Ogilvy Public Relations
Report by Christopher Graves (right)
Global chairman
and
Dr Stuart Smith (left)
Global chief executive officer
Our leadership team
https://www.ogilvypr.com/our-people/
2
015 was the year we returned to significant, profitable organic growth, further strengthened our leadership in creativity and redefined our purpose as a discipline within Ogilvy & Mather.
For four consecutive years we have dominated The Holmes Report’s Creativity Index. We won more Gold Lions, supported by the highly effective Chinese Names campaign (Visit Britain). We were named Agency of the Year, in both the UK and Asia Pacific, by The Holmes Report.
Our return to growth was driven by several factors. We grew our top 30 clients significantly and four new brands entered our top 10. We lead in the area of social and content, benefiting from the scale of the Ogilvy & Mather group. We invested in a new global marketing and business development function, improving our visibility and pitch wins.
Earned influence will speed our growth through integration by defining a broader marketplace for PR services
We open-sourced our growth strategy, asking over 50 of our brightest minds from across many geographies and demographics to help force the pace of innovation. Over 65% of our country leaders are women and we improved diversity and inclusion at our highest levels by creating a new Executive Committee and Board. We invested in new leadership (UK, India, EMEA, Germany, Spain and Indonesia) through promotions and external hires. We proudly launched Ogilvy Pride in the UK and Hong Kong.
We demonstrated both our commitment to Latin America and to grow globally through acquisition (ConceptPR, Brazil). Asia Pacific thrives under the leadership of Scott Kronick. EMEA entered a new phase under the newly-promoted Michael Frohlich. In North America we saw continued growth in New York and Chicago (Jennifer Scott and Michele Anderson respectively), with our US healthcare practice growing strongly (Kate Cronin).
Growth also comes from differentiation. Our role in the industry, and within Ogilvy & Mather, is to redefine the unique purpose of public relations in a world where the lines between marketing disciplines are increasingly blurred. This year Ogilvy PR laid claim to the powerful concept called ‘earned influence’, a move recognized as one of 2015’s top innovations in PR. Earned influence will speed our growth through integration by defining a broader marketplace for PR services. It recognizes the increasing appetite of CMOs for what we do, rejects a narrow definition of earned media and goes beyond concepts underpinning other thinking in the PR industry.
In 2016, we will push forward our aspiration that PR exists to harness the power of earned influence by creating campaign platforms for our clients that matter to the lives of consumers, customers and key opinion leaders. In doing so we hope Ogilvy PR will increasingly contribute to the effectiveness of all channels, not just earned, and shift behaviors, opinions and generate sales.