Last month, Mediaweek announced the Sales Team of the Year, an initiative to highlight some of the high-quality work done in the industry.
Each month, a media sales team will be selected by a rotating panel of judges as the nominee for that particular month, culminating in 12 nominees by the end of the 12 months. The judges will be assessing each team on criteria such as proactivity, strategy and execution, and client and agency relationship management.
The 12 nominees will then all go into the running to be named Mediaweek’s Sales Team of the Year.
The winners for July are JCDecaux’s sales team.
With partnerships and collaborations with Apple, Amex, Amazon Prime, and Goodman Fielder, 2023 saw JCDecaux’s team experience an 11% growth in revenue throughout Q1.
To celebrate the win, Mediaweek sat down with John Harris (general manager sales), Morgan Hannaford (NSW sales director), and Gemma Watkins (NSW sales director).
John Harris, Morgan Hannaford, and Gemma Watkins
Harris: “We’ve been through a real journey in the business, even before we get to the sales team, and winning things like this is just so important.
“It’s great to go for these things, but to win it is an amazing result. We’re really, really proud.”
After a challenging period of time for the business, Hannaford and Watkins say that they’re thrilled to see how the out-of-home industry has bounced back stronger – and more creatively – than ever.
Hannaford: “After Covid, the out-of-home industry and our business took a big hit. Our teams took a big hit following the great resignation, and we went through a big rebuild last year.
“Now, we’ve got a great team that’s really stable, settled, and humming, and the culture is fabulous. It just feels so good after a really tough few years to be able to be acknowledged and recognised.”
Watkins: “For me, a key highlight over the last 12 months has been the return of advertisers using out-of-home as a creative stage. In the last couple of months, we haven’t had a period where we’ve seen as many creative campaigns in market as we’re seeing right now.
“We’re seeing clients using out-of-home as a creative stage, but also having fun with the format. They’re really showing by investing in creative builds that they really believe in out-of-home and the power of it to engage with audiences.”
JCDecaux Sales team
Behind the scenes, Harris says that one of the key aspects of the business that the JCDecaux team is proud of is “the people side of things” – as he says, “attracting and retaining great staff”.
Harris: “One particular stat I’m really proud of is that 95% of our people are proud to work at JCDecaux – it’s one thing to say happy, but if you’re proud to work at an organisation that then flows through into the work that you do.
“I think that’s why the New South Wales sales team has been so successful, because Gemma and Morgan have cultivated this team of people that are proud to come to work every day of the week. Also, technology’s improved and the way we collaborate has improved, so that’s coming through into the work that we do with clients as well. We’re in a really, really great position.”
Chatting with JCDecaux’s sales team, one factor that comes up time and time again is the culture of the business. Harris goes so far as to call it “a foundation of what we do”, saying that “if we get that wrong, how are we going to get everything else right?”
Harris: “We’ve got Alissa Bartlett, who’s our chief people officer. Alissa has been phenomenal in terms of instigating new initiatives for the business, but I think probably more importantly, allowing senior leadership groups across multiple departments to help inform what those initiatives are. It’s definitely not a one way kind of practice.
“Post-acquisition and merger with APN Outdoor, great culture takes time to get right. It’s taken four or five years to get to the point where we are one JCDecaux, one team, one dream, and it really feels like it’s better than it ever has been.”
The team cite internal initiatives as reasons the team is working so well together – like forming a Connections team to house the sales team, trading team, marketing team, and campaigns delivery team, as well as being the first outdoor organisation to create the group business director role. On top of that, Watkins and Hannaford say there are a handful of factors that support and drive the success of the JCDecaux sales team.
Watkins: “We’ve got a strategy and vision as a business for New South Wales, as well as for JCDecaux nationally, but then we also have set goals that the entire New South Wales team are aligned on. Everything feeds up to that, and everyone’s collaborating and working towards achieving those goals.
“Our team definitely has a real passion for out-of-home, but also for achieving and delivering successful campaigns for the advertisers that we work with. When we’re responding to a brief, we work with our insights and creative solutions team and everything we put forward is backed by data so that we can deliver effective campaigns. That is one of the reasons I believe that we do see those repeat spenders and advertisers running multiple campaigns with us throughout the year, because they see results off the back of them.”
Hannaford: “Being a part of a global organisation that is investing in the data and the tools that allow us to be as agile as possible helps us lead conversations. That’s opening doors for us, and that helps us get in with our clients and agency partners, they get to know us and the service levels, and it just goes from there. So that’s part of our success as well.
“Post Covid, we’re more connected than ever. The entire team works together, nobody is siloed even though there are six group business directors just in New South Wales, for instance. We are all on regular Teams chats, we share a lot of communications, and there’s no double handling. We all feel like there’s one team, one dream here.”
Looking ahead, the JCDecaux sales team say that they will be continuing to push ahead with the work they’re currently doing, and aiming to grow along the way.
Harris: “We’ve got a really ambitious plan to grow into next year and the year after that – we’re working through our next two to three year business strategy right now.
“We’re just coming to the end of the last two year strategy, which was leading through change. It certainly was a lot of change, but now we’re excited to crack on, keep growing with the market, and try to keep ahead of the market.”
Entries are now open for next month’s Sales Team of the Year nominee. The form to nominate a team can be found here