VIDEO: Mauricio Sabogal on why Mediabrands’ cluster structure is working

Most recently, he says, with the win of Clorox across ten markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, following a three-way pitch.

Reports says Initiative will now handle the household cleaning brand’s media communications business in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa and the Middle East.

Sabogal feels that Mediabrands’ structure, which sees their world divided into three clusters, North America, G14 and world markets, was instrumental in the Clorox win.

“The more we go into the cluster structure, the more we realize this is the ideal way to go for the company, and for clients,” says Sabogal. “What we are doing within world markets is all about consistency, and I’m proud to say we’ve won Clorox, in ten countries that all fall within (that cluster.) Which means that for us, and for the client, it was really easy for us to negotiate the contract because it was one single decision marker on each side of the table.”

He says the company is also interacting between clusters on major multinational accounts, as well as stressing the importance of emerging markets like the CIVETS, the next level after the BRIC nations, and how the world markets cluster is focussing on those in preparation for future client need.

Sabogal goes on to talk about the ways in which data is giving the industry the opportunity to redefine its remuneration models. He says the proliferation of data is making it far easier to move toward being paid by performance rather than on a commission basis. “We can now say that traditional media and digital media are no longer different – media is via satellite, via cable or via radio frequency – TV, print, radio are just platforms delivered by those three media.”

“Now we’re not thinking about trying to buy the cheapest media, we’re finding the media that delivers the best KPI’s – and once we’ve detected that, then we buy cheap, which is very different.”