Dentsu’s Focus: Clients, talent, growth, and capability building

In a special chat, Storyboard18 caught up with the top women leaders at Dentsu. Amanda Morrissey, global president, iProspect, and chief growth officer, media, Dentsu and Shenda Loughnane, global brand president, dentsu X, the arm of the Japan-headquartered agency that delivers customised marketing services, were on their India visit and were joined by Prerna Mehrotra, chief client officer and CEO, media, Asia Pacific, and Anita Kotwani, CEO, media, South Asia, at a special all-women Dentsu roundtable.

Morrissey outlined the pillars that have shaped the agency’s growth trajectory this year: a focus on clients, talent development, growth and capability building.

She said that Dentsu has made commendable progress in each of these areas, enhancing its operational structures to better serve clients in a fast-changing environment.

Morrissey explained that in 2024, Dentsu concentrated on realigning its teams and structures to adapt to ongoing geopolitical shifts, post-pandemic recovery and a rapidly evolving media landscape. This reorganisation, coupled with integrating client leadership at the highest decision-making levels, has strengthened the agency’s client partnerships.

On her part, Loughnane highlighted that the company has successfully transitioned from the broadcast era to the precision era and now into the algorithmic era, where AI controls much of the digital experience.

Kotwani underlined India’s role in the company’s growth strategy. As one of the fastest-growing markets for global media agencies, Dentsu’s approach in India focuses on deepening client relationships and expanding service offerings in areas like commerce, retail, content and data analytics.

"We have added 80 new clients so far this year, and this growth has been supported by a dedicated squad focused on driving new business," Kotwani shared.

Below are the excerpts of the discussion.

What are the plans set out for Dentsu for 2024 and how much of that has been achieved so far?

Morrissey: The real focus areas for us as we have come into 2024 were number one, clients. We always put clients at the centre of our business. As we have come into 2024, there's a lot of insecurity. Obviously, because we've come out of COVID, there's a lot of geopolitical change within the environment. There's a lot of media landscape shifting.

So how do we really make sure that we are creating the right team structures, the right operational structures for our clients? We spend a lot of time doing that to give them the flexibility and resources that they need. We have been very successful at that. We have reorganised our top clients globally and how they fall in regions and markets.

We have also put client leadership on the board within Dentsu as well, making sure they are part of the decision making, that their point of view and conversation is important for us as an organisation. So that's been a really big strategic priority for us and one that has really helped us drive growth for Dentsu and for our clients and build that business partnership because that's really what is at the heart of our business.

Our second one was around talent. I am relatively new to Dentsu, I was amazed by how long people have actually been here. And one of the things that's really surprised me when I first arrived was just the generosity of spirit and the quality of the talent here.

People are having to upskill all the time, the geopolitical landscape and the way people are having to work is having to change. So how do we set our talent up for success, make sure we train and develop them and make sure we've got the right talent capabilities within our business to move forward?

The third part for us with Dentsu has been growth. We need to grow our business and so we've been really focused on growth and we've achieved fairly significant growth this year. We've seen really good growth as we've come into the first eight months of the year.

You asked about the industry trends, we've really focused this year on capability building. When we thought about capability building, it's very much been around our clients and what's going to drive growth for them and for us as well. And so we've been looking at those really fast currents for growth. And obviously, a lot of that is in retail because everything is commerce. So retail, media and commerce have been big focus areas.

Effectiveness is a really big thing that clients are asking us for. Media's actually got onto the boardroom table. And so what a lot of our clients are asking for is business intelligence. How are my media dollars really driving my business impact so they can take it to the board?

Marketing ROI (return on investment) has been another area that we've really focused on. Not just media ROI, but marketing ROI.

And I guess the final piece for us has been around content, and the emergence and proliferation of content around social influencer and live commerce as well. So we've been building those capabilities as well. So I think we've done a lot.

I have actually been here in India this week and seeing what the team have done and achieved here across those strategic priorities, it's just blown my mind.

Dentsu has been through quite a shapeshift, a turmoil, so to speak, over the past couple of years. Now, finally, we see some sort of stability. Over the past few months, how much of client trust have you regained? And how successful have you been in attracting talent?

Loughnane: The industry has changed quite fundamentally. We're seeing some really interesting developments, of course, in AI. Everybody's talking about AI. We say that we've come from an era that was very much the broadcast era, which was all about brand building, into the precision era, which was all about sort of performance marketing. And we're now in what we call the algorithmic era, which is all where AI is the gatekeeper and is controlling aspects of our lives and also deciding what content is displayed and what brands are displayed. That's required some changes.

So what we've done over the last, I guess a number of years, is to really look at how we reorganise our business to be ready for that change in the industry. We've done all of that work over the last number of years. We've done work to rationalise our brands. We went from 150 brands down to five key brands that we focus on. That's all been in the service of delivering for our clients and really thinking about how we drive growth for our clients.

So to your question about driving growth for our clients, that organisation is about facilitating how we build brands for our clients across media, creative, data and technology, and bringing those skills together really holistically to be able to drive that growth for our clients. So that's the journey we've been on. We're really starting to see the fruits of that. The growth that we've delivered over this year, I think, is really a testament to that, not just at a global level but also in India as well.

I think that is really what is now driving growth at a global and at a local and regional level as well.

What are the strategies you're focusing on to drive growth for Dentsu in India? Because we all know, whoever I speak to, everyone's focus is on India. They speak about how India is going to be the next big market for the holding company. So what are some of the things that you're focusing on to drive growth?

Kotwani: One of the most important parts that we've pulled in in our growth agenda is really saying, how do you define growth? For us, it's the depth that we get into with a client. How do we immerse ourselves into our clients' businesses? So the sheer depth gives us the expansion of services. The new-age ones that Amanda talked about are very much prevalent in our country.

Whether it's total commerce, retail, content, influencer marketing, data and analytics—these are all specialisations that we have very much in India as well. So that's one level of saying, I have a client, how do I expand my services to that client?

The other one is really around the new logos. How do I bring in the additional new logos that are going to give us the badge value that Dentsu really, really needs? We've added 80 so far in the year. So we're pretty happy with the momentum in growth that we are seeing.

There is a dedicated growth squad within the organisation that has helped us deliver a lot better momentum compared to, let's say, what probably other agencies are, where you have your client leaders striving to drive the new logo. But we've created a special team that's really helping us accelerate growth. So that's how we're looking at it from an India standpoint.

What are some of the things that clients are speaking about? How has the year been for Dentsu? What is the sentiment like for 2024? From conversations I've had with CMOs and CEOs, they are saying they are cautiously optimistic. Are you also hearing that?

Mehrotra: It's fair to say that it is cautiously optimistic because clients are moving in with a lot of caution when even dollars are being channelled to us, as agencies.

But what has happened in the last few years, I would say, is that there is a lot more accountability expected from agencies than ever before. So whether it's a review process or an existing brief, there is a demand that clients have where, as Amanda mentioned, media takes the front seat. But media also takes full accountability of how and where that money is being spent. So we need to ensure that the money being spent by these clients is in the right places to target the right consumers. Hence, a lot of the conversations have been around ROI and how media could become the growth driver for their business. I think there's a lot of linkages that we are seeing in that space.

But clearly, money's flowing when you're able to show value. So it's all about value creation. What clients are expecting from us is to show value through the full funnel experience that the consumer goes through in ensuring that from start to finish you're able to deliver the KPIs (key performance indicators). But eventually, deliver business results. So the expectation is you become a growth partner for them.

And if you are the growth partner, in my view, money flows.

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