HERO integrates Melbourne independent agency Magnum Opus Partners into national offering
National independent HERO has announced the integration of Melbourne-based creative agency Magnum Opus Partners into its full-service offering.
Magnum Opus founder Mike Allen and partners, CEO Erin Lightfoot and creative director Pat Langton, will join the HERO leadership team and their staff will be integrated into HERO’s Melbourne team.
Says Ben Lilley, founder, HERO: “We’re rapt to welcome Mike, Erin and their brilliant clients and team to HERO. Not only are they an awesome bunch of people, their deep expertise in property and government communications in particular is a superb complement to HERO’s national offering of best-in-class services across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.”
Says Allen: “I couldn’t be more proud of what Magnum Opus has achieved over the past 30 years, as an independent leader in the Australian marketing landscape. I’ve known Ben for 20 of those years and am immensely impressed with what he and his team have achieved over the past two years. HERO’s full suite of integrated services is unmatched in the independent agency sector and is custom made for future-thinking clients and businesses. This will now be key to the ongoing delivery of our own “Results. Nothing Less.” philosophy which has stood us in such good stead for so long.”
Says Lightfoot: “I’m excited by the immense opportunities we can now offer our clients and team alike at HERO. Our business has steadily built a reputation for strategically driven creativity and support for our clients. Now we can also offer an impressive range of additional market-leading Australian and global integrated services.”
HERO is the first Australian independent to integrate what Lilley describes as the ‘holy trinity’ of creativity, media and technology at scale, which also includes PR and brand innovation services.
Says Lilley: “The unique benefits of our national offering, integrated under our philosophy of Borderless Creativity, have been embraced over the past 12 months by flagship clients like Toyota, Topo Chico, Maybelline and v2food. And have seen HERO rank in the top agencies at the Australian and APAC Effies. We’re excited to be able to now extend these services to Magnum Opus’ client roster, a number of whom we have already begun to work with our media and technology teams.”
The integration of Magnum Opus Partners builds on a rapid 18 months of growth for HERO, starting in 2020 with Lilley’s acquisition of McCann Australia, which now operates under license for the global McCann Worldgroup. The McCann deal included The Red Republic and SMART and was followed by the acquisition of content and production businesses Red Engine SCC and The Engine Room, digital and design specialist JSA Brisbane and award-winning data and technology developer BBE. While HERO’s full-service media offering was significantly bolstered by the arrival of industry veteran James Greet, who was appointed chief operating officer in 2021.
Lilley said he intends to continue to maximise HERO’s national creative scope and scale by integrating more businesses in creative, data, design, media, technology and PR across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. HERO will continue to pursue both organic and acquisitive growth opportunities as part of this strategy to take an entrepreneurial approach to building the national HERO business and its capabilities for the benefit of its national clients.
Says Lilley: “Our strategy is to scale our national suite of best-in-class solutions to best address each clients’ specific suite of marketing and communications needs.” During what has otherwise been a protracted lull in acquisitions by other agency networks and holding groups in Australia, Lilley said this ongoing acquisition strategy offers independent Australian agency owners a unique chance to become part of HERO’s rapidly growing national business, as well as international network opportunities through its global affiliation with McCann and IPG, while still remaining senior leaders in an entrepreneurial national Australian independent. Lilley described this as a rare window for independent agencies who are looking to sell and achieve “the best of both worlds: combining multinational clients, career opportunities and resources, but with a creative independent agency culture and mindset.”
9 Comments
But who is bigger, Bas{ion or Hero?
Why can’t Hero just win clients like most other agencies? They have to buy them? It’s not a long term plan. Or am I wrong and this is a good approach to grow?
Toyota, eBay, V2 food.
Fair question @But why? Essentially we’re trying to rapidly build a national offering that integrates creative, media and technology at scale.
Why ‘rapidly’? Because it’s more difficult (and often more expensive) to do it slowly. And why ‘at scale’. Because it’s also very difficult to successfully offer these integrated services if you don’t have the scale to ensure each is best-in-class in its own right – otherwise you’re only ever as good as the weakest part of your business. So we’re doing this by both organically attracting new people and, as noted above, new clients like Toyota, eBay, V2 food and Maybelline (all of which were competitive pitch wins), as well as the people and clients that come with mergers and acquisitions.
If you were to also ask ‘but why do you even want to do this’. It’s because I’ve now run both small independent and medium-sized not-independent agencies (as well as working in some crappy big agencies in the past) – and all are stressful, difficult and painful experiences. You’re always compromising something. To successfully create the kind of agency and creative campaigns and compete for the kind of clients we want to today, we need to be a large independent. It’s not about being the ‘biggest’, but it is about trying to be one of the best.
As to your final point: “It’s not a long term plan. Or am I wrong and this is a good approach to grow?” You’re right – it’s not a long term plan, but for the sort-term, yes it is a good approach to grow. We’ve now significantly slowed our rate of acquisitions as we’ve pretty much achieved the scale we needed to across our creative, media and technology offerings. And we’ve done it in under 2 years, whereas organic growth along would have taken up to 10. But we’ll always continue to take a look at potential new acquisitions, while now focusing more on organic growth, as there’s always room for improvement. And also I frankly don’t ever want to run a small independent again!
This was a much longer answer than I intended…
I respect your detailed response. One question I would ask is that at some point, I would assume that your goal is to exit the business. If that’s the case, and you are prospectively selling out to a larger player – in adland, consulting or whatever – at that moment, your point of difference around independence evaporates. Is that not a contradiction or am I misreading things?
Genuine question. I respect what you are doing and, at the very least, having a go!
Integration or acquisition? There is a big difference and it’s not clear from the above release.
Owned.
@Ben Lilley – thanks yes we are definitely having a go! And so far it seems to be working.
But no our goal is not to eventually exit the business or sell to a larger player. I already did that once (selling my original agency Smart to McCann/IPG) and it was satisfying at the time to achieve a sale (most independents don’t) – and in fact super-satisfying to then enjoy almost a decade leading McCann in Australia and in a regional creative leadership role. But I really ended up missing independent agency life.
Most our of our leadership team are similarly ex-multinational and similarly committed to remaining independent – it’s liberating. For example, in Melbourne we’ve bought a warehouse and are fitting it out from scratch with gym etc etc etc. It even has a theatre in it. You can’t do that (and many of the other things we do) with ‘other people’s money’.
Your comment is an interesting one though, that when an indie sells “at that moment, your point of difference around independence evaporates.” I don’t think an indies’ point of difference necessarily disappears when it sells. Independence alone is not much of a point of difference – the best agencies have a long list of other attributes that make them great, some of which ‘come’ from being independent, but most of which just come from being great. I think The Monkeys, for example, and Droga5 globally have done a good job of preserving what made them great independents. Others are happy to be absorbed into a bigger agency – we were at Smart as it was a reverse takeover and we were very happy to take on the challenge of turning around McCann in Australia.
Another longer answer than I intended…
I really appreciate your response Ben. Regardless of how, you certainly seem to have improved the place following the doldrums.