Southpaw MD Tom Poynter calls on agencies to drop the digital tag

Over and above turning a good profit, what constitutes a highly successful agency business in your view?

Agencies that invest in long term relationships with their clients that drive a fair value exchange, underpinned by behaviours and values that represent a partnership rather than a supplier relationship. Agencies that can genuinely challenge a client in order for the work to be the best it can be. There is way too much flannel and noise out there produced by agencies that are just focussed on revenue.

What do you think the key challenges are going to be for ambitious agencies in the years ahead?

Less of a challenge, but more of an opportunity to get clients to understand different remuneration models beyond selling time. Creativity is stifled by time bound scopes of work. Brave thinking should be charged at a premium and based upon value to the brand and its bottom line rather than how many hours an account man can squeeze into a proposal.

Agencies need to lose the digital tag. What is digital in today’s society? It is everywhere so why the need to keep saying it? For us it is more about the blending of capability to deliver a fucking great idea. That is hard to do and you have to work tirelessly at it, but when it is achieved, the work is amazing. At Southpaw we look to focus on blending 4 pillars in order to answer our clients’ business challenges – creativity, media, technology and data. We find that the depth of thinking from a blended team is so much more immersive and the work is more disruptive.

Where do you feel that many agencies let themselves down?

Trying to present themselves with the capability to do everything when clients know that isn’t possible. I love going into inter agency meetings with advertising agencies as it is so easy to pick them off.

Client leadership and influence - 10 years ago it was easy for agencies to wax lyrical about digital and for clients to be influenced by the shite they were spouting. Clients have now caught up and in some instances, over taken the capabilities and strengths of agencies with their knowledge and influence on digital channels. Agencies need to stay progressive and on their A game in order to stay ahead.

You have just relaunched your agency, what were the key factors in that relaunch?

Well, we have just launched the Southpaw brand in April of this year. We felt it was important to focus on our strengths, not claim to do everything and focus on being a creative business at its heart, but with blended capability in media planning & buying, technology and data analytics.

As part of our re-launch we have worked hard to drive new commercial models with our clients, getting out of purely rate card led discussions and moving more into risk reward, building utility and services as well as implementing licensing agreements. We feel this has really helped our creative product become much braver and our clients are buying into this, which fits perfectly with our proposition.

What will you be specifically looking for in the agencies that you judge as part of The Drum Network Awards?

Ideas that make a difference, that disrupt their category, that outperform the market leader, that work hard to blend data and creativity in order to produce something new and surprising.

The Drum Network Awards are now open for entry and the deadline is Thursday 11th September. For more information on entry visit The Drum Network Awards website.