TBWA’s Nancy Reyes explains how to pitch on your principles

Life at the agency, though, probably won’t ever return to its pre-pandemic rhythm.

Promoted to chief executive officer last April after five years with the agency, Reyes has begun leading the company at a turbulent time. As chief exec, she arrived as the agency dealt with both the practical questions posed by the pandemic and the moral and political questions posed by the Black Lives Matter protests.

“I was humbled by the job in the beginning because I became CEO during the pandemic, during an uprising of social justice, during a crazy election.

“It just doesn’t stop ... it’s been harder than I thought it would be. But with that has come a lot of learning and a lot of great progress that maybe we wouldn’t have realized if we weren’t in the wake of some pretty tumultuous times.“

Values proposition

The last two years have proven to chief execs and managers like Reyes that merely ensuring commercial growth isn’t an adequate qualification to lead – they must echo, and reinforce, their organizations’ commitments to environmental and sustainable practices, to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and to treating staff fairly.

TBWA\Chiat\Day NY’s prospective customers, she says, are now openly screening agencies on moral and ethical grounds.

A recent review ran by investment capital firm Blackstone for subsidiary Sphera (an environmental, social and governance consultancy) saw Reyes and her agency grilled on their ethical credentials.

The review process was “very condensed“ compared to typical selection rituals, but was designed to test TBWA and its competitors’ expertise in environmental, social and governance (ESG). “We were told about the company, we were given a bit of insight about it, and what we had to do was come back with our interpretation of what the assignment was for ... discovering the brand values of that particular company. Because the lift was lighter, I would argue we were inspired to do more. It felt like a very respectful, honorable, inspiring process.“

Reflecting on her own spell client-side (at Verizon, for a year, after 12 with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners), she says she appreciated the alternative approach. And based on her team’s ESG knowledge, TBWA won the business and deepened its relationship with the parent firm.

“It’s critical to be working [ESG] stuff right now. The idea that private companies can probably take ESG forward more quickly ... I think that’s a pretty compelling thought.“

She suggests agencies should be more proactive with this type of client engagement – not just to conduct business in a more transparent and ethical way, but to forge stronger relationships. “In the past couple of years, we’ve been presenting our values, presenting our commitment to DE&I, to our own employees,“ she says.

“Now we have to introduce ourselves to prospective clients and ask those prospective clients to share their values, their DE&I commitments, the way they treat their employees.

“Do we like each other as humans? Do we value the same things? Because when the going gets tough, which it will inevitably, we should fall back on that shared set of values more than anything else to move us forward.“

It means agencies, and agency leaders, are beginning to be held accountable to their promises from inside and out. In longer-term relationships, Reyes hopes TBWA teams will themselves be able to influence the practices of the companies they work alongside.

“Our employees, thankfully, are outspoken about that. In one case, with a particular client, the concerns were enough that we brought them to the client – and in fairness, they answered questions about it and talked about their own struggles with the issue. It’s become more normal and accepted to have these open conversations with our own employees and with clients.

“Transparency is the way it has to be, and as leaders we have to be attuned to it, we have to listen to it. We have to make decisions and good judgement based not only on what our employees are saying, but what our own beliefs are with the brands and the businesses and the potential of those brands.“

In more severe cases, Reyes says the agency is willing to walk away from a client. “If we didn’t feel their answers were sufficient or appropriate, or the company’s ethics were questionable ... we’re well within our right to do that, for sure. But first, we need to give everybody the benefit of the doubt and make decisions based on that.“

Disruptive principles

Reyes is focused on turning external crises into opportunities for the agency. But she’s adamant that an organization has to look inwards to move ahead; something mirrored in her own career path.

“External forces can bleed into an organization, but much of the focus for us now is something we call ’win from within.’ When you can’t control all the things that exist in the outside, we have to look inside the company and decide with intention that our future already exists inside ... from the people that we have to the brands we work with, to the principles that will always be relevant.“

One of the principles TBWA\Chiat\Day holds dear is on its masthead. Despite being behind some of the most famous ads of all time, TBWA likes to bill itself not as an ad agency but as “the disruption company.”

The phrase has been tainted in the minds of some consumers, as the startups that gleefully embraced it – the likes of Facebook, Uber and Airbnb – attract more and more political heat for the side effects of their disruptive behaviors. Do brands still want to be associated with disruption?

Reyes, though, believes it’s a principle worth sticking with. “Disruption has been in demand from our clients. Think of the number of industries that are going to have to or are changing as a result of the pandemic or social justice issues.

“Disruption was never meant to equal destruction. It was always meant to create white space, to create opportunity, to create potential, to create something that felt purposeful in the future.“