Collaboration is going to be the new superpower: Nick Lawson

In early 2023, WPP consolidated inside GroupM its largest agency MediaCom, merging it with digital performance marketing agency Essence to form EssenceMediacom. Nick Lawson, Global CEO, EssenceMediacom, says the integration of both the agencies has gone well. “These are two really strong agencies; data-driven Essence and global powerhouse MediaCom. Putting these two together has given us a unique view on the marketplace. It’s gone really well. Our people and clients are engaged with it.”

For Lawson, the work produced by the agency has been the highlight, making EssenceMedicom “the most awarded agency in the world over the last year.” Lawson shares that the agency has seen double-digit growth and has put up a strong performance in terms of getting new business in markets like India.

EssenceMediacom is positioned as a breakthrough agency which uses innovative marketing strategies that are capable of driving a significant increase in sales, revenue and customer engagement. Lawson says, “We have a program called the Breakthrough Accelerator program – a unique IP. It is a process that we go through with our clients that is great breakthrough thinking across the whole sphere of communications.”

The premise for this is based on the fact that till five years ago, the effectiveness of advertising was attributed 65% to messaging and 35% to media placement. Today, this has been reversed with 65% of advertising effectiveness being attributed to media placement and 35% to the actual messaging and creative.

Lawson says, “This is not because messaging has become less important, but it’s because messaging has become less effective across the medium. Breakthrough is about trying to solve that equation, that balance to make sure we have the right messaging in exactly the right place, doing the right thing right across the spectrum of communication. It is about solving that conundrum. I believe it should be back the other way around. The medium is important but the messaging and matching both are important. Everything that we are doing is focused on that – how do we get more effective messaging in exactly the right moment, in exactly the right time for our clients.”

He says that the need of the hour is to think laterally and outside the box. He cites the example of Sprite's 'Joke in a Bottle' campaign where scanning the bottle unravels jokes across over nine regional languages, across relatable topics such as exams, college, relationships, food, and more.

With clients trying to maximise the amount of money spent, Lawson says that though the marketing budgets are increasing necessarily, the focus is efficiency on where the most amount of money can be spent. With clients being the guiding light for any company, Lawson says that any system should be made keeping in mind what the client requires. He states, “Collaboration is going to be the new superpower. We work with different agencies right across the spectrum but what we have to do is imagine ourselves walking a mile in the clients’ shoes. This means it is not one system that fits all, we tailor everything around the clients’ needs and around their ecosystems as well and we have to work with many different parts of the clients’ ecosystem.”

Talking about India Lawson says, “India has been one of our top performers. We won over 90 awards last year. It was on top of our new business ranking by quite some way. Some of the client work done there has been really quite impressive across Google, Coke, P&G. We have been very successful with those three brands, super proud of our Indian team and what they are doing…..India is not our biggest market but it is probably our strongest market.” He continues, “It is among top 10 market. If you ask Mark Read (CEO of WPP), I think he would probably say that India is the best example of WPP - GroupM agency integration bit, real strength from both the group and the individual brands working together seamlessly and producing a powerhouse of an agency under the WPP umbrella.”