David Sable on why he’s joining Stagwell and the state of the ad industry

David Sable, former global CEO of Young & Rubicam, has joined Stagwell as vice chairman. Sable will be responsible for growing Stagwell’s organic business by focusing on client outcomes, building a “whole egg” approach like the one he used at Y&R and mentoring Stagwell employees. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Sable is a heavyweight in the advertising industry, with four decades of experience at top agencies. He mentored under the late Lester Wunderman as vice chairman of Wunderman Thompson, under Alex Kroll at Y&R and under Harold Burson as senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. Sable will be based at Stagwell’s global headquarters at 1 World Trade Center in New York and report to Mark Penn, Chairman and CEO. He will work alongside Stagwell’s other vice chairman, Ray Day, who joined from IBM in 2020. “This is not a command and control position, that’s not what I’m here for,” Sable said. “My only goal is to grow our business and to help all of our companies be successful.” His appointment comes months after Stagwell posted a quarterly loss and slashed its 2023 revenue and profit forecasts. In addition to sitting on a bevy of company boards—including American Eagle Outfitters, Ethan Allen, Unicef USA and the Special Olympics—Sable spent the last two years at the helm of DoAble, his marketing services company that helps clients with the IP of branding. Sable spoke to Ad Age about starting his new role, his decades of experience and the state of the industry. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You’ve been away from the agency space for a few years now. What were you up to? I really haven’t been away as you might think. I’m thankful to [WPP CEO] Mark Read that when I went to him and told him that I thought it was time for me to go, he made it very easy and gave me a long, long runway, where I was able to do whatever I wanted to do. During that time, I recharged my creative batteries, started DoAble and we’ve been working with incredible partners. I went from a place where my PA had a PA to doing everything myself. I’ve gone back to my complete entrepreneurial spirit and roots. Then what brought you back, and why Stagwell? The truth is, I wouldn’t have done this. I was very happy doing what I was doing. Mark [Penn] and I have been friends for a long time since before he came into WPP [at Burson-Marsteller]. Then he started Stagwell and from day one, Mark kept asking me to come in. But it wasn’t my time. I retired from WPP, I still had the runway, so I had to be careful. Then Covid hit, and I didn’t even think about it. Then a month ago Mark called and said, “Ok, enough.” I thought about it for about 10 seconds and said yes. In the annals of hiring somebody senior, this is probably the single, fastest, quickest, easiest ever. Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here How hands-on are you going to be in this role? I’m hands-on as a team member. I’m not here hands-on as a management person. If I can add value to a pitch or to something by being the person who does a PowerPoint, just sits there and inputs, I’ll do that. I have no preciousness to what I do. There’s nobody I’ve spoken to who hasn’t sent me stuff to look at already and asked me to comment. We’re having discussions about current RFPs and real meaty things. You’ve been in the industry for 40 years. As it stands, what are some of the issues you see in the agency world and how can you address them at Stagwell? We’re in the marketing business, full stop. Over the past bunch of years, there have been holding companies that want to be anything but an advertising or marketing business. They would rather be Accenture or PwC, which is great. But when you look at what clients are actually asking for, it’s people who are going to help with their marketing. The other is that tech has been core to everything that we do. When I came into this business, Y&R had the first computer, and it was an entire floor. In order to get anything out of it, you had to learn basic programming to pull out data and use it to create insights. Sadly, when the digital world hit, we all went, oh my God, that’s tech. We don’t do that. Think back to television. Do you think anybody in our industry said “how the hell did those people get in that box?” Same thing with cinema. So my view is that we have to be marketers. We have to be great at it. We have to understand it more importantly. But we’re not creating the tech. We’re using the tech better than anybody else. Well, the latest tech du jour is AI. Do you think it’s all it’s cracked up to be? I don’t think anybody has a clue how to use it yet, frankly. I think we’re all struggling with it still. And it needs to be struggled with. But there are pieces of it that we’ve always used. Even if you look at Wunderman. Thirty years ago, Lester created a program that was early machine learning, looking at direct response TV, and it was AI. I point out that everyone thought Google Glasses and Bitcoin and VR would change everything we do. AI is the same. I think that for programmatic advertising, it’s absolutely amazing and when you’re generating lists, it’s absolutely amazing. Will it ever be Will Shakespeare? I’m not ready to concede that.

David Sable on why he’s joining Stagwell and the state of the ad industry

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