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Content is king. A phrase continually
being pushed by the trade media in
recent months. A phrase corroborated
by recent studies which have revealed
that 90% of marketers believe that
content marketing will become more
important over the next 12 months and
38% of US marketing professionals
stating their intention to increase their
content marketing budgets in 2013.
But if content is truly king, where are
marketing professionals going to focus
on developing content and on what
channels will their money be spent?
Skillfully pairing channel and content is key.
Everyone appreciates that high quality, engaging
content is important but on which channel; social,
online, mobile or print?
www.resultsig.com ONE
Continued on page two
Contents:
Keeping up with content ..................1 & 2
Recent trends in AdTech M&A activity ...... 3
Getting growth by going global ........4 & 5
Results in South Asia ..............................6
Fraser Hardie interview ...........................6
Goal setting ..............................................7
Healthcare ...............................................8
Why agencies owe their clients ..............9
2013 Q1 deal statistics ..........................10
Our recent transactions .........................11
The Rainbow Trust .................................11
The team ...............................................12
Bulletin
Issue 60
1st Quarter
Keeping upwith content
The leading adviser to companies seeking
to build and realise value in the global
marketing, technology, communications
and healthcare industries.
In Q4 last year, Tesco and Redbull were both held
in high regard for content marketing strategies at
opposite ends of the print/digital spectrum,
according to the latest NRS survey. Tesco’s
magazine was heralded as the most widely read
publication in the UK whilst Red Bull promoted
Felix Baumgartner’s atmospheric sky-dive across
every conceivable digital channel available in our
ever developing technological age.
The Red Bull brand produced vast amounts of
video content, ran related online promotions and
maintained an aggressive voice across social
media, globally. The dive generated a new record
for YouTube views as 8 million people watched the
sky-dive live. Jumping from space is a risky
activity, but one particular risk that has paid off -
since, Red Bull has been valued in excess of
£5bn.
It’s not surprising that either brand took such
different approaches to marketing. Red Bull
positions itself as a youth brand, so it’s right that
the event-associated content be shared through
digital channels. It’s where the youth demographic
most engages with content. It’s thus also
appropriate that, Tesco’s older, arguably less
techno-focused crowd be more engaged with print
content.
Of course, Tesco has a digital marketing strategy
too and like the majority of brands it’s an
aggressive one. In 2012 Tesco appointed agencies
to boost its social media presence, creating recipe
related video content for YouTube, operated 6
Twitter feeds, reached 800,000 likes on Facebook
and launched its first social game. It’s hugely
informative to see how each brand, even one
whose customer marketing relies on the
publication of a printed magazine, presents and
promotes itself on the myriad of platforms
available.
Over the past 5 years, brands have also woken up
to the fact that the question of pairing content and
medium does not equate to how to simply convert
existing content to a website or make an ad go
viral. Having an intelligent SEO strategy; mobile
sites, apps for smartphones, tablets, blogs and
social media network each with bespoke content is
increasingly the model.
It’s hard to believe, but Apple only released the
iPhone in June 2007 and its first iPad in April
2010. Since this, and the proliferation of
smartphones and tablets, it’s been a race to see
who can capitalise on consumer engagement with
these devices.
Winning the race hasn’t been as simple as
creating a compatible website or a branded app,
however. Many consumers have hundreds and
engage with very few, in fact Webcredible have
reported that UK consumers only regularly use 4
of their downloaded apps. The challenge for
brands is how to tear users away from their social
networking, texting or even working on these
devices and actually engage consumers.
But if you can’t beat them, join them. In a society
where 50% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook as
soon as they wake up and the average user
spends 700 minutes a month on the site, it’s no
surprise that brands have had to establish social
media strategies to interact with consumers.
Procuring hundreds of thousands, or even millions
of followers, brands gain immediate access to a
notionally receptive audience.
All of these new innovations bring new ways that
consumers share data and information enabling
brands to customise marketing efforts, thereby
personalising content to individual consumers. A
revolutionary opportunity for consumer brands but
an entirely different story for the healthcare market
participants, who operate in a highly regulated
environment. Data is highly protected and there
are strict rules surrounding the marketing of drugs
and services.
This level of regulation in the sector means
healthcare communications across the spectrum
need to be both cautious as well as creative. But
the need for creative and engaging content is just
TWO www.resultsig.com
Continued from page one
Keeping up with content
as prevalent as for more traditional consumer
brands. Healthcare companies, doctors and
hospitals need to become more ‘relatable’ to
patients, engaging, inspiring choices and, in more
privatised markets, incite loyalty and spend.
As a whole, the sector uses 12% more print
marketing than other consumer industries and
healthcare-specific digital platforms have been
slower to develop. Gradually, players are
becoming increasingly savvier to the wealth of
interfaces digitally available on which a) patients
interact with each other, and b) how they might
interact with them.
Social networks, in particular, have an inherent
power allowing patients to tweet, blog and chat
with other patients, providing a platform for
discussion with others who want advice on
medication, doctors, how to cope with illnesses or
are fundraising for a particular cause. In doing so,
patients are disclosing a wealth of personal
information which hospitals, pharmaceutical
companies and doctors could use to significantly
personalise their marketing.
Marketing professionals in the sector realise that
they are lagging behind somewhat, and 43% are
planning to increase their spend on content
marketing in 2013. Unsurprisingly, a vast proportion
of this spend will be on social media. But like Red
Bull, development of video content is core to
strategy. Although, the purpose of healthcare video
content is admittedly different (to educate and
inform, rather than watch someone jump from
space), perhaps the sector isn’t that far behind?
As technological advances gather pace creating
new ways to interact and engage, brand
innovation of content has never been more
exciting and we look forward to working with our
clients as they lead the charge…5 years ago we
didn’t have smartphones…2018 could be an
entirely different story.
If you would like to discuss this article, please
contact Mark Williams at [email protected]
www.resultsig.com THREE
The first half of 2012 saw a bit of a
feeding frenzy in advertising and
marketing technology M&A. So what
has happened since then? The focus
has shifted. Whilst the high profile deals
of 2012 were all about social CRM and
the enterprise software vendors, the tail
end of 2012 and early 2013 has been
all about the “ad stack”.
Take a look at the deal list below summarising many
of the key deals in Q4 2012 and Q1 2013. With the
exception of the Oracle-Eloqua deal (which I covered
in our blog in early January), the deals are almost all
about making the buying and selling of digital ad
inventory more targeted, more efficient, more
effective.
Adding capabilities across complementary digital
marketing channels has been a key driver of deal
activity, for example Tap.Me brings mobile and video
to MediaMath’s core display and social media ad
inventory, and LucidMedia adds display and rich
media to Videology’s strength in video. Other key
themes include the breaking down of the silos
between the demand and sell-side and the perennial
need for better data management, which enables first
and third-party data to be integrated and analysed
more effectively.
And of course, underpinning all of this is real time
bidding (“RTB”). Recent data from eMarketer
estimates that real time bidding accounts for around
13% of all U.S. display ad spending, and forecasts
73% growth in US RTB ad spending in 2013. This is
broadly consistent with data in the UK market. To put
this into context, most sources put total digital ad
spending growth in the US at around low to mid-
teens per annum, with video and mobile ad spend
growth forecast to be 41% and 77% in 2013, (source:
eMarketer).
Whilst the demand side and remnant inventory has
historically been driving RTB, premium publishers
have recently shown signs of starting to embrace
RTB (see eBay’s launch of Private Ad Exchange and
Facebook Exchange). With premium publishers and
premium advertisers starting to enter the fray, it
seems likely that these parties will find a way of
making RTB work for them and in turn drive up
average CPM in RTB.
The next wave of activity is likely to include mobile,
where programmatic buying and RTB has been
hampered by the lack of cookies and other tracking
data, and video, and where the predominance of
brand versus performance advertising means the
impact of RTB on an advertisers’ objectives are
harder to measure. And, of course, data, data, data.
If you would like to discuss this article or find out
more about our technology and digital media
practice, please contact Julie Langley at
Recent trends in AdTech M&A activity
Date Seller Seller Description
Feb-2013 FACEBOOK ATLAS
Jan-2013 YUME CROWD SCIENCE
Jan-2013 QUANTCAST MAKEGOOD
Jan-2013 MEDIAMATHAdvertising Decision Solutions ad business from AKAMAI
Jan-2013 INMOBI OVERLAY MEDIA
Dec-2012 ORACLE ELOQUA
Dec-2012 AOL’S ADVERTISING.COM GROUP BUYSIGHT INC.
Dec-2012 MEDIAMATH TAP.ME
Nov-2012 BAZAARVOICE LONGBOARD MEDIA
Oct-2012 PUBLIGROUPE IMPROVE DIGITAL
Oct-2012 VIDEOLOGY LUCIDMEDIA
Oct-2012 TELENAV THINKNEAR
Ad serving and campaign planning and measurement
Audience measurement and targeting platform
Reconciliation and reporting software
Ad targeting and data management platform
Mobile ad targeting and personalisation
Marketing automation software
Dynamic creative optimisation, targeting and retargeting
Mobile and video in-game ad platform
ECommerce focussed ad network
Sellside platform provider
Targeting and optimisation for display and rich media
Hyperlocal mobile ad network
Buyer
FOUR www.resultsig.com
“Going international” is a topic we’re
frequently asked to comment on.
Indeed this has been the case since the
very earliest days of Results
International back in the early 1990s.
Needless to say, the world has moved on a bit
over the last two decades.
In a recent team debate we challenged ourselves
on the continued relevance of this question to a
post digital brand engagement world in which the
economic powerbases that gave rise to the Big 4
marketing communications groups have been
caught or even overtaken by the so-called newly
“Emerged Economies”.
Maybe the topic has had its day?
Perhaps agencies can take their clients global
from their local office via social media?
An interesting discussion but not the central point
to arise as the debate started getting animated.
Maybe the issue remains absolutely key to
successful marketing technology and
communications businesses, but we’re asking it
from the point of view of the wrong domestic
market?
We quickly formed the hypothesis that within the
next three to five years we Americans, Europeans
and Brits (we do still like to consider ourselves just
a little apart, don’t we?) won’t be asking how to ‘go
international’ anywhere near as often as the
agency heads in Shanghai, Mumbai or São Paulo.
Western brands fighting for the attention of
consumers in the vast, emerging middle classes in
the “Emerging Economies” is something with
which we’re all more than familiar, but what
happens as those export heavy economies decide
that the marketing budgets supporting their own
domestic brands overseas must reside with
agencies back home?
Middle East & Northern Africa (“MENA”)
and Central & Eastern Europe (“CEE”)
MENA may give us clues into whether this theory
bears out but whilst the rich gas and oil exporting
economies of the Gulf may fit the profile of
international network builders, this region of 335m
people is highly polarised and the Arab Spring
shapes the lives of huge numbers of its
inhabitants.
To date, this region has imported marcoms
expertise, rather than seeing it develop locally and
certainly not building it internationally.
CEE is another growth region where intra-regional
networks and affiliations, such as Russia and
Ukraine or Poland and Hungary, are something of
a market feature.
Again, like MENA, CEE agencies do not have
international expansion high on their Board’s
agendas. The sentiment is more that the Western
communications groups can be beaten on home
turf by combining strong local knowledge and
entrepreneurial leadership. This is truly a young
and emerging market in CEE, however, at only
around 20 years old.
Perhaps the dynamic will be different another five
years hence. By this time the market should count
on a fast growing 500 million plus population base,
but also most crucially, the local FMCG companies
who will move from being manufacturers for the
international brands to becoming powerful
international brands themselves, as best
evidenced by Turkey today.
South America
Is it worth throwing Brazil into the mix? With the
World Cup in 2014 and Olympics in 2016, let’s just
assume that their marketing agencies are focusing
on more immediate, lucrative and local
opportunities. In fact, with the exception of Brazil’s
ABC Group, which is ranked the 18th largest
marcoms group in the world according to AdAge,
there haven't been any other substantial
expansionist moves outside Latin America.
However, we have observed a few interesting
moves within the market with Brazilian agencies
(especially within digital and analytics) making
associations or buying agencies in Colombia,
Mexico, etc.
Southern Asia
If none of the above provide compelling proof of
our hypothesis, Asia must be a region with global
aspirations, surely? At the macro-level, the shift in
economic power from West to East is accelerating
and increasingly conditioning focus. This is
naturally also true for Asia players themselves,
who naturally feel a local focus is better. There is a
new and more mature sense of globalism that
characterises how the landscape is evolving with
not all geographies equal and technology
empowering cross-border activity and new entrants.
Based on economics alone, South Asia would be a
strong candidate region to be the first to really
push outside its regional boundaries. But is it? The
answer is a qualified “not really…yet”, for many
reasons, some historical, some structural and
some practical.
The infrastructure of the marketing
communications industry in the region has largely
been built through the presence and entry of the
international Western networks, many of whom
have been in the region for over fifty years. It was
these networks that established their beachheads
during British colonial rule, and it was not until the
economic opening up of India in 1992 that the
marcoms sector began to spread its wings.
As the market grew, it was natural for the
international networks to expand their presence in
the region, and this has been the predominant
feature of the past 20 years to the extent that
“homegrown” businesses are a rarity.
The next socio-political milestone that will be
relevant to this question will come when South
Asia opens up as a common commercial market
like the EU towards the end of 2014. It will enable
indigenous groups to look beyond their own
countries and especially the Indian firms will see
much opportunity for inorganic growth. Until then
this is another powerhouse economy not
aggressively looking outside.
Northern Asia – Japan & Korea
North Asia has three contiguous markets that each
has somewhat different development trajectories
that can impact and provide lessons for broader
Getting growth by going global
trends. This goes beyond a leadership role in
mobility (Asia-Pacific leads the world in 2012
mobile ad revenue with US$4.3 billion, according
to Gartner), and the materially different domestic
social media landscapes in Japan, Korea and
China, that also differ from the West.
The traditional large Japanese agency model,
providing absolutely everything including its own
media channels, has not exported well for either
Dentsu or Hakuhodo.
The most dramatic recent agency shake up was
Dentsu’s $5 billion takeover of Aegis. Dentsu have
been very careful to note that it is not planning to
eliminate any of Aegis’ brands. In the same light,
the fact that Mcgarrybowen has opened in
Shanghai may be another tangible, nontraditional
lever for Dentsu in China. Although in the Dentsu
family for some 10 years, it is still seen as a
traditional US agency.
For some ad tech specialists, growth in the near
future can be local – Korea has the best digital
ecosystem in the world and is facilitating
multiplayer online roleplaying games innovations,
creating new human to human relationships.
At the same time newer agencies with a digital
DNA are giving the large local traditional agencies
a run for their money. Both Cheil and Innocean are
likely to look more overseas for growth and will
benefit from the rise of their chaebol brand
associations with innovation in retail activation /
brand engagement at the fore.
To date, Japan has been a hot bed for mobile
innovation, but it must be viewed as Japan’s
Mobile Galapagos. But that mentality is changing
quite dramatically as illustrated by the recent
purchase of Sprint Nextel by SoftBank, making it
the world's #3 player, after China Mobile and
Verizon Wireless.
Just one example of the current appetite of
Japanese firms to pursue M&A activity.
For digital leadership in Japan, one need look no
further than Cyber Agent who are influencing most
major development dimensions, with numerous
successes since starting out in 1998 and listing in
Tokyo from 2000. Cyber Agent Ventures, their VC
arm, established a new office in Seoul, last
August. Across Asia they are present in China,
Taiwan, Hong Kong and a number of Southeast
Asian countries.
Other Japanese successes redefining social
gaming include NHN Japan Corp which offers
Line, a smartphone app, and DeNA who last year
formed a partnership with Walt Disney Japan.
Mobility is seen to fuel a more rapid rise in e-
commerce and Rakuten, one of the largest
eCommerce companies, is benefiting from this
transformation. This Japanese firm has been
fuelling growth also by overseas M&A activity;
including Play.com, Buy.com, Kobo,…and others,
as well as leading Pinterest’s $100 million funding
round last May, which valued the growing social
network at $1.5 billion.
Northern Asia - China
And what about China, the archetypal export
economy and growth engine of the world in the
early 21st century? China has the potential to
grow domestically faster than international
development by ‘going West’ within its own
borders rather than overseas. A scenario that may
have attraction because of a lower risk? China has
the second largest population of e-shoppers in the
world and a growth rate of 30% year on year.
Leading B2C and B2B platforms are domestic:
Alibaba, Made in China, Taobao, Ttmall are
leaders.
China is becoming the leading smartphone market
in the world as smartphones are used more than
PCs to connect to the internet. The two leading
brands in 2012 were Apple, Samsung, but the new
Chinese brand, Xiaomi has already gone past
Nokia.
But, as always, the fundamental driver for
international expansion in China (as it is in all
markets around the globe) is from existing
domestic clients. It would seem to be a
www.resultsig.com FIVE
reasonable assumption that brands will increase
in importance in China with the economic slow-
down.
Already, Chinese brand builders are increasingly
active overseas, rising up the value-chain with
focused strategies for a number of categories;
both for State Own Enterprises and market-driven
organisations, like Lenovo.
Fast forward five years and ‘Created in China’ will
be core to some new global brands; whose brands
connect with people using Asian-grown
communications networks.
This is one nation for whom international
expansion is firmly on the horizon even if this is
perhaps not fully visible to those of us in the West
who have spent so long looking East.
So, having pretty much exhausted ourselves and
the argument, we felt it was fair to conclude that
“going international” remains an energising feature
of the marcoms industry.
Yet again the dynamism and endless innovation
and reinvention in this grand old industry did not
disappoint.
Perhaps most invigorating, was the full confidence
shared amongst the Results Global Leadership
Team that the combination of entrepreneurialism,
client pull and macroeconomic opportunity within
the “Emerging Markets” will be creating new forms
of internationalisation from new points of the globe
that will fuel the next 20 years of development of
the marketing communications world.
If you would like to discuss this article please
contact Jim Houghton at [email protected]
Blue Rubicon’s rise has been stellar since you
founded the company in your living room back
in 1999. Give us quick overview of the
company...
Blue Rubicon launched as a new-breed of reputation
management firm recognising the need for joined up
thinking and campaigning. Our aim was to protect
and grow reputations in a transformative way. We
started with three clients: The Wall Street Journal,
Rio Tinto and Powergen. By the end of our first year
we were nominated for New Consultancy of the Year
by PR Week. Since then we’ve, arguably, become
the defining agency of our generation with clients
including the world’s most valuable brands like Coca-
Cola, McDonald’s, Facebook, Mastercard, Shell and
eBay sitting alongside market leaders like Lloyds of
London, O2, British Gas, GSK, Cadbury and Kraft,
Lloyds Banking Group and Pearson.
A hallmark of Blue Rubicon has been a quest to set
new standards. We invest disproportionately in
knowledge and the development of carefully selected
talent. Staff turnover is very low at around 10 per
cent creating stable, elite teams. Clients benefit from
deeper immersion and satisfaction is very high year
after year. That provides a firm base for strong
retention and organic growth. Our work is award
winning – we’ve won over 60 awards!
Blue Rubicon has been shortlisted for PR Week’s
Consultancy of the Year every year since 2003
winning a record breaking four times! We won the
Gold Award for Consultancy of the Year again in
2012. The agency has also won the same accolade
from the CIPR four times. In 2011 marketers voted
Blue Rubicon into the Brand Republic Hall of Fame
for innovation beating off competition from Facebook,
Tesco and Google. In the same year the Holmes
Report named us in its top five corporate firms
globally.
You’ve been fiercely independent to date.
Why were you looking for a deal?
The move was driven by our clients and the ambition
of our people. We’ve built a very strong business and
brand with 150 people and a fee income of £15m.
Our teams remain hungry for further and continued
growth. Success here is built on a simple philosophy:
we invest and innovate in capabilities and
knowledge, assemble the best talent and create a
culture to deliver the very best advice and ideas to
clients with unerring consistency. That’s why our
clients and our people stay with us for the long term.
They grow; we grow. There is a real opportunity to
build internationally; to create a leading reputation
firm with global reach and influence. This deal allows
us to stay true to what we believe in while opening
up new possibilities.
Why private equity rather than joining an existing
global network?
As you’d expect we had a lot of interest from the big
networks in the West and some in the East too. We
spent a year looking at our options and decided a
private equity investor, particularly one funded from
the balance sheet of a major bank, Lloyds
Development Capital, was the best option. It allows
us to leverage our independence. We are innovators
and we’ll invest aggressively in acquiring knowledge,
developing skills and capabilities, particularly around
analytics, digital and social. The deal with LDC
valued Blue Rubicon at approximately £30m - it
gives us firepower too. We’ll open internationally and
look to make the strategic acquisitions we need to
become a leader in reputation globally.
Results International acted as advisors to Blue
Rubicon on their recent investment by Lloyds
Development capital.
Please contact Julia Crawley-Boevey at
jcrawley-boevey@resultsig for more details.
Fraser Hardie Interview:
SIX www.resultsig.com
2012 was a record year for Results
International across the globe and our
activity reflected the global M&A
emphasis on growth markets. In the last
quarter of the year, our Asia team closed
three deals in quick succession in India.
All three were in digital, adding to our
international expertise in one of the
fastest-growing and evolving sub-
sectors of the marcoms industry.
We successfully advised our clients on the sales of
Resultrix Media to Publicis (Vivaki), iStrat
Technologies to Publicis (Publicis Capital) and
Magnon Solutions & Magnon International to
Omnicom (TBWA). The total Enterprise Value of the
deals was around $45m-$50m.
The deals on which Results advised in 2012 are
only a small example of the significant opportunity
that exists for strategic tie-ups with global/regional
companies who have the foresight to reap the
benefits of partnering with these ‘hidden’ gems in
one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in the
world.
From a macro perspective, the Indian tiger’s roar,
though a bit more muted than expected due to
receding GDP growth rates falling to 6% from the
highs of 9-10% of a few years ago, is still resonant.
The Indian government’s new Finance Minister has
given hope for acceleration in growth through some
bold moves for attracting foreign investment, which
will inevitably impact the marcoms sector.
Consequently, the overarching hope is for a
turnaround of this slow-down with a 7%+GDP
growth projection in 2013.
Outperforming overall GDP growth, India’s marcoms
industry is expected to grow between 8-9% in 2013.
Such growth is extremely positive and is likely to
further prompt the interest of larger networks wanting
to penetrate further into Asia. But while mass media
still rules the roost with a share of over 90%, sectors
like digital, mobile and experiential are likely to
continue growing much faster than more traditional
media marketing channels. The development and
fast growth of these channels exemplifies how
advertisers are increasingly focused on generating a
measurable ROI across all available channels,
penetrating and exploiting the huge potential of
India’s consumer markets. Spread widely, this
presents a different challenge to advertisers and
marketing professionals, but that’s a whole different
debate in itself.
If you would like to discuss this article further please
contact Sunil Gupta at [email protected]
Results International opens its account inSouth Asia, completing three deals in 2012
www.resultsig.com SEVEN
When considering the transactions we
have recently completed, it becomes
evident that businesses with a clear
vision and set of goals are the most
successful when it comes to
achieving the best valuation. Buyers
are not only looking at past
performance but also future
opportunity.
Researchers have also found a strong correlation
between a company's financial performance and
an effective goal setting process. In the study,
employees in the weakest performing companies
did not clearly understand the connection between
their individual efforts and the overall goals of their
employers. These same people also reported
feeling confused as to their roles at the company,
which naturally resulted in unfocused and
therefore less productive, work activity.
Therefore, to drive the success of your company, it
is important to closely align employee and
business goals. In addition to feeling fairly
compensated for their efforts, your employees
must clearly understand how their work connects
to, and serves, both the short and long term goals
of your business.
Setting the right goals for your company is key.
Effective goal setting starts by creating a clear
vision for your business. You need to ask “what is
my company’s real potential?” From your vision
you are able to define your company’s purpose
and values in order to create goals which support
you achieving this.
In order to understand your full potential, you first
need to learn from the past. Albert Einstein sums
this up beautifully, “Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different
results". As Jim Collins highlighted with the
Stockdale Paradox, to be successful you need an
inspiring vision of the future but you must also
confront the most brutal facts of your current
reality, whatever they might be. If you don't reflect,
learn and make change, then even the best vision,
strategy or goals are likely to unravel.
Part of learning from the past is to ensure that you
recognise what gets you great results and
acknowledge what is damaging your progress.
Identifying what went well and what did not go so
well over the past 12 months allows you to focus
on the changes which you are required to make in
order to improve future performance. When you
are reviewing your past year, don’t hold back! Put
everything down and try and be as comprehensive
as possible. It’s important not to forget what went
well, so think about what you are most proud of
and what you achieved.
Now take these learnings into the future and set
some advice for the year ahead. To do this, create
a lesson for each issue and then reinforce by
creating a new behaviour in the form of “best
advice”. This would come in the form of a
statement which, if followed, will result in great
benefits and gains, but if ignored would lead to you
not achieving your vision for the future.
As an example, an issue might be that you lost
your largest client. The lesson could be that you
were distracted from prioritising what is important.
Therefore your best advice is to prioritise your
work every day. It might sound simple but if you
follow the process and live the advice, it is a very
powerful tool.
Inevitably, your review of the business will identify
numerous areas where improvement can be
made. However, you can’t focus on everything at
the same time so you need to distill down to your
“key result areas” - Where do you want to have
your greatest success and drive you towards
achieving your vision most effectively?
Breaking your key result areas into manageable
goals makes it easier for you to keep track of your
successes. Further breaking these down into
milestones helps you gain short-term clarity and
individual accountability thereby creating the
momentum in the business to drive through
change.
After setting your overall company strategic
objectives and goals, you need to align the
individual goals of each team member so
everyone is working on the right things at the right
time. Companies that increase employee
engagement see improvement in operating
margins.
Visibility on goals and how to achieve them drives
the business towards its vision, reinforces
performance and engagement, and it helps you to
address issues proactively.
It is critical to creating high performing culture
where everyone is held accountable and working
as a cohesive team to cover more ground, faster.
Goals must not be static; they need to be
assessed continuously. By making frequent
updates and adapting to what is working well and
what is not improves the probability of success,
and ensures long term comments on goals.
There are many aspects of a successful and
valuable business including; market positioning,
financial and operational performance, and client
relationships. Through effective goal setting you
can create a detailed plan to tackle all these parts
of the business.
Maximising the value of your business is a process
that does not happen overnight, you need to take
the time to prepare for exit and apply a systematic
approach. Setting effective goals is a key part
of this.
If you would like to discuss this article please contact
Dan Egerton at [email protected]
Improving the value of yourbusiness through goal setting
EIGHT www.resultshealthcare.com
In science, quantifiable data and
evidence are required to give a high
degree of rigour and legitimacy to the
prediction of scientific outcomes. The
pharmaceutical industry is increasingly
using real world evidence to shape drug
development strategies, reduce
uncertainly during new product launches,
and develop new pricing models.
In February Results Healthcare participated in
Evidence 2013, Europe’s leading real world evidence
event covering a variety of topics related to the use of
real world evidence in healthcare as well as recent
trends in this area.
The evolving healthcare industry
The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries are
undergoing many changes caused by the escalating
healthcare costs and global healthcare reform. This
evolving regulatory and economic climate has been
exacerbated by the global economic crisis.
Payers and HTA bodies now increasingly demand
that new products provide evidence of value in the
clinical, economic, and humanistic/safety areas, in
order to obtain reimbursement and market access.
There is also a greater demand for comparative
effectiveness data and analyses.
RCTs and RWE
Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) have long been the
“gold standard” in evidence generation. However,
recent evidence suggests that RCTs may not be as
reliable as they were thought to be. This is principally
due to their typical use of narrow patient profiles, as
well as the involvement of only the experimental
group and a placebo control group without comparing
the data against the current “gold standard”
treatment. As a result, real world evidence (RWE) is
gaining interest, especially in the more advanced
healthcare systems.
RWE, which are observational studies based on
actual use of a product with “typical” patients in “real-
world” settings (i.e. that which “describes what is
really happening in everyday normal clinical health
care practice”). It is now crucial to help inform and
advance drug development by improving value
propositions, as RWE can pick up on potential
benefits as well as potential adverse events that may
otherwise go unnoticed due to the restrictive nature of
RCTs.
RWE shows what the current unmet medical needs
are and how innovation is potentially able to satisfy
these needs and provide value to patients, providers
and payers.
RWE meets Big Data
The growing importance of RWE to support a
product through its lifecycle is increasing the need
to effectively handle and manage large amounts
of data.
One critical area is the access and use of high
quality, statistically reliable information and data to
enable the provision of better care. In healthcare, this
means connecting all available data sources to
provide detailed information into patient populations
and diseases to drive actionable insights in real time
and improve patient outcomes.
The benefits of big data analysis include having
clinical practice supported by robust data outcomes,
with outcomes and costs measured in real time. For
patients this means the possibility of personalised
therapy based on real life outcomes.
Providers will also possess more detailed knowledge
of their customers and become better able to meet
customers’ goals.
Greater patient involvement
With increasing access to information through new
technology such as online forums and support
groups, patient voice is gaining importance and
patients are increasingly involved in decision making.
As patient reported outcomes (PROs) need to be
Real world evidence inhealthcare
more effectively communicated to various healthcare
stakeholders, the healthcare communications and
medical education sectors are expected to flourish in
the near future.
Use of eHealth technologies
Observational studies have unique challenges such
as site selection, patient recruitment and long term
follow-up, and ethical and regulatory issues. eHealth
is growing in importance in the generation of value
evidence by reducing workload, minimising contact
with patients and sites, as well as making data more
“real-world”.
Despite the growing importance of PROs, such
information is still not easily accessible in routine
eHealth databases. There is a need for real world
data collection strategies and analytics to improve the
quality and quantity of collected data – an integrated
health information system would serve this purpose
well.
Implications in the healthcare industry
With RWE playing an essential role in market access
going forward, we anticipate that there will be a
greater demand for services provided by healthcare
data analytics businesses, medical
communications/market access consultancies, as
well as healthcare IT providers.
These are all areas of focus for Results Healthcare
and we are currently working with many companies
in these sectors.
Written by Sheungyu Cho, Results Healthcare Analyst.
For more information please visit
www.resultshealthcare.com or contact Kevin
Bottomley at [email protected]
Delivering Transactions and Business Solutionsg
www.resultsig.com NINE
Client service is a business of
customisation, of counsel and
anticipation of need and responses,
client by client. Not just to reflect differing
brand tasks but also the marketing
departments’ appetite for bravery. So the
job is becoming steadily more
challenging for two reasons. Obviously
the tools and opportunities available to
advertisers allow more sophisticated
dealings with more sophisticated
audiences and staying abreast of
constant complexity is not simple.
Secondly, agencies are being asked to
lead the way like never before.
Clients can be wilfully blinkered in their appraisal of
the new so it’s understandable when agencies aim
away from the ragged edge of innovation to pitch
ideas they know will land within client tolerances.
However, the word most used by even the most
experienced marketing people of the blistering array of
tools now available to them is not ‘exciting’ but
‘confusing’. In the next breath, most of them nominate
their agencies as their chosen guides through the new
consumer landscape.
So it is no longer good enough for the agency to aim
for the client’s comfort zone – if it ever was. Agencies
must get their heads around the ‘art of the possible’
impossibly quickly if they are to serve their clients
effectively. For them all, this demands a significant
change in their own business model because in the
era of relationship marketing, great advertising will be
much more than advertising.
It’s no longer good enough to communicate with
customers exclusively via multi-million dollar
campaigns, and then go quiet until we can afford to do
it again. Like any other relationship, it’s always on!
It’s not acceptable for brands to be exclusively on
transmit. Relationship is two-way and consumers
have unprecedented access to the soap-box,
especially through social media, to offer up their
views, good or bad, to the whole world; so ‘the brand’
has to listen as well as perform. As we are
discovering, dialogue is more demanding than
monologue.
The internet is personal, and people have a strong
sense of ownership of something they have bothered
to customise. ‘My Facebook page’, ‘my Twitter feed’
are distinctively my space (my MySpace) – unlike any
other media, these places are edited by their users.
So the old trick of stealing their attention from what
people really wanted to look at, is, in places they
consider their own, not just annoying but entirely
inappropriate.
As yet there is no real consensus around the
management of privacy and to quote one leading
commentator, a ‘presumption of intimacy’ by brands
seeking to build relationships begets clumsy use of
new engagement tools, testing the patience of
audiences and jeopardising the data dividend
that awaits.
Securing that dividend is right now, the most important
challenge facing the sector as a whole, as well as
brands and agencies individually.
For some years now, we have targeted engagement
over impact. And as we lead clients further down this
route, one word will crop up more and more in the
cannon of brand differentiators. Accessible, friendly,
relevant, aspirational...all just as peachy as they’ve
ever been, but one core dimension will differentiate all
the leading brands of the next decade. Trusted.
Why? We are seeing a growing agreement between
individuals and service providers, content owners and
brand owners, where user information is exchanged
for something they want – access to content or
services, a discount, a private view, something unique
– or just advertising that is timely, relevant and
therefore less annoying.
This data-for-content transaction is better established
among younger people and though many of their
parents don’t get it, in time its sheer utility will win us
all over.
As you walk into John Lewis, you receive a message
saying the decanter you were looking at online is in
store today, you can have a 10% discount and here’s
an in-store map to lead you straight to it. When you
emerge from the Underground, your nominated
Starbucks will know you’re 5 minutes away from your
grande latte and have it ready. Songkick peruses your
music via Spotify to tell you when your favourite artists
are playing near where you live.
When we trust the brand, we will allow engagement to
become partnership – an information joint venture
sealed by trust.
There’s little doubt that people’s current resistance to
such participation will be bowled away by its sheer
practical utility, just as using a credit card online used
to be thought reckless.
Cloud computing gives the mobile device access to
massive servers, enabling it to channel computing
power far greater than can currently be
accommodated in a pocket sized appliance. This will
place it centre stage in information, communication,
entertainment and transactions. This year more
Google searches will come from a mobile than online.
We will all use the phone for more and more and of
course, every action creates a data event.
Use of the cornucopia of information so generated will
be granted only to the trusted.
The mobile device will be an animator of great ideas
(please, not just another screen for sticking ads on),
and a cache of behaviours, tastes and location that
individuals will put to work for themselves.
So every brand should now be aiming to be the most
trusted in its sector as this will be the driver of
permission to move beyond acquaintance to
confidence.
Clients will buy great creative executions for the
foreseeable future. But the creation of a great ad is no
longer ‘job done’. Because trust is built not by what
you tell people about a brand, but by a multiplicity of
subtle reassurances drawn from its character,
consistency and behaviour.
Leading clients beyond advertising has never been
more important, even for advertising agencies.
If you would like to discuss this article further please
contact Richard Eyre at [email protected]
Why agencies owe their clients more than great creative work
TEN www.resultsig.com
Following the traditionally busy period
of Q4, M&A activity in Q1 2013 was
very lively – 230 deals with a total
disclosed value of $3 billion.
AdTech continued to be the most active segment
for buyers, however, the Mobile sector saw the
biggest jump, from 5 deals in Q4 2012 to 34
deals in Q1 2013 – highlighting one of the most
interesting key themes this quarter; there has
been a lot of small in-fill acquisitions where
buyers have effectively ‘aqui-hired’ teams with
sought after skills within the mobile application
development niche.
The most active buyer, with 13 acquisitions, was
WPP followed by Publicis in second place with 8
– this reverses the top positions in Q4 2012, but
reflects the league table for 2012 as a whole.
Regionally the USA and UK led the way in terms
of deal volumes. However, South American
countries proved to be popular - driven by their
desire to expand presence in the region, the
likes of WPP, Aegis and Sapient have made
strategic acquisitions. Most notably being
@titude Group’s acquisition of Media Interactive,
a leading Brazilian digital agency, which will be
merged with its @titude Digital business.
Towards the end of March, Amazon sneaked in a
very interesting deal – its move into the social
media space with the acquisition of Goodreads,
a social network for bookworms, reported in the
press to be valued at up to $200m. Further
helping to position Amazon as a giant within the
publishing world, Goodreads will provide
Amazon with a wealth of data that will improve
the algorithms used to make recommendations
for its popular Kindle platform.
If you would like to discuss this article, please
contact Afsor Miah at [email protected]
Q1 2013 M&A:summary highlights
40
Mar12
Feb12
Jan12
52
40
Q1 2013 Deal Statistics
geographical split
by month3most active sectors
deal type
PE/VC backed deals
Cross border deals
Q1 2012
57
Q1 2012
13
by disclosed value
Q1 2012
US$
$volume of deals
Q1 2012
132
Active AdTech & Digital Media Buyers
84
81
Jan13
Feb13
Mar13
North America
UK
104 MiddleEast3
Western Europe
29
APAC
27
Canada
9 45 Eastern Europe3
AdTech - 41 deals
Mobile - 34 deals
Website design & build - 18 deals
PR - 16 deals
eCommerce - 16 deals
Social media - 15 deals
Search - 10 deals
Digital media - 9 deals
Healthcare - 9 deals
Data - 9 deals
AfricaSouthAmerica
8 2
OmnicomPublicis
IPG
Dentsu
Aegis
major buyers
Q1 2013
230
2.7bn
Q1 2013
US$3bn
Q1 2013
75
Q1 2013
17
65
Results International deals
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www.resultsig.com ELEVEN
Our recent transactions
This year, our team at Results
International will be focusing our
fundraising efforts on raising money
for The Rainbow Trust, who we have
selected as our Charity of the Year
2013. A fantastic Charity that we are
excited to support in our many events
throughout the course of this year. We
are really impressed by their work
and know that our support and
fundraising will be extremely valuable
to their cause.
The Rainbow Trust Children's Charity provides
emotional and practical support to families who
have a child with a life threatening or terminal
illness.
Corporate Social Responsibility is, as ever, a core
value for Results and, as usual, our team will be
taking part in some extreme sporting activities as
well as some [hopefully] not so extreme team
events in order to raise as much money as we
can to support the Trust.
We are really excited to raise as much money as
we can and to help make a difference. This is how
our efforts will be spent:
• £20 pays for a sick child and their family to
attend a hospital appointment
• £150 pays for a day trip for a worried and
lonely sibling
• £540 covers one month’s running costs of the
24 hour telephone helpline
• £800 pays for 44 hours of care from a Family
Support Worker
Please visit the website www.rainbowtrust.org.uk
and read through the inspiring case studies to see
how The Rainbow Trust can really help and
transform young people and their families’ lives.
If you would like to get involved in any of our
events, do get in touch with Sarah Lees at
The Rainbow Trust
Results International acted for Hasgrove Plc
Results International acted for Magnon
Results International acted for Blue Rubicon
Results International acted for Abacus
has been acquired byhas been acquired byhas been acquired byhas been acquired by
Results International acted for Figtree
has been acquired by has been acquired by
Results International acted for Orbital
Results International acted for Resultrix
Results International acted for Data2Decisions
Results International acted for Virgo
has been acquired by has been acquired by has been acquired by
Results International acted for Lakestar
has been acquired by
Results International acted for Bridgehead
has been acquired byhas been acquired by
St Ives Group
Bridgehead International
Results International acted for iStrat
www.resultsig.com
27 Soho Square, London W1D 3AY
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 7575
Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
Andrew Kefford
Regional Director,
Asia Pacific
& MENA
David Blois
Regional Director,
Eastern and Central
Europe
Dan Egerton
Consultant
David Copp
Manager
Hemavli Bali
Director
Keith Hunt
Managing Partner
Andy Collins
Senior Partner
Julia Crawley-
Boevey
Manager
Eduardo Steiner
Regional Director,
Latin America
& Managing Partner,
Brazil
Arne Tödt
Managing Partner,
Germany
Richard Eyre
Non-Executive
Director
Chris Jones
Non-Executive
Chairman
Angela Lurssen
Business
Development
Director
Imad Kublawi
Partner, MENA
Chris Beaumont
Regional Director,
North Asia
Sunil Gupta
Managing Partner,
South Asia
Pierre-Georges
Roy
Partner,
GroupArgent
USA
Graham Beckett
Founding Partner
& Non-Executive
Director
Jim Houghton
Partner
UK
Sarah Lees
Marketing Manager
International
Miles Welch
Partner
Jamie Kefford
Manager,
South East Asia
Afsor Miah
Knowledge Manager
Sheungyu Cho
Analyst
Maurice Watkins
Partner,
GroupArgent
USA
Andrew Dysch
Head of Finance
Drew Meyers
Partner,
GroupArgent
USA
The team
David Feldgajer
Manager
Sherif Hegazy
Analyst
Harriet
Rosethorn
Analyst
Kevin Bottomley
Managing Director
Julie Langley
Managing Director
Jo Crawford
Office Manager / PA
Mark Williams
Manager
Vikky Gray
PA
Rachel Burgess
Team Assistant
