owners are very siloed by their P&Ls so the opportunity to get the best content out of the media owner doesn't necessarily come from the media owner himself. Or herself.
So you're hiring your own people to figure that out.
Yes. And you have to change your process to allow for the time [it takes] to go to the media owner with an intelligent strategy and to not presuppose that last year's plan is right for this year. There's too much of that in the business. We need to be asking a new set of questions to start big conversations about audience connections. That's more relevant. We're expert on the identification of and the romancing of an audience, and then matching this up with the deliverer.
Romancing the audience?
Yes, it's not just about adults 18 to 49. We have all the data. We know everything about audiences and where to go and find them. But we need to be in love with them and really get inside their heads. The media owner is excellent at creating content that stimulates those people. So it's really about identifying the necessary audience for the client's objective and finding that same audience on the media-owner side and then plopping those two pieces together. It requires thinking differently.
The Chrysler win, coming in December, topped off a terrific year. Interestingly, duties on that account also include creative responsibilities at the retail marketing level. How did that assignment come about?
What Chrysler was looking for is not dissimilar with how we work with a couple of our other clients, notably Microsoft, Sony and J&J where we function as, I won't say the AOR but the backbone. As more and more clients are looking to work with multiple creative agencies, it makes sense to have somebody be responsible for the totality of the business. And the more innovative and fresh-thinking clients are recognizing that the media agency can allow all of the creative agencies to plug into that common backbone. So it's easier for them to have a Fallon or a GlobalHue to do specialized work that can come and go and be plugged into the consistent thing, which is the media agency.
But how did you end up with the creative retail advertising assignment?
It works across all four brands [Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram] and they could have had it done by the different creative agencies, but the communication requirements and the integration needs and so on suggested that was a much harder way of doing it. Housing it in one place to support all four brands was just smarter.
So UM will be creating the ads at the local dealership level?
Yes, we'll create them. We picked up a number of people who had been working on that portion of the business and plopped them back down at UM. Also, the agency has a lot of account management experience and people who come from full-service agencies. So what a lot of us have done as individuals elsewhere we'll now get to do again as an agency.
UM and not McCann Erickson?
Just UM.
Do you create ads for other clients?
We do not, but I imagine that we will do more of it. I want to be careful in how this comes out in that we're not looking to become a full-service agency or take work from our brothers and sisters on the creative agency side. Our push is really with the connection with the media owner and content creation. However, we have great flexibility and can manage a variety of tasks for clients. The retail work for Chrysler just makes sense. It's more locally focused, especially where there's potential for addressability. More and more that's going happen.
Is this the beginning of a rebundling trend?
I don't think so. What it does do, though, is beg the question of what is an AOR relationship? We have tended to think that the AOR was the creative agency and I think there is a need to rethink that.
Would you elaborate on that?
If you look at a lot of clients there's a pattern of a pendulum swing where, for example, Coke had all its work with one creative agency and then shifted out to many creative agencies and then began to concentrate it a bit again. Microsoft had all of its business with one creative agency and then started working with multiple creative agencies. And that's been going on for a decade or more. I think right now we're in the midst of a trend that is more towards working with multiple creative agencies and the need therefore to have consistency around your business and the transmission of your messaging. And that's where the media agency comes in to serve as the backbone to which the different creative agencies can plug into.
What about the crafting of messages?
I think that the days of thinking that messaging necessarily comes from your creative agency are also numbered. There's been a lot of talk about the work that consumers are doing to generate their own content and there are myriad cases where work is coming from media owners. So a client can be expecting to get communications done by a big creative agency or a [boutique] shop, or from media agencies or media companies or consumers. The really good thing is that it will lead to better entertainment all around and that the choices that clients have and that we as audiences have are greater. There's value in all of the competition that comes from multiple players.
Entertainment in the sense of the messaging that goes out?
Yes, and where it goes out. I think the NBCU-Comcast deal is fascinating for what it portends content wise, and how much it will look or feel like advertising, and how much of it is going to be embedded content. We have talked for so long about addressability and not done it, and this is a real big step toward that. And with addressability comes whole new ways of integrating content. As those who transmit communication also become those who create the communication, there is much greater chance for sharing information about whose house you're transmitting stuff into and what messages are right for them and what they do with those messages.
So, it's not just targeted advertising, but targeted content opportunities as well?
Right, and that's why none of the models that have existed historically should be considered to be the models for today. There's lots and lots of ways to get great entertainment. The more people that the client can engage to create content for them, the better the content is likely to be.
