What you need to know:

• Thinkerbell bosses upbeat on their integrated creative-media-earned model despite losing flagship Vegemite account in a media consolidation move at Bega Foods
• PwC stake in Thinkerbell publicly disclosed for first time as 10%
• Start-ups and marketing savvy mid-tier brand owners driving demand for integrated offer
• Huge cultural and capabilities effort required to bring media and creative together 

A month of market rumblings that Thinkerbell had lost the flagship media component of its Vegemite remit with Bega Foods and the sudden exit of Thinkerbell’s media lead Ben Shepherd might be connected – but agency bosses Adam Ferrier and Margie Reid won’t bite. 

Rather, they’re convinced more than ever that a different breed of brands and marketers are fuelling a new wave of demand for integrated creative and media. The duo say 50 per cent of their current client base is using at least two of the three core service on offer – earned media makes up the third area of expertise with creative and media and overall, Ferrier says revenues are up 35 per cent this year.

Ferrier and Reid admit bringing media and creative together has been tough for the PwC-backed outfit which has about 100 people across Sydney (40) and Melbourne (60) – PwC is a passive shareholder with Thinkerbell’s partners publicly confirming to Mi3 for the first time that the consulting giant holds a 10 per cent stake in the agency.

But the departure of Vegemite media and Shepherd – all Reid will say on that front is Thinkerbell won’t be replacing Shepherd or the lead media position he had – is a small detour for the magic that an integrated creative-media combination can bring. 

Neither will comment on the Vegemite media split, but Thinkerbell is understood to have pitched for the consolidated media account for Bega and its new brands like Yoplait, Dairy Farmers, Berri and Dare after a $500m acquisition of Lion Dairy & Drinks finalised in January.

“No matter what kind of changes happen within our media product, I will be forever confident that we will offer media and creative services together because our boss has a very strong media background,” Ferrier said of Reid, a veteran media agency exec before joining Thinkerbell to run media and rapidly elevated to Thinkerbell CEO. 

“Startups are a big part of our business and a big part of any agency business,” added Ferrier. “You're getting a lot of startups with a lot of good ideas who are getting a lot of backing. There’s a lot of money in the market and they need to grow their brands quickly. So they're picking an agency who can do media and creative and do it all.

“There’s not a marketing savvy client who doesn't have millions of dollars to waste who isn’t really open to it. We just started working with the Salvation Army and part of the brief was they were looking for an agency that does media and creative together. We won that. I think it's a pretty good example of somebody who's marketing literate who understands that there's potential wastage in terms of money and operational efficiencies having them in three different businesses.”

Stretching hamstrings

Reid says at the bigger end of town, stitching creative and media is harder, due in no small part to legacy shoulder chips from media agencies about playing second fiddle to their creative peers. Reid says media people still have hangups on this front which blocks real progress in bringing the two fields together. But there’s also a huge difference how people in those areas think and operate.

“The biggest challenge is literally the shape of people's brains and that they work in such a different way – and taking away the years of legacy of being at each other,” said Reid.

“Because if you're in a media-only agency, you're protective of your space. If you're a creative agency, you're protective. But what is the power and the opportunity if those brains came together and actually brought the thinking, the creativity all together? So the learning for us is it does take time to break those years of legacy. Adam and I laugh about the hang ups that sometimes media people have; that they are second to creative. What if everyone was just equal and solving a problem? It's a challenge that you have to constantly train and develop and nurture. There’s definitely a hamstring of legacy and the different types of brains – but then for us, of course, there's been teething issues of trying to create it and and mould it. We're getting to a pretty solid place.”

Deliberately, Thinkerbell mixes up its “thinkers and tinkers” across creative, media and earned. There a no functional or geographic silos – when they are in the office.  

“We're pretty proud of some of the work that we're doing, even more so internally of getting people on that that path of one strategy, one approach that saves the client from having a media strategy and a creative strategy that are odds with each other,” says Reid.

There’s a lot more going on at Thinkerbell in how it’s tapping PwC’s  resource, and planned acquisitions around consumer research and insight. 

But for the theme of the week, what’s next for media? 

Reid says Thinkerbell has held its own in client media audits on pricing and efficiencies but will likely partner on a data management platform and other areas where early investment costs around tools are almost prohibitive for a smaller, independent operation. There is also a shift in how the media capability will run.

“It won't be a headline name like Ben was,” says Reid. “It'll be much more integrated. So it's far less about one individual thinking that they're going to achieve something and more about an integrated approach."

"We do strategy all the way through to implementation. We just don't have an in-house DMP, programmatic offering to the scale of others. But we are audited on clients, and we are equal, if not more competitive, than other multinationals or other agencies and that's been audited by external parties. So we're really proud of that side of it. We've just got to keep demonstrating that to clients. That will be where we build out from there.”