Droga5 benefits from Accenture Interactive ties as its founder moves up

Droga5 might be in a time of transition, but it’s not resting on its laurels. “One of things that typifies our culture is zero nostalgia for the past,” said Chief Brand Strategy Officer Harry Román-Torres, part of the agency’s newly promoted management team. “Once something shifts, we’re on to the next thing, and that manifests into conversations into how we can continually be modernizing and evolving the agency.” See all of Ad Age's 2022 A-List winners here. That evolution is key to its inclusion in this year’s A-List. Droga5 was last year's Ad Age Agency of the Year after a barnstorming performance in the first pandemic year; in 2020, it was named Ad Age Agency of the Decade. In 2021 it continued to bring in the dollars, increasing its revenue by 26% on the back of increased work for major clients, 18 new business wins and eye-catching creative, including transforming Paramount+ into a star-studded mountaintop for the Super Bowl, getting Liev Schreiber to warn us of the perils of “junk sleep” for Mattress Firm and imagining pets as humans for Petco. But 2021 also saw some seismic shifts for the agency in its third year of ownership by Accenture Interactive. In August, founder David Droga was promoted to take the helm at Accenture Interactive and Global CEO Sarah Thompson followed him there in January of this year. While Accenture has attracted back former Droga5 talents like Neil Heymann from Publicis, Droga5 lost co-chief creative officer Felix Richter to Mother London while chief strategy officer Jonny Bauer departed for investment firm Blackstone. Buy your ticket for the Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards Gala at AdAge.com/ACGala. The agency has been swift to promote from within its ranks to replace them. Among the moves, Susie Nam was elevated to CEO of the Americas in November and Scott Bell is now chief creative officer alongside Tim Gordon. And, according to the new management team, the benefits of its founder and senior leaders moving up to Accenture Interactive outweigh any repercussions, giving the agency more influence and presence in the wider organization. “Our intimacy now with Accenture Interactive is greater,” points out Nam. “David is there, Sarah and Neil are there, they are all folk who are in our constellation. Where in the past it might have felt like two cultures colliding, now it is one culture. And we feel the benefits of all of that.” As Román-Torres puts it, “It is about having more Droga thinking—and literally David Droga himself—in more parts of Accenture Interactive. And that allows us to accelerate, because there are a lot of capabilities we can bolt on.” Those capabilities have underlined 2021’s growth, much of which came from organic new business. Working with Accenture led Chase, for example, to expand its remit to include both Wealth Management and Chase for Business. And the agency also won new briefs from Meta, for which it had a hand in the company’s rebrand from Facebook. Other long-standing relationships have expanded; for example, Droga won a pitch for Hennessy's global strategy and creative for its NBA partnership, as well as creating a new brand platform for its VSOP cognac, “More Is Made by the Many.” "The ability to leverage our 10-year relationship to develop work in 2021 that connected to our core consumers in compelling ways was the cornerstone of our 2021 journey with Droga5," said Jasmin Allen, senior VP at Hennessy U.S., adding that the agency "created work that our core consumers could find both aspirational but also reflective of their lives. It was work that they could see themselves in." While some of Droga5's larger new client wins remain confidential, the agency confirmed it has been added to Instacart’s roster. Other new accounts include Hard Rock Sportsbook, Aspen Skiing and Central Garden and Pet. There was, however, one high-profile loss: IHOP put its account into review in December of last year and Droga5 did not re-pitch. Creatively, the agency continues to come up with the kinds of sharp strategic insights that underline great work. For Petco, that has consisted of fundamentally shifting the brand to “health and wellness” at a time during the pandemic when people began to see themselves as “pet parents” rather than owners. After its initial campaign that imagined pets as people, it evolved the idea with further spots that focused on the mental health of pets as people went back to work after the pandemic. And there were new briefs from the client; for Petco’s Reddy retail concept, the agency created a trail of scented pawprints leading to the brand’s New York boutique to attract dogs to take their owners there. Another insight from the pandemic was that people were experiencing poor sleep, which in turn was impacting their mental health and wellness. This inspired Droga's work for Mattress Firm, fronted by actor Liev Schreiber. According to Co-Chief Creative Officer Bell, “creating an enemy” in so-called “junk sleep” has helped the brand stand out from the crowd in a category that is traditionally retail and holiday sale-focused. It also helped to empower the company’s sales associates by rebranding them as “sleep experts.” For Huggies, the agency followed 2021’s memorable Super Bowl spot, featuring babies born on game day, by creating a tone of voice for the brand in social channels, to personalize its conversation with parents based on their baby’s life stage. And for Facebook, it found a way to stand out at the Tokyo Olympics without being an official sponsor, by shining a light on the new Olympic sport of skateboarding. A series of films on different skateboarding communities tapped into an established fan base across Facebook and Instagram. Culturally, the agency has been working hard to meet the changing expectations of American clients on diversity. It calls its approach “intercultural practice”—which means interrupting the default way of looking at briefs and recognizing that “the default in America has shifted,” said Román-Torres. “Every RFP that we saw last year had two new questions—what is your philosophy on DEI and what are your multicultural capabilities?” Román-Torres points out. “What happened in 2020 after George Floyd has caused a great examination of our capabilities, and we have been sharpening our proposition. We had already been on a journey as an agency but that really galvanized what we wanted to do in that space.” See all of Ad Age's 2022 A-List winners here. One new process, called “Editing for Equality,” aims to identify patterns of unconscious bias in copywriting. Devised by the agency’s proofreading group, it aims to root out negative stereotypes. The agency hopes to evolve the process and share it with the wider industry. “It’s not done to chastise, but to go into our very fast-paced process and to put a pause button on it,” said Nam. “What it’s done is caused better conversations.” Outside the U.S., Droga5 continues to focus on global expansion; in addition to its London office, it added a Tokyo branch in 2021, it just launched a São Paulo office and aims to open in China by the end of the year. Meanwhile its core leadership, according to Nam, “feel fortunate that we have worked together for more than a decade. It feels like a natural progression; it’s like living with each other for a long time, then waking up and getting married. If anything, it’s deepened our commitment to Droga5 and to our putting our fingerprint on it.”

Droga5 benefits from Accenture Interactive ties as its founder moves up

Featured Stories