And that adds Brookes is reflected in their competition. “It’s rare that we pitch against regional agencies, it’s usually London agencies. I’d say roughly 70% of our pitch lists don’t include any other regional agencies.”

The BDH\TBWA group in Manchester, of which Brookes is the ad agency MD, employs 250 staff across creative, digital, below the line and PR.

Although successful, Brookes and his colleagues had felt for some time, things could be better.

“We looked at ourselves” he says “and realised that agencies, fundamentally, hadn’t really changed for many years. Perhaps the last major change was the introduction of planning in 1964…

“I tend to get a wry smile when I hear about agencies embracing change, when culturally it’s simply not instinctive to an agency.”

So he and his colleagues reflected and came up with a new approach predicated on ‘depth, breadth and disruption’. He didn’t react when it was suggested it sounded akin to National Socialism.

But what then does it mean?

Depth, he says, reflects the fact that major advertising is no longer about simply ‘above the line’. “We’re tapping into the whole media neutrality concept. In this brave new world, sometimes above the line is actually inappropriate.”

And breadth he says “kind of supports depth. It’s a multi channelled, multi disciplined approach.” An approach, you could argue, that makes sense when you have 250 staff on hand to support a variety of marketing support functions.

But it’s the disruption, which the agency directors decided upon in January, which Brookes and his colleagues believe is making the greatest impact. “It’s not about wacky ideas” he stresses. “It’s something we’ve adopted internally.”

Brookes

You've got to alter quite radically 

“You cannot outperform the market if you adhere to the same activities as everyone else. If you want to grow your business exponentially, you’ve got to alter something quite radically in your process.

“We have three agencies in situ here in Didsbury but we’ve physically and emotionally taken down the walls and all the teams now sit alongside each other. And they’re clearly benefiting.

“Traditionally it’s been suits, planners, creatives and production. It’s been this way for decades and the whole process has watered down creativity with layer upon layer of procedure.

“There’s been a belief that ‘creative’ is one department and that other departments, by definition, ‘aren’t’. Creativity is too often seen as the end product of the process whereas it should be at the forefront.

“So instead, what we’re saying now is ‘what’s the best group of brains we’ve got to crack the client’s problem?”

New working practices in place since March 

The change in the agency’s working practices came into effect towards the end of March. The account teams of Digerati, Tequila and BDH now sit together, not within their separate agencies.

Do staff approve?

“I can honestly say yes” says Brookes. “I thought we might get some resistance from some creative teams who value their privacy and way of working but this hasn’t happened. The creatives have bought into the ‘expansiveness’ concept and the ability to bounce ideas off different teams with different expertise, ideas and approaches.”

Brookes is delighted that the agency is responding well business wise.

New business in the first quarter has been excellent he declares and points to major new major new accounts from the Dept of Work & Pensions, ghd and getmemedia.com – all chunky seven figure accounts.

And the future for this former ‘suit/planner’ feels good he reveals.

A Leeds lad, he maintains in this “industry you’ve got to have a passion for learning new things. As an industry we can be very insular and that applies to our recruitment policies which again typically follow the old structural lines.

“Instead, we’re looking to bring in more staff with non agency backgrounds.”

Did you enjoy this article? Please share it!

Comments (2)