On the road - a year in the life of Driven

Following a restructure at TBWA\Manchester and the big-spending Morrisons account leaving the agency (then BDH\TBWA) for London in 2006, among those made redundant were chief executive Griffiths, managing director Brookes and creative director Lear – Griffiths exited in 2006, while Brookes and Lear followed in September 2007 (at the same time as the BDH moniker).

On their departure, the north west market was awash with theories on where the trio would turn up. However, few would have predicted that the three would join forces to launch a new agency. The trio were then joined by a fourth partner – TBWA\Manchester’s ex-brand director Drury. And Driven was born. But after all the hype, how has the team actually performed at the end of year one?

Fattening

“Our first year at Driven has been fast, full-on, fulfilling and, from a personal point of view, fattening,” says Brookes patting his cheeks (facial, of course). “As you can see we have all spent a lot of time in the office and less time out of it enjoying ourselves and keeping fit.”

That said, for an agency preparing to stick a single candle on top of its birthday cake at a time when marketing services agencies are desperate hunting around for any crumbs of new business, Driven looks in pretty good shape, especially after a recent spate of new business wins that have included brands such as Jameson, Dirt Devil, Breville, Nicky Clarke, Dare 2b, Red Kooga and Lotus, the Belgian biscuit brand, a favourite among coffee shop afficianados.

That said, this time last year life was not quite as smooth. The high profile departure of the foursome from TBWA\Manchester made intriguing headlines coming at a time when, the also now departed agency boss Robert Harwood-Matthews was making swinging changes at TBWA/Manchester. In hindsight, perhaps the time was right for Brookes and co to hand back their company cars keys and set their sat navs to steer them off in a new direction. Or perhaps, they should have done it even sooner?

“Do I wish I had done this years ago?” Ponders Brookes, as The Drum meets him at his Wilmslow offices. “I suppose yes and no. Yes, I wish I had done it a couple of years earlier as it would probably have been a better time to do it. Do I wish I had done it years and years ago? The answer would be no.

“At the end of the day we are all a sum of the parts in terms of our experience. I would have hated to have missed out on the experience that I’ve had over the year. I’ve been fortunate enough to work for McCanns, JWT and TBWA. I’ve worked across lots of clients, I’ve worked around the world with them, met some great people and when you have such a depth and breadth of experience as we all have here, you can cherry pick the good stuff and leave the bad stuff behind.

“I think that experience makes us what we are now and makes us the attractive proposition that Driven is. There’s no point in looking back and saying I wish this or I wish that, just take the best of what you have done and apply it to what you are going to.”

Challenges

Like the brand new, gleaming Aston Martins that sit across the road in Stratstone’s forecourt, a new agency in itself is something pretty special. But there’s always a fear that something could malfunction, even a burst tyre along the way can cause an uncomfortable stutter for a while. So, what have been the biggest challenges Driven has faced during its first year?

Brookes says: “In terms of challenges there were so many related to just getting the business going, but as a group – and I don’t think this is unique to us – having the power of self control has been a big challenge. It is very easy as a young, new business to say we will go for everything, to feel we need to win everything and grow as quickly as possible. But I think you have to really be careful. You need the ability to say some opportunities just might not be right.

“There are opportunities that we have turned down because we didn’t think it was a good fit for the agency we are trying to build or we didn’t think we were the right partner for the client.

“You have to be honest about that. It is easy to find yourself in a relationship that is driven by just generating income, but somewhere along the track you find the motivations and the objectives of the two parties are different. So, you have to be prepared to say no if you think it’s wrong and that is tough to do.”

There’s a twinkle in Brookes’ eye. And The Drum’s hack quickly senses there is more to this comment than meets the ear. So, you’ve made mistakes?

Brookes counters quickly: “I don’t think we would have done any of the big things differently. The genesis of Driven certainly goes back much longer than last year or the year before. This is not an agency that was thrown together last minute, we knew what we wanted to be and how we wanted to structure things, so we really started off in the right place, we put the proposition together in a way we thought was right so that we had a solid foundation from the start.

“That is not to say we did everything right. If we were to do one thing differently it would have been to listen to our instincts a little more. We pitched for one piece of business and our instincts told us that we were not going to win it.

“We had such a monumental task relating to an individual on that pitch that our chances of winning were slim, but we went for it. I don’t think that a particular individuals hand was fully revealed until the final pitch and, by that time, we had spent a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think this is just a Driven issue, but an industry issue.

“We all have quite big egos and think we can overcome any problem or any issue, but sometimes you have to recognise that you have to say ‘no’ to some business. Unfortunately, we didn’t on that occasion.”

It goes without saying, but while 2008 may have seen Driven go from 0-60mph in next to no time, the economic climate expected in 2009 may see many agency businesses go from 60-0mph even faster. As a young business, with a relatively fresh client base, is this a major concern for Driven’s directors?

Brookes is philosophical: “2009 is going to be a tough year, but the reality of it is that every year is a tough year. There is nothing particularly unique about tough times, especially when you have been in the industry as long as we have. We have seen it before, we know what it’s like and we know how to react to it.

“The important thing is recognising that the business is well structured. We don’t carry debt, we have good cashflow, good business practices, we are not really constrained by having massive overheads that needs feeding like other agencies, so we are pretty well structured.

“Our business model from the outset was designed to make sure that we can run lean, we can run efficiently and effectively. So, we were kind of recession proof before the recession. But because of the way we are structured we are in a position where, because we are financially sound, our forecasts for this year are up on last year. But what that solidity gives you is options and the one thing you need more than anything in a recession is options.

Options

“If your only option in tough times is to cut costs then that is not good, it’s not good for the culture of the company, it’s not good for staff moral and it’s not good for clients because I cannot see how continual cost cutting can be good for client service. We have options, we have various strategies that we can apply for various conditions. At the end of the day, if we cannot run a business well then I don’t know who can.”

It seems Driven is happy to park the recession for now, but what of the future?

“Do we ever envisage having 300 people one day, the simple answer to that is no. That is no disrespect to agencies such as McCanns. I think they are a great agency. My main concern with size is that bigger or biggest has long expected to equal better or best and I don’t think that applies to the industry anymore.

“We are seeing more fragmentation in size and scale of agencies that are going to appeal to clients. To some clients working with a huge agency is what they want, they like the safety, the security, the size, the process and the bureaucracy, that goes along with that, but for other clients that is not necessarily what they want. If you are a medium-sized client you may not want that. You may ask ‘what are we paying for here?’ ‘How much of our money is going on servicing our business and how much is going on running this huge machine?’ Again I am not focusing on McCanns, but there was rush in the early ‘noughties’ to make agencies huge, big integrated groups. I don’t think that is the only model going forward and I don’t think that is right model for a lot of clients.

“We have plenty of scope to grow without having to compromise on what is really core to Driven – and that is to ensure our clients get the most senior staff in the agency working with them day to day. We have a lot more scope to grow and deliver on that promise. I guess the opportunity to be arguably the best, which might mean the biggest, is not beyond our remit.”

And if anyone at Driven does ever lack inspiration in the years to come, a peek out of the boardroom window will do the trick. It’s hard not to get excited by shiny new cars.

To watch the video of the full interview with Driven co-founder Nick Brookes, just visit www.thedrum.com/vodcast.