Tuesday, July 30, 2024
René Coiffard has been at the helm of OMD Germany since 2022. In 2023, the agency was able to announce some major budget wins, including Beiersdorf. In an interview, he talks about why the agency should be loved by customers and employees and how he is positioning it to be successful in the future.
Mr. Coiffard, you often wear this hoodie with the colorful circles when you’re on an OMD mission. What do the symbols stand for?
René Coiffard: The donuts, as we call them, show the O in OMD. The colors represent the diversity of our employees and the heart in the red donut symbolizes our agency vision: We want to be the most loved agency in Germany.
There are many positions, but why be loved?
Coiffard: We work in a people business. You spend most of your day in dialogue with people – with colleagues, employees and customers. I want people to have positive emotions when they think of OMD. And the greatest emotion that can arise is love. Customers should say: I love working with OMD and our employees should say: I love working for OMD. That is a high standard, but that is exactly what a vision is about.
How do you measure love?
Coiffard: We are an analytical company, data-savvy and try to measure almost everything. We conduct a very comprehensive survey of employee satisfaction once a year. And we regularly ask our customers for feedback, the so-called customer NPS. These are all important analyses, but I’m not interested in achieving a certain value on day X. Rather, the vision should be the reason and motivation to get up every day to fill it with life and get a little closer to it. Better values are the result of this.
In the recently published Germany ranking by Comvergence, OMD is doing quite well in second place with 1.7 billion euros in billings – also thanks to the profits from Tchibo and especially Beiersdorf. The gap to Essence Mediacom has narrowed further. How important is size?
Coiffard: Size is an advantage, but I don’t think it makes a difference to employees and customers whether you are second or third in the ranking. There are many areas in which agencies are interchangeable. For example, they all have strong strategy processes and good tools. The level in Germany is very high. However, the key to customer satisfaction is clearly our employees. When we get positive feedback, it is usually people-related. As managers, we therefore have to understand what our employees need and remove all barriers, change structures, adapt working methods so that they can ultimately do a good job for the customer.
The biggest budget win in 2023 was Beiersdorf. How far have you got with the implementation?
Coiffard: The collaboration feels good. The reason for the pitch was that Beiersdorf had established a new model and was looking for an agency to work with them on this model. It always takes a bit of energy and time until the operating model that was put on paper in the pitch is ready. We are well on track.
What does the model look like?
Coiffard: We serve all markets in Europe and North America with the aim of achieving better, consistent quality and greater efficiency across countries. There are hubs in Hamburg, New York and London where we work across countries. In London, for example, there is a hub from which we implement social media and programmatic for most markets, among other things. And then there are local teams that plan and buy local media.
Such consolidation across several countries has been seen more frequently recently. Why?
Coiffard: This is an issue for almost all customers in international pitches. In the digital sector in particular, a lot of money flows to platforms that are implemented and planned the same across countries. Working in hubs creates added value. It is not possible to say in general terms how well such approaches really work in practice.
What does it mean for the work of an OMD Germany when more and more customers operate across borders?
Coiffard: For us, it is primarily a reality that we have to react to. The impact on us is not that we have to shrink or reduce staff. On the contrary. I see opportunities in it. For customers who want a hub in Germany, we can build one. We strengthen the connections to international teams. It is important to define very clearly which tasks lie in cross-border teams and who is in charge of them. Employees who are employed in Germany can therefore also work for a hub in London. All in all, this leads to significantly greater agility.
Greater agility sounds good, but it also means a lot of complexity, which can then lead to more friction.
Coiffard: Agility means adaptability. And complexity requires adaptability. Complexity is our reality. We need to reduce this for customers and employees, and cross-border hubs can do just that.
Mercedes also has its own agency, Team X. Are customer-specific agencies the future?
Coiffard: TeamX is an Omnicom model, so it is a slightly different operating model. But it shows very well that there is not one blueprint that you can impose on other customers. In the end, it’s always the same questions: What helps the customer, what helps us, what is the goal and how do we manage to develop good solutions for it. And at the same time, as an agency, we need to make sure that we bundle tasks in the right and important places, for example where there is no great need for individualization.
This means that customers outsource their risk completely: they are essentially their own people, but they are paid by OMD. Is it worth it?
Coiffard: I wouldn’t put it that way. Customers don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to have their own agency. They think it’s good when we understand their needs and help them to overcome their challenges and be successful. If the way to do this is to have their own agency or a special team setup, then that’s great. But that’s not the only way to meet customer needs. We also have successful partnerships in many other setups where customers value the advantages of a large network. That’s why there is no blanket answer. It’s a very individual and customer-oriented approach. We call the approach “Agency as a Platform”..
What new business models are you building?
Coiffard: Another way and, in my view, the most sustainable pillar of developing our business is that we set up consulting areas that we can price and package differently, such as data consulting projects or content creation.
Does this include the founding of OMD e2b at the end of May, a separate unit for the B2B market? What makes the business interesting?
Coiffard: B2B marketing was a grey mouse in the past. That has changed. Many customers have high demands on communication. We already have a lot of B2B knowledge and see a lot of potential. Also through our international connection as a network agency. That is a unique selling point. If a medium-sized company is also active in Japan, it is only a phone call for us to find out which media it should advertise in.
B2B is a very different business with fewer purchasing guarantees and a lot of consulting work. How lucrative is it?
Coiffard: It is indeed fragmented. That is why many agencies have not found it sexy so far. We talk to customers about how to set up a commercial model that both sides can work well with. And we have to show the customer how to reduce complexity. Because there are always two ways to come together: more payment or less effort.
