| What is the total number of employees for the agency and for your studio? How has this changed over the last 2 years? | |
|---|---|
| 2022 - Grey + Tank Health Perm 186 + FTC 29 = 215 2023 - Grey + Tank Health Perm 162 + FTC 28 = 190 2024 (Budget) - Grey + Tank Health Perm 157 + FTC 26 = 183 | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | 2023 headcount (perm staff) is 153. 2022 headcount (perm staff) was 182 We had 28 FTCs in both 2022 and into 2023 |
| What are the total revenues for the agency (substitute & indicate billings if this is the only available number): | |
| Grey £22,862k + Tank £2,557k = Total £25,420k | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | 25,420 |
| List your clients for the past 2 years (grouped by industry category, indicate past/current client). Cut and paste from another document if this helps. | |
| 2022 2023 Syngenta Agribusiness 0 59 Past - Lost Carlsberg - Other Alcohol 146 0 Past - Lost Zhejiang Geely Volvo Auto 2156.679 1561.076 Morgan Motor Company Limited Auto 16.38 0 Past - Lost Skybet Betting 0 807.834 Coca-Cola Other Beverage 2,156 1,068 Canadian Tire Clothing 767 674 COTY Fragrances Local Consumer 21 0 Past - Lost Nikon Electrical 89.504 89.976 B&W Electrical 240.86 0 Past - Lost Bank of Ireland Financial 997 300 Past - Lost Fidelity Financial 437 3 Past - Lost HSBC Other Financial 1,806 1,333 Discover Global Network Financial 0 217 P&G - Braun FMCG 1244.47 744.894 P&G - Febreze FMCG 2.577 0 Past - Lost P&G - Pantene FMCG 1051.389 870.726 P&G - Other FMCG 4.2 0 Past - Lost Wilkinson Sword FMCG 70.92 18.44 Past - Lost DAIRY CREST Food 380 0 Past - Lost Kellogg - Pringles local fee Food 1831.242 2579.564 Nestlé Others Food 368.845 238.662 Arla Food 0 202.79 McCormick Food 0 4.053 Past - Lost Tylko Furniture 0 245 Haleon Healthcare 4,628 4,797 Galapagos Healthcare 246.626 149.965 Delonghi Household appliance 201 186 CATAWIKI Online auction 139.066 200.005 Lovehoney Other 55.55 0 Past - Lost Other clients Other 77.319 27.655 Superdrug Stores plc Retail 7.76 0 Past - Lost Very Retail 1405.723 63.01 Past - Lost Vodafone Telecomms 802.511 820.432 BAT - Nicoventures Tobacco 391 0 Past - Lost Imperial Tobacco Tobacco 2284.681 5600.497 24,027 22,863 GSK - vaccines/benylysta Pharmaceutical 1149.726 1845.791 BUPA Healthcare 353.83 Valneva Pharmaceutical 273 Haven Healthcare 12.661 84.733 1,162 2,557 TOTAL 25,190 25,420 | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | Please refer to supporting attachment. |
| What percent of new revenue comes from the following sources: | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | |
| Expanding on your answer above, how has most revenue growth come in? | |
| 3 large growth opportunities converted in 2023: A) Imperial £3.3m with the addition of new brands beyond the initial 1 non tobacco scope B) Pringles £748k due to number of campaigns in the year (tends to be 1 year on 1 year off on campaign quantity) C) Skybet £808k was a RFI response | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | 3 large growth opportunities converted in 2023: A) Imperial £3.3m with the addition of new brands beyond the initial 1 non tobacco scope B) Pringles £748k due to number of campaigns in the year (tends to be 1 year on 1 year off on campaign quantity) C) Skybet £808k was a RFI response |
| If any, how do you see these sources of revenue growth changing in the coming year? Include Expected Revenue Change: | |
| 11-20% | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | 11-20% |
| Bullet point the services you offer your clients: | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | GROWTH POSITIONING ADVERTISING, TV OOH Print Radio Online PR BRAND EXPERIENCE, Digital Experiential Social Content APP .Com Retail CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, UX CRM Customer Service Employee Engagement |
| How many Competitive Reviews/RFPs do you expect to enter this year? | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | We are targeting 6 large pitches for 2024. We acknowledge that this year we have entered too many and in some cases have pursued opportunities that didn’t play to our strengths. We’re committing to few, bigger, better as we move forward, • Fewer pitches, fully committed through clearer rules of engagement • Bigger value pitches. Stick to a minimum threshold. Get into the right conversations. • Better opportunities that fall into our target sectors, share our creative ambitions and grow our capabilities or broaden our influence |
| Do you have any qualification criteria for committing to a new business opportunity? Please explain. | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | Our target sectors have been identified as, • FS/PS • Tech • Travel • UK flagship brands We are conflict free in these areas, but have credible experience we can leverage. When developing our target list for 2024 we have looked at brands in that are, • FTSE 100 • Top 270 media spenders in UK • Kantar top 75 This will lead to clients with larger fee levels, £500k+ |
| Have you done any outbound business development over the last 2 years? If so, please explain. | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | In short, the answer is no. The focus is always on managing the inbound pipeline. We have done 22 pitches so far this year so that leaves little time for outbound business development. We recognise that we are now paying the price as our pipeline has slowed significantly. Our activity beyond the pitches has focussed on, • Re-building Intermediary relationships (AAR, Creative Brief, Oyster Catchers, Observatory) • Re-engaging lapsed or former clients: B&W, Shell • Cultivating contacts. Working with Autry led to the Tylko project • New Head of Design, Liam Thomas, has contacts we can leverage • Conducted a Growth Workshop, looking at who we know and want to target • 2 events, o June 2022 – The launch of the Client Charter (our DE&I framework) and a welcome to our new space in Rose Court. Panel discussion on the importance for DE&I, 70+ attendees (a mix of staff, clients, intermediaries, press) o Nov 2022 – 105 years of Grey. Fireside chat - Laura JB with Simon Cook (Cannes Lions CEO) looking at how creativity has evolved. 50+ attendees (a mix of staff, clients, intermediaries, press) |
| What strategic resources does the agency make available to your teams? For example, do you have any proprietary strategy, research, data, tools, or services you subscribe to? | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | Loops Global World Index BAV - https://wppbav.com/what-bav-can-do-for-you/ TGI aytm Brandwatch Statista Relative Insights |
| How, if at all, is the agency leveraging AI? Have any specific AI tools been developed or funded by the agency? If so, which ones, and for what purpose (e.g. creative, strategy, operations, research/data analysis, etc.) | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | Currently we are using AI tools for, • Research • Strategy • creative concepting Primarily these tools are using generative AI to assist with common tasks such as translation, topic clustering, document summarisation and to generate creative assets that help to express creative ideas at the concepting stage. We have taken steps to ensure teams have access to and are able to experiment with emerging tools within the generative AI space. These experiments have largely been limited to early stage concept development due to uncertainties surrounding licensing and usage of output from platforms such as Midjourney and privacy and data security concerns surrounding publicly available tools like chatGPT. Grey is now looking in to how these tools can be leveraged for a number of use cases, taking guidance from WPP legal and commercial as needed to address issues around ethics, licensing and privacy. The agency does not currently make extensive use of machine learning or deep learning although there are occasions when such technologies are applied such as the use of natural language processing to analyse research data. Have any specific AI tools been developed or funded by the agency? If so, which ones, and for what purpose (e.g. creative, strategy, operations, research/data analysis, etc.) Grey has not developed any specific AI tools as yet although we have on occasion made use of AI libraries to process research data or experiment with creative opportunities. At a group level WPP is making extensive investments in the AI space from partnering with key players in the space like Nvidia to create a production ready image and video asset generation pipeline to bringing Satalia, a WPP owned AI technology company to the fore. WPP is also creating AI powered platforms that all agencies have access to – e.g. WPP Imagine and WPP Open. Imagine offers secure and private access to generative AI tools from OpenAI, Google and other vendors meaning we can confidently work with private data in these tools. Other solutions cover areas such as the integration of data, media and asset generation to create end-to-end data-powered digital solutions and brand guardianship where an AI powered solution automatically audits uploaded assets for adherence to brand guidelines and requirements. |
| When you step back and think about new business, how does the agency need to improve? For example, are there stages in the pitch process where your teams experience particular challenges (whether internal or external)? | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | We are committing to making the following improvements, FROM inbound servicing TO outbound proactivity FROM central comms TO local marketing strategy FROM rag tag resource TO resourcing for growth FROM make it up as you go TO growth and sales focused approach FROM hygiene budgeting TO performance/opportunity focused budgeting FROM last minute scrambles TO prioritisation of core marketing assets |
| Is there anything else that would provide insight into your new business goals, opportunities or challenges? | |
| Katherine Goodale, New Business Director. Submitting on behalf of Conrad Persons, President | New business goals for next year are, - Focus on conversion – we are coming a close second too many times. - Generate our own pipeline through a clear marketing plan - Commit to few, bigger, better pitches (following our qualification criteria and sticking to it) |