We spoke to Willis about his agency’s impressive M&A expansion plans which he calls Project Globe. Claxon aims to build a global indie network with reach in the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Australia.
“We’ve got a really strong product roadmap of how we are growing our service offering at Claxon,” said Willis. “These target companies firstly need to fit within the existing product roadmap, we’re not looking at building a generalist group who just does a bit of everything for everyone, we’re really looking at building a specialist digital growth group. That’s full suite across performance, creative, brand, data analytics and consultancy, but all infused with a growth DNA.
“We’re also looking from a consultancy point of view to play in the crypto and blockchain consultancy world and have that is a really important part of the Claxon service offering.”
A former CEO in the finance world, Willis said that one thing that sets Claxon apart is that he set the agency like someone who is not from the media.
“One of the things that I did differently is I built Claxon like a business that just happened to be an agency versus building like an agency which is what 98% of people do.
There has recently been a lot of change at Claxon which Mediaweek has detailed in its interview with the agency’s CEO Stephen Forth. One of the biggest changes was Forth taking the CEO spot held by Willis who has moved into the chairman role. When asked about the change Willis said that it was one that was needed to grow the agency.
“Our aspirations were always global. When we said our vision it was always the same thing, it was to be the number one digital growth agency globally. After four years in the role as our CEO from day one, I realised that for us to get there, we really needed somebody in that chair that has significantly more industry experience than I do. Having someone like Stephen in the role was the right choice. He had a mandate to expand our service offering, improve our client mix, and to attract other industry-leading talent. Since Stephen has been in the role, that’s exactly what he’s done.”
While most agencies with aspirations this big are from Sydney or Melbourne. Claxon is based on the Gold Coast, a factor that Willis thinks has helped the agency.
“Being on the Gold Coast has forced us to think differently. It was a bold move. As an agency we’ve made sure that we brought in the right talent, we’ve retained Deloitte for the next three years to really guide this M&A strategy with us. So anything we do, we are doing properly and it’s exciting.”
