In 2019, PwC consolidated its 33 marketing teams that were spread around the business into a single internal agency. These were divided into functional areas of specialism, including digital, content, campaigns and brand. Here, Lucy Birch, director of marketing and brand at PwC tells Paul Snell about the company’s appetite for all things agency – including its staff.
What is it you value about an agency’s ethos and work practices?
Lucy Birch: “I’ve had the experience of working for an agency myself and can see how hugely valuable it was. The stint really developed me because working across different clients gives you much more diversity in terms of the types of challenges you face. It gives you a lot of softer skills, such as quickly getting a good understanding of the individual client’s needs, the dynamics of an organisation and the political pressures people are under. Working at an agency also made me much more commercially focused. There is better rigour and commerciality to your work when you know someone is paying you directly for the hours you’re putting in and the outputs you’re delivering. You don’t get that same level of pressure when you’re an in-house salaried employee.When I came back inhouse, talking about the clients I’d been working with externally definitely gave me more credibility. When I came to PwC, I continued bringing other people in from the agency world to ensure that flow of thinking, creativity and expertise into the business.
You switched from being client-side to an agency and back again. What made you do that?
When I was previously client-side, I couldn’t see how I would continue to learn, particularly in the digital space. I could see the direction of travel and that digital was going to become part of marketing, but where I was, the pace of change just didn’t seem fast enough.
The agency I went to was very focused on digital. My learning curve was enormous and daunting – but it was brilliant as it felt I’d gone back to school. I knew I needed to do that for the next stage of my career to be credible. It’s challenging when you go from an inhouse team where things are very stable, to an agency where you know exactly how much new business you need to win to pay people’s salaries. It’s a very different mindset.
After I got my head around it, I wished I’d known those skills while doing my previous job. It gave me a real injection of fresh innovation and inspiration. I was lucky PwC were open enough to try some of those things.
What roles have you hired ex-agency staff for?
I’ve bought in people at senior levels, so a lot of my heads of department are ex-agency. I’ve also recruited more technical people who have worked at marketing agencies in very specific roles within the digital team, for example, looking at digital channels or optimising our investment in marketing cloud.
They bring a fresh perspective. They come in and say ‘why are you doing it like this?’. Sometimes there’s a good reason we’re doing it that way, but other times it makes us think ‘I don’t really know why’. They keep me fresh, because the longer I stay inhouse the more, inevitably, I go a little bit native. They also bring all the experience of working with other organisations and a confidence that change at pace is possible.
How do you attract agency staff to a client-side role?
The strength of the PwC brand gets us quite a long way there. Also, I think it’s about the tone I set in the team, keeping that entrepreneurial approach, being open to new ideas, and ensuring those coming in that their voice will be heard. The reason I’m bringing them in is to deliver something different.
There’s also stability. An organisation like PwC is able to be flexible on working hours and give people a little more balance around family commitments. It’s the right thing for different people at different times of their lives.
What are the biggest reservations for agency-staff moving client-side?
When I switched, I couldn’t get my head around the pace and why things took so long. It’s good for people to be restless and to want move faster, quicker and better. You don’t want to smash that out of them by saying ‘this is just the way we do things’ – that’s the wrong answer from my perspective. You have to learn the art of patience, particularly in a partnership, where you have to bring people with you on the journey.
When you’re new, you have all these fresh ideas. Part of my job is to support people in being enabled to action them, to make others realise they have been brought in for a clear reason, and give them space to do that.
Not everyone will love the experience of coming inhouse, and vice versa, so a lot of it sits with the individual being honest about what they want in their next career move.
What have those former agency staff enabled PwC to do?
Our ex-agency staff have helped the rest of the team be braver because they bring experience of what’s worked elsewhere. People who’ve done different things can be used as a sounding board. The credibility they bring, in terms of prior experience and the clients they’ve worked with previously, can often cut through a very entrenched view, even of a senior stakeholder.
In-house teams have been quite smart about how they use agencies because they could act as an external view. It’s not that they’re smarter, just that stakeholders are so used to working with their inhouse teams they look through them. Having ex-agency people at senior levels is also great as they are often technical specialists. I don’t think agency or inhouse is better, but it’s about playing to the strengths of both. Inhouse have that depth of knowledge and understanding of the organisation, and combining that with someone who’s come in from an agency is really powerful.
Would you suggest client-side marketers consider a switch to working at an agency?
I would absolutely encourage people to have a stint agency-side. My own development was hard, but so beneficial as it taught me things I didn’t really know existed and a different way of thinking.
