Holding company M&C Saatchi has taken steps to “de-risk” its M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment division following the departure of its long-serving global and UK executives.
Global chief executive Steve Martin and UK chief executive Jamie Wynn-Morgan stepped down after 20 and 19 years respectively amid a restructuring in November that brought the UK sports and entertainment division’s operations to the same P&L as its advertising agency in London under UK group CEO Marcus Peffers.
Group chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne told analysts last week (Wednesday 10 April) that while the departures had “no impact so far”, with no customer losses, she could not rule out “bumps in the road”.
She added that the company had reviewed its non-compete and anti-poaching terms and considered itself “safe in that regard”, but also realized it needed to mitigate “reliance on one person”.
This is done by implementing an internal CRM system so that “all the customer information is in a system and not in someone’s head, so you reduce the risk from that perspective,” Bing-Thorne said, adding that “you can you thought it was strange that we didn’t have one [before]”.
In January, M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment announced it was repositioning itself as a “passion agency”, moving away from the notion of reaching homogenous groups of consumers through traditional fandom marketing and instead helping brands reach communities of fans through interests and passions.
The group’s latest results showed the Passions division, which includes Sport & Entertainment, outperformed the advertising side of the business with growth of 10%.
Martin and Wynn-Morgan aren’t the only people to leave M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment in recent months. Two former co-managing directors, Jody Fullagar and Rich Barker, left last summer and in January launched a rival Mother-backed agency called Run Deep.
However, M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment had three wins in the first quarter of this year – Danone, Fanatics and Lynx/Axe. Bing-Thorne noted that the agency actually took steps not to “go overboard” during the Olympics year by limiting client intake.
Wynne-Morgan’s successor as UK boss was revealed last week as Laura Coller, who was promoted from managing director and has been with the business for 15 years. She is supported by a seven-member senior management team with a combined experience of 74 years at the agency.
Bing-Thorne said of the potential impact of Martin and Wynn-Morgan’s departures: “We’re a people business and people are emotional, so it would be crazy of me to say there won’t be bumps in the road because it will happened.”
She added: “Naturally we have looked at all our non-competes and poaching [conditions] and we’ve made sure that if someone decides to leave while we’re going through this period of change, we’re protected in that regard. I think in the context of what we did, we defended ourselves.
“I think it’s also very important to protect your reputation, and in doing that you want to treat people with respect and humanity.” So when we make these decisions, we want to make it the best way possible. It’s never nice, but you can still treat people well.
“Wherever they decide to do it [leave the company] I just hope they’re respectful because reputations are hard-earned and so we just encourage people to respect the brand and the people who work here.”
Martin and Wynn-Morgan declined to comment. There is no word on what they plan to do after their resignations in November, but the pair are said to be looking to start a new agency, according to news site Sport Industry.
This article first appeared on Campaign
