CHEP and Traffik Folded Into Clemenger, Lee Leggett Named CEO

BBDO Worldwide has merged Australian agencies Clemenger BBDO, CHEP Network, and Traffik to combat a culture of transactional creativity and “put our arms around this business”, global CEO Nancy Reyes has revealed in an exclusive interview with LBB.

The new entity, called Clemenger, will be led by current CHEP CEO Lee Leggett. Dani Bassil, who moved home after two decades in the UK to rebuild Clemenger at the start of 2023, will exit the agency. 

The business has not chosen the rest of its leadership team, including key positions such as chief creative officer and chief strategy officer (Clemenger has Adrián Flores and Simon Wassef, respectively, and CHEP Gavin Macleod and Lilian Sor). As Nancy told LBB, “This isn't the whole thing. It's really just the beginning of the story.”

“We've got this magic, but it's not operating to its fullest potential,” she said in her only interview while visiting Australia. The restructure was not motivated by efficiency, she promised, and “it really isn’t about a balance sheet.” 

Instead, she wants CHEP’s creative, media, technology, and data capabilities, and Traffik’s activation arm, embedded into a business of Clemenger’s creative pedigree and heritage. The combined end-to-end agency will offer brand creative, experience, media, and digital and commerce capabilities, powered by data and innovation.

“If we want to care about a client's business, we've got to get our own house in order so that we are capable of saying, 'Okay, this feels like this kind of a problem. I need these kinds of expert thinkers, and they're right here.' We don't put more obstacles in our people's way to access the talent and the expertise that already is inside," Nancy said.

“We've got to get back to a place where we put our arms around this business. We're not insecure about the business that we're in, we're proud of it. And when we think about applying all this thinking much more upstream, then that opens up the opportunity to say, 'Okay, we've actually got these capabilities inside the Clemenger Group, but maybe the best way to take advantage of them is to put them together.' Because try as we might, it's very hard to operate when they're separate and distinct.”

Nancy noted a changing market, and increased client demands, necessitated a more potent, unified offering that truly values big ideas.

“For a while, they probably had to operate independently to grow into whatever version of themselves they were going to grow into,” she said of the agencies. 

“That's probably smart innovation, to build these things separately, but there will come a time when putting them together is a more powerful combination than any one of these things alone, and that's where we find ourselves now.

“What's happened with BBDO in large part, [across] different markets, is that we've become far more transactional than we were ever designed to be. This is probably true in general about advertising.

“This is the most insecure, dramatic industry on the planet. We declare our death at least once a year. If we don't declare it, the industry declares it for us. The metaverse was going to kill us, Web 3.0 was going to kill us, AI, data, everything is going to kill us. And maybe we've begun to believe that a little bit. Maybe it became too much of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Ad agencies, including those under the BBDO umbrella, have become “too quick to sell ourselves down the river,” she added, and Clemenger needs to reclaim its position as a creative powerhouse. That “incredibly meaningful creative soul” is why Nancy joined BBDO in 2023 as Americas CEO from TBWA\Chiat\Day, and Chris Beresford-Hill agreed to join her as CCO last February. 

“We've got to get BBDO to its place of greatness, which we're confident will happen,” she said.

“We can't do that if this market isn't operating to its fullest potential. This place is way too important, way too storied. The brand here is just so important.”

The agency’s new era coincides with the roll-out of Omnicom Advertising Group (OAG), and the holdco's ongoing acquisition of IPG. Clemenger faces stiff competition locally from similarly-sized network agencies, indie disruptors, Accenture’s Droga5, and new market entrant Wieden+Kennedy.

When Nancy was promoted in August to the global role, replacing Andrew Robertson, she acted quickly: making her first-ever trip to Australia in October to assess the local agencies, and returning last week to prepare for the restructure and communicate a new global positioning revealed by LBB, ‘Do Big Things’. Nancy confirmed it will supersede the positioning local Clems leadership rolled out in November, ‘Make work Australians talk about.’

“I am a quick thinker. I have a privilege of perspective right now that we all inevitably lose,” she said of her decisiveness. 

While she is less familiar with the Australian market, “I know a shit ton about advertising, and marketing, and greatness, and big ideas. And you can walk into this thing and see, 'Okay. What if? What if? What if?'

“Acting quickly and making decisions honestly all around the world allows us to get to where we need to go faster. The more time we spend admiring the problem, the deeper we sink into it.”

The global boss acknowledged resolving current conflicts between CHEP and Clemenger, such as Mazda (CHEP) and BMW (Clemenger) is a “fair challenge ahead of us, but not one that we're not keen to figure out alongside our clients.” Other clients include Samsung, Asahi, Mars, Michael Hill, The University of Sydney, and 7-Eleven.

Her pick for the top job locally, Lee, joined CHEP two years ago, inheriting the business from Justin Hind, who rebranded CHE Proximity to CHEP Network during his tenure. Before that, Chris Howatson led the agency for almost nine years.

Nancy said of outgoing Clems CEO Dani’s contribution, “We have a lot of love and respect for her. She's made a massive contribution and she's a fantastic human.”

Les Timar, who remains Clemenger Group CEO, added, "Dani Bassil has informed Clemenger Group of her resignation as CEO of Clemenger BBDO Australia, after two years leading the agency.

"Under her leadership, Clemenger BBDO Australia has delivered groundbreaking work for our clients and attracted extraordinary talent to the team. Dani has worked with us over recent months on the plan for the unification of our two leading Australian advertising agencies and believes this is the right time for her to depart Clemenger Group.

"I thank Dani for her dedication to Clemenger BBDO Australia and wish her all the very best in the next chapter of her career." 

New Zealand’s Colenso BBDO and Clemenger Wellington are unaffected by the Australian restructure, while the new, Australian Clemenger entity is legally effective from 31 March. Nancy said it will take “the balance of the year” to make further key appointments and the structural changes operational. 

“We've got to make our intentions clear, our objectives clear, the vision clear, which is where we've gotten to,” she said.

“And now we need a number of people around that vision to operationalise it properly and to be open and transparent about where there are some bumps in the road.

“It's going to take some time to figure all of that stuff out, there's no doubt about it. It's not flicking a switch.”

BBDO's leader is confident about the future, though, and the new Clemenger’s potential. While she appreciates the local market’s fondness for Clems’ heyday, the James McGrath, Ant Keogh, ‘Meet Graham’ era, Nancy believes the industry can be held back by nostalgia for ‘the good old days’.

“We've got to reframe it. The best days are ahead,” she said. “I'm really bullish about it.”