As chair and co-founder of venture capital firm True Global, Matt Truman is equally invested in identifying and understanding these high-growth clients. He believes that outperformance arises from harnessing consumer trends and savvy operational practices.
‘If you take those structural tailwinds that exist in behaviour – such as the shift to digital, the shift to sustainability, the shift to healthy eating – and then you combine that with the best business model, what you end up with is a very compounding impact,’ he said.
One company that has taken advantage of a shift in consumer behaviour is Oatly, which has ridden a wave of interest in dairy alternatives to turn an unloved oat milk product into a fast-growing lifestyle brand.
Sarah Sutton, the brand’s global media director, attributes at least some of Oatly’s success to its decision to dismantle its marketing team and replace it with a ‘department of mind control’ that is involved in every facet of the business, from commercial to innovation to supply chain.
‘The long and short of it is we collaborate quickly,’ says Sutton, ‘and we solve business problems creatively. I think that's something that agencies used to do really well, but there were lots of things that got in the way of that, and I think what Cheil Connec+ is definitely doing is helping to shape that.’
Fernando Machado, CMO at Activision Blizzard, agreed that moving fast and being creative were vital for outperformance, but he added that most of the barriers and bottlenecks that he had encountered in his career lay on the client side, rather than with agencies.
‘That's one of the reasons why I lean into having most of the work that we've done – and of course, there are exceptions — with external creative partners. I want to work with people who have a different mindset, a different culture.’
Within large companies, said Machado, ‘you have to go through so many layers and so many people. There's the global team, the regional team, the local team, the legal team, all the teams, and things do slow down.’
‘If you want to go fast and experiment and iterate,’ he added, ‘I think that you need to look at your own processes.’
Another thing that outperformers get right, said BMB managing director Claudia Wallace, is ‘find the right people to do the right jobs’.
Wallace recommended Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross’ book, Talent, which advises company to hire for dedication and energy over IQ, and to break out of the rut of asking the same interview questions, by asking candidates about their personal lives, and then listening for things like attention to detail and enthusiasm within their answers to assess whether they’re right for the job.
‘The other question that they recommend you ask,’ said Wallace, ‘is, “what do you do on a daily basis, like a pianist does learning scales, in order to improve your knowledge?” Outperforming brands need people and talent who are constantly wanting to learn [..] So that question really gets underneath the skin of what they're doing [...] and it can help you to hire the right people.’
But while it may seem like outperformers have all the answers, they are uncertain in the face of a global economic slowdown, just like everyone else. And in his closing remarks, Millner pointed out that quite a few companies declined to speak on the day’s panel because they didn’t feel confident enough in their own performance to give advice to others.
All of which comes back to the purpose of his new agency network offering.
‘That’s the reason why we created Cheil Connec+,’ said Millner, ‘to offer businesses the right services at times of rebirth or birth, whether they are already an outperformer company or need to be one.’
