Seven years on from Accenture Song’s [then Accenture Interactive] $63 million acquisition of the Monkeys, the last founder, Mark Green, has gone and the local business is back in the hands of the executive ranks.

Accenture Song’s new bosses are adamant nothing changes – Bronwyn van der Merwe takes over the broader Accenture Song practice while veteran Monkeys exec Matt Michael, takes over the creative and media units. 

Although unconfirmed by the company, Accenture Song’s ANZ business is thought to be growing at circa 20 per cent. Van der Merwe, who has led the Service practice for the past two years, said the highest areas of demand for the firm’s diversified services was customer service and support and AI deployments – the two were connected, she said. 

“The two areas of growth which I think we really need to lean into is customer service and support and generative AI,” Van der Merwe told Mi3. “Customer service is going through a really rapid transformation because of AI. Because of the data and the intelligence that we have, we're now able to really predict and anticipate customer needs in a way that we never have. We're able to, therefore, create digital products that enable them to self-serve and then we're also able to really help those frontline staff to be much more effective and efficient in the way that they deliver customer experience. A lot of organisations are having a lot of conversations around that topic.”

Matt Michael said he and Van der Merwe had worked together since The Monkeys acquisition – integrating the “promise and delivery” practices would continue to underpin the business via the creative, advertising and media units and the broader Accenture song capabilities in design, commerce, customer service and experience and digital product builds.

“Clients are looking for end-to-end integrated marketing, bringing creativity and creative ideas to tier one business problems,” Michael said of where the Monkeys-Droga5 was seeing demand across ANZ. “CEOs are more involved in customer than ever and they want a partner that can help them navigate the complexity of the customer journey and get cut through in a very cluttered market.”

Both execs said Accenture Song’s go-to market position under former boss Mark Green would remain in place. 

“I don’t think anything changes, other than trying to take it to new heights,” said Michael. “The way that we've been talking about it is, on the one hand, the marketing and the Droga5 component is the promise that a customer puts into market … and the experience side is the other part which underpins delivering on that promise. For the entire last three years, it’s been about trying to bridge those two things and bring them closer together to drive growth. That remains the mandate. The approach doesn't change.”

Van der Merwe said the Droga5 team brought “incredible creativity and provocative thinking” to corporate briefs: “Droga5 bringing that creativity and [Accenture Song] selectively delivering on that promise is what we’re all about,” she said. 

That the Monkeys and Droga5 globally as more traditional creative agencies have survived and thrived in a consulting-led firm, and retained their edge, has surprised some observers. 

In a departing interview with Mi3 last year, one of the Monkeys creative co-founders, Scott Newell, said they had “infiltrated” Accenture Song’s culture, although there have been ongoing rumblings about testing times between what could be perceived as two opposing styles.

“The fear was that we were going to be roadkill,” Newell said in his final days. “But I think almost the reverse has happened. It feels like it's more our culture infiltrating them from where I sit. Everyone that we've met within Accenture that has been there a long time are geniuses in how they work around that system – and they've been successful at working the system to their advantage. So we've had to learn a bit of that too."

Van der Merwe said Accenture Song’s current integrated services approach with Droga5 would remain under her watch. 

“Matt and I have been working together in this capacity already for the last seven years,” she said. “So with my role previously leading Fjord and now, most recently leading Service, Matt and I have a lot of shared history together. We've been pitching to clients together and delivering work together for a long time. We know each other really well. There's a lot of continuity, a lot of stability with our teams and our clients. The opportunity now is for us both to step up into these new roles … and bring our two capabilities, brand and experience, together.”