Molly Blacker of Havas on Why Strategy is a Hummingbird, Not a Gatekeeper
Molly Blacker, Havas Media's new National Head of Strategy in Australia, on why audience segmentation needs recalibration, what clients really leave agencies over, and the two-speed media market dynamics.
Molly Blacker has spent her career at the intersection of media strategy and creative thinking. Now, as Havas Media's newly created National Head of Strategy, she's part of a deliberate push to bridge the gap between creative, media, and PR. She talks about why the strategy function is more than audience segmentation, what clients really leave agencies over, and why a two-speed media market requires more strategic rigour, not less.
You've stepped into a newly created National Head of Strategy role at Havas Media. What gap were they trying to fill, and what drew you to it?
Speaking to Olly Taylor, Havas Village CSO, and Kate O'Ryan-Roeder, Havas Media CEO, it was clear that what Havas Village is building is unique. A village with discipline-agnostic strategic thinking at the heart, to better serve clients and bridge the divide across creative, media, and PR.
We instinctively know that working in silos doesn't work for clients, for creativity, or for commercial results, but setting out to create structural change with a dedicated strategy collective showed me it was more than words on a page or a slide in a creds deck. It is a demonstration of Havas's local ANZ positioning, Deliberately Different, brought to life.
As a media strategist, my favourite projects over the years have been the ones where creatives fall in love with the potential of great media thinking, media agencies fall in love with the creative, and the client sees the outsized impact that they deserve and pay for. The opportunity to do that every single day is why I'm here.
Leighton Cosseboom
Strategy at a network media agency sits at an interesting intersection of data, creativity, and client management. How do you define what the strategy function should actually own?
I see strategists as hummingbirds. They go from flower to flower, drinking the nectar from one and taking its pollen to pollinate the next. So whether we're absorbing information from data, research, or client feedback forms, we take pieces from each to create something more meaningful and fruitful for our client's business.
I have too much respect for data and client management teams to think strategy has the ability to own those disciplines, but it is a strategist's responsibility to show respect for and interest in these disciplines. This approach creates a better environment for creativity while building the necessary commercial acumen to drive impact, which should be the strategy team's domain.
Leighton Cosseboom
A lot of media agency strategy work gets reduced to audience segmentation and channel planning. Where do you think the discipline needs to go if it wants to hold more weight in the room?
I think if "audience segmentation" is seen as a reduction, then we need a rebranding job. A greater understanding of who your audience should be is seen as the most important part of the communications process. I think we've tarnished audience with demographic-based solutions. No, your most important audiences are not Grocery Buyers 25-54.
Great audience work should communicate the commercial and strategic importance of the right audience, as well as its impact on creative, media, PR, etc. Reframing how we communicate its importance is the key to holding more weight in the room.
Clients are increasingly bringing media capabilities in-house. Does that make an agency strategy role harder to justify, or does it actually create more demand for what you do?
I believe that this creates a greater need for it. When we talk to pitch consultants, companies like TRR/Lift, or in-housing consultants, there is a common denominator to client disappointment: clients leave when they feel the agencies aren't thinking as strategically (or more so) about their business than their internal teams.
Without a dedicated commitment to foster this by agencies, we will see greater in-house. This is why I think Havas's commitment to the Strategy Collective is appealing to clients.
Leighton Cosseboom
Australia's media market is consolidating fast. How does that shift the strategic conversation with clients who are trying to reach fragmented audiences on tighter budgets?
I'm not sure I'd entirely agree. There are certainly large areas of consolidation, but equally, there are large parts of fragmentation. It is a two-speed media market.
The consolidation opportunities, of course, bring value and cross-platform coverage, which can deliver exposure disproportionate to the budget. However, if the platform or network in question is not the right channel for your audience, the amount of value or exposure you get is a moot point.
Great strategic agency partners understand whether your brand or product needs to go deeper with fewer people, or shallower contact with more people to drive the greatest impact.
If you could change one thing about how media agencies pitch and sell strategy to clients, what would it be?
We tell clients that they need to focus their strategy on the right audience to win, and I think agencies need to apply the same discipline to themselves.
Agencies should have to articulate what kind of clients they work well with and the ones they don't before they pitch. An agency should never pitch simply because they have been asked. They should pitch because there are shared values or ambitions, and a belief that they can deliver real impact to the client.
The type of client an agency turns down says as much about them as the ones they work with.
Molly Blacker is National Head of Strategy at Havas Media Australia. Learn more at Havas Australia.
