It was wrong for media to leave: Draft

Just as Howard Draft and the new chiefs of the merged DraftFCB entity were leaving Chicago for the first leg of their global 'unveiling' tour that would stretch from Latin America to Asia, beleaguered parent Interpublic threw a spanner in the works — announcing it was aligning its media agencies with their creative siblings.

The move, which is likely to have rivals questioning whether this is the inevitable, long-predicted, rebundling of media and creative, sees Initiative become part of the DraftFCB Group, a recently combined company itself (although Initiative is to retain its own branding, and initially its own P&L).

"It's the timing of it all that gets you," reflects the 52-year-old Draft, speaking to Media in Shanghai on the eve of the agency's US$570 million US Wal-Mart win.

Despite the daunting task ahead of him and the days spent crossing time zones to call on the agency's key offices around the world — visits that have given local staff an opportunity to quiz their global boss on investment and merger issues — Draft appears composed as he considers the agency's future.

"I always believed that it was wrong for media to leave the agency, because I think media is just as important as the creative product you put out. In order to really do a holistic job, you have to have everybody at the table from the beginning, including the channel planners, the creative people and the research and data people."

The art and philosophy graduate, who even critics say "truly believes in his product offering as being differentiating", now finds himself leading a media operation that, in Asia at least, appears to have lost its way.

Indeed, outside of India, a market where IPG has a minority equity, Initiative does not figure in new business discussions, say agency sources. Over the last three years, it has seen Unilever Thailand, Indonesia and Japan slip to bigger rival GroupM. Along with Johnson & Johnson Malaysia, the losses have dented its progress and, six years on, it has yet to establish a viable operation in China.

The floundering media operation now falls under the leadership of Draft, a DM specialist who brings limited media experience to the role. "Will I be more involved internationally in Initiative going forward? The answer is yes, because we need to build joint tools. I'm sure we'll be their number one client," he comments.

Draft will now sit on a media council, which replaces IPG Media (an umbrella unit introduced in mid-2005 by IPG) to promote interdependence between the holding company's creative agencies and media agencies.

A man well-known for speaking his mind and who says he has set himself an agenda to put the "fun" back in advertising, believes this is an opportunity to bring a new agency model to the market, one that isn't defined by above- or below-the-line. But don't call it integration. "I don't like the word integrated," he says. "I think integrated is trying to manage a number of agencies. Approaching it in a similar, holistic way with one P&L and one strategy is what I'm hoping to drive to in this model. First off, we will put channel planners in place at every DraftFCB office."

In Asia, he plans to spend "a great deal" on training and has set out to expand DraftFCB's India and China operations and address its CRM offering through the transfer of skill sets. "Don't expect acquisitions from us. Unlike others, we already have the skill sets. It's just a case of bringing them here."