2006 so far
At the start of this year we posted our objectives for 2006 on this blog. This was a possibly reckless attempt to commit ourselves publicly to what we wanted to achieve over the year. The targets were ambitious but we’re not here to manage mediocrity. The first six months are up. How are doing so far? The objectives were as follows:
- Achieve the standard of our best work across all our clients.
Most agencies have one or two ‘shop window’ accounts on which they do great work and then a bunch of ‘bread and butter’ clients that help pay the bills but don’t produce work anyone can be proud of. We don’t want to be in that game. We’re here to try to do the best work of our lives across all of our clients. It’s not easy. In fact it’s impossible by definition for all our work to be our best, so we’ve modified this to be ‘across more of our clients’. Possibly a mealy-mouthed cop-out.
This year so far we’ve won the Grand Prix at the Clios and the British TV Awards for the third year in a row. And we won two golds at Cannes. Brilliant. But all of that was for Honda. What about our other clients? The Wayne Rooney poster for Nike was definitely a highlight. And we have more good Nike work in production now. We’ve made a very nice book for Space.NK. We have a new Pizza Hut campaign in production that will hopefully be the best thing we’ve done on that account. We’re very proud of our Yakult work and there are further executions in production for that. And we have some great work for a confidential new client that will break later this year. But have we really achieved world class quality across all our clients in the last six months? No. Must try harder over the next six months.
- Make 2006 our healthiest year ever in terms of revenue and profit
Though money isn’t the reason we exist, we need it to pay people’s salaries. And, remarkably enough, they expect pay rises every year, so we have to keep making more of it. Though our staff costs for the year so far are higher than they should be, we are on track to achieve this objective. If we win a new business pitch in the next couple of months, then we’ll beat our targets.
- Win 2 like-minded profitable UK Clients
It feels like we’ve been pitching continuously since the start of the year. In the first quarter we picked up the launch of a soap opera you watch on your mobile phone , won an assignment from SBE and we pitched for Film 4. (The pitch went very well but they decided not to award the business to any agency.) None of these turned into a profitable retained account. Since then we pitched unsuccessfully for Yell. We’re waiting to hear on the pitch we made to the Guardian at the start of this week. And since January we’ve been involved in a pitch for Arla Foods. This initially involved both the Anchor and Lurpak brands but it’s not been narrowed down to just us and DDB fighting over Lurpak. We should get a decision on this by early August. Hopefully. So, although we’ve been working very hard on new biz, we haven’t yet cracked this objective.
- Successfully run a large global project
W+K’s business worldwide is increasingly coming from international assignments. But most of W+K London’s recent work has been UK-based. There’s an opportunity for us to broaden our contribution to the agency’s global clients and we were looking to do this in 2006. But we haven’t done it yet. Failure!
- Learn and profit from new communication channels
Digital and other new channels are the fastest growing sector in the industry, while the rest of the industry is in downturn. We need to broaden our offering into these channels. We’ve done podcasts for Honda, and the world’s first ad downloadable from iTunes, we’ve built web content for Visit Wales and Honda. But we need to continue to do more. Slow progress.
- Continue to build our reputation beyond conventional ads
Though we’ve done this to a certain extent, with some innovative work on Nike and Honda in particular, we’re still best known for our TV work. We want to become more than just an ‘advertising agency’. In 2005 we set up WK Fat to help us do this. In 2006 we’ve been putting into practice with some of the things mentioned under 5 above. But we need to do more.
7. Enhance and develop our working space
We secured planning permission for the roof extension on our building. We just need to get a bit more revenue in and we’ll proceed.
- Become the most enjoyable place in the industry to work
In a survey in Campaign in 2005 we were rated 2nd most desirable place to work (after BBH). We wanted to improve on that, and to ensure that we’re not just highly rated by those people who aspire to work here but, more importantly, have the people who are already here rate W+K as the best. Our annual staff survey suggested that people here are generally very happy, that they understand where the agency is going, what we’re trying to do and what their role is in achieving it. We’ll be applying to retain our accreditation from Investors in People. We’ve retained ‘summer fridays’ where we give people afternoons off in the summer months, we’ve increased our training budget, we’re revamping the appraisals system, we’ve hosted numerous talks and events and, now we’ve got all those pitches done, we’re going to have a big summer piss-up. (If in doubt, have a party.)
Summary self assessment of 2006 so far:
Wieden + Kennedy had an excllent year in 2005 and showed what they could achieve if they put their minds to it. The first half of 2006 has been solid rather than spectacular, though efforts on Honda and Nike continue to score very high marks. Their diligence on new business can’t be faulted but results have been disappointing so far. They need to try harder at digital if they are not to be left behind by the rest of the class. They must keep up their efforts in the second half of the year and show that they can turn their hard work into business results and creative excellence across more clients and more channels.
So, better get on with it, then.
