OGILVY S NEXT BIG PLAY

There are three ways agencies can deliver for their clients; traditional advertising, influence and martech, says Fox. Currently he sees Ogilvy as playing strongly in traditional, and plans to spend 2019 boosting its capabilities in the others.

The WPP-owned agency recently transitioned from a siloed business, with around seven different P&Ls, to one integrated business.

“At a senior level, people realised that we had to change or we were going to die as a business,” Fox says. “At a middle to junior level, there was an appetite for change but we lost a lot of people which was fine by me. There’s a saying: ‘if you can’t change the people, you have to change the people’.”

Fox says the company has now attracted the right people; those in the industry who wanted to be part of the change taking place in agencies.

Now that it has settled into its new structure, which includes four managing directors across Sydney and Melbourne and the integration of its digital acquisition Bullseye, it’s moving to launch a consultancy and PR influence offering in October.

Fox points out that consultancy is already a