What you need to know:

• In July, FutureBrand CEO Rich Curtis acquired 100% of the group's Australasian operation from holding group IPG.
• FutureBrand was the second business in Australia sold by IPG this year: in February it sold McCann Australia to Ben Lilley.
• Curtis says FutureBrand will continue to tap into IPG’s global capabilities under the new “affiliate model”, as he pushed collaboration over acquisition.
• FutureBrand will now “take more risks”, expanding further into growth sectors such as tech, digital transformation and employee engagement.
• The agency will also have a greater focus on the technology and health sectors,.
• FutureBrand Australia’s clients include Air Trunk, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, Flight Centre Travel Group, Football Marketing Asia, Luye Life Sciences, New Zealand Natural, New Payments Platform, NIB, Orygen, Vocus and Zenitas.

The affiliate model

Stealing American entrepreneur Victor Kiam’s most famous saying, FutureBrand Australia and New Zealand CEO Rich Curtis says he loved his job so much “he bought the agency”.

In July, the brand transformation agency became the second Australian business sold by American marketing services giant IPG to its local boss (Ben Lilley bought McCann Australia in February).

Curtis owns 100% of the local FutureBrand business. As part of IPG’s “affiliate model”, Curtis can tap into the group’s global resources and capabilities, in particular through its Constituency Management Group (CMG) agencies arm.

CMG houses 28 marketing services brands such as FutureBrand, McCann, Weber Shandwick and Octagon.

Speaking with Mi3, Curtis says the benefits of the affiliate model are two-fold: global capabilities at scale and the independence that will allow his business to “take more risks” than it could when owned by IPG.

“We’re going to be testing the limits of what we can do. This will involve branching out into growth areas such as brand transformation and employee engagement,” Curtis says.

“What is also available is a collective of agencies that we can call upon from a global perspective for a wider level of capability as we continue to grow locally.”

The independent agency sector has become more active this year, with Lilley, Curtis, former local Dentsu Aegis Network boss Simon Ryan and ex-VMLY&R CEO Aden Hepburn all launching new units while the publicly-listed Enero, housing ad agency BMF and PR firms, has continued it's comeback under former CEO Matthew Melhuish. New CEO Brent Scrimshaw started in July. 

While Lilley and Ryan are on the hunt for acquisitions (including RyanCap buying digital shop DBZ Digital and Lilley nabbing Red Engine SCC), Curtis is more focused on collaboration and partnership deals with IPG and non-IPG businesses.

“We’re not going to turn our backs on IPG agencies just because we’ve gone down the independent route [as] there’s a lot to offer there,” Curtis says.

“However, if there is the right opportunity for us to engage businesses here locally then it will certainly be something we look at but likely from a different position than simply M&A.”

Curtis says while there have been serious challenges for every business during COVID, FutureBrand has a real opportunity to “scale up” as the pandemic abates. He wants to expand the business in areas such as digital transformation, Customer Experience (CX), brand management and employee engagement.

“You’ve got a very interesting scenario now where brands have been forced to take a harder look at themselves during COVID, not just financially but also from an identity perspective,” Curtis says.

“There’s been a lot of need for change in how they utilise tech, e-commerce and brand experience. Given our strengths in some of these areas, we see them as the perfect avenues to drive further growth."

The internal brand opportunity

Curtis says employee engagement is an area with strong growth potential. While many companies have been focused on their external image during COVID, they have also had to rethink internal communications.

According to Curtis, there are two “camps” of companies right now: those that are “saying and doing” right by consumers and those who are just “saying”. The same holds in when it comes to employee engagement.

“If you take the obvious things such as working from home, changed lines of communication and a limit on face-to-face conversation, then the core elements of the typical employee experience have completely shifted,” Curtis says.

“Much like external communications, many brands have told staff similar messages of support but haven’t been able to manage the implementation side effectively.”

FutureBrand is working to create effective employee engagement strategies that are in-line with the new working experience. Curtis says this can be anything from understanding how to run more effective and collaborative online meetings to creating better internal reward and recognition programs.

“People are coming together less. Productivity is a sliding scale that is very dependent on the person. There are many elements to the new working from home structure that are only just being realised now,” Curtis says.

“Just as a consumer feels a connection with brand, so do employees and that’s where we think we can help businesses by working hand-in-hand with them to revaluate and construct new methods of attracting and retaining high-quality staff.”

FutureBrand is also targeting the technology and healthcare sectors.

“It’s not just tech brands we are talking about. It’s ‘tech and…’, so for example technology and healthcare,” Curtis says.

“COVID has highlighted that it's more than just big pharma, it’s medical technology, at home care systems, mental healthcare and the like, which will only be something that becomes more important as we come out of this.

“As an agency we are going to take more risks, looking at how we can work with [companies in these areas] to boost their identity and work with them on digital transformation, because there’s no doubt these are two sectors that are going to accelerate dramatically in the next two years.”