Mediaweek held its inaugural Power Lunch in October, celebrating the successes of the media industry and the people who make it.
Danny Bass, chief executive officer of Dentsu, reached the #5 place on the Mediaweek Agency 50 list.
Mediaweek caught up with Bass as he celebrated his team’s achievements, improving diversity in the industry and playing a role in the Yes vote for the Voice to Parliament referendum.
MW: Congratulations on making the #5 spot on our Mediaweek Agency 50 list. What was your reaction to your placement?
DB: Surprised and honoured. It is wonderful, after a couple of tough years for the industry to see other leaders across the market recognised for the work they’ve done.
MW: How does your position on the list reflect the achievements made by dentsu?
DB: Lists are nice but ultimately, it’s about the day-to-day results that you drive within your business. Those are the important metrics that we look at. First and foremost, are we supporting other people? Are we making them better media professionals? How does that then translate into the work we do every day for our clients?
Ultimately, the industry has been pretty poor for the last 10 years of recognising the role we play in driving the economy. Those are the key things that we look at. Acknowledgement and awards attached to that, that’s really nice. But it’s those three things that are really important.
MW: What are three industry issues on your mind, and in your opinion, how can they be solved or achieved?
DB: Diversity – if we look at our workforce, does that truly reflect the diversity of Australia and the diversity of the customers who buy our clients product? We’ve done a good job, though there is still more to be done, on gender equality, diversity and gender parity in leadership roles, but we need to start looking at diversity more broadly to ensure all Australians can be represented within agencies.
The inevitability of a move to an ecosystem entirely driven by automation and programmatic, how do we, as an industry, ensure that we continue to lead and not let others move into the space.
And making sure we never lose sight of what makes this industry amazing which is the creativity and ideation that our people bring every single day. That is what sets us apart from anyone else and it’s something we should never lose sight of.
MW: What is your outlook for dentsu’s media business in 2023?
DB: Since coming onboard, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know the business, our people, and our clients, around the country and listening to what are thing the things that we help them with today, but more importantly what are the things they’re looking for us to help them with over the course of the next few years because that will be very different.
We are then focused on working within the wider denstu business to bring together all the disciplines outside of media that we believe are at the forefront of what clients will be looking for from us over the coming years.
Given we have the depth of capabilities with something like Merkle, dentsu’s customere experience business, we believe that competitive set can set us apart so we are focused on working on bringing those two worlds together.
MW: What are your hopes for the industry in 2023?
DB: To better reflect the diversity of modern Australia, to be seen as a power for good.
Our role in the decarbonisation of the industry is incredibly important, the role that we can play in the Yes vote for the Voice to Parliament referendum, and what dentsu has already done here with its commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, our public support for the Yes campaign including the Guide we launched earlier this year to help clients navigate how they can make the decision and then support the campaign, is a perfect example of what an agency of our size can do.
The last one would be in these times of economic headwinds and unrest, is that we can continually demonstrate the importance of marketing to drive growth. This is critical for our industry and for our clients.
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Top image: Danny Bass