Why Every Agency Needs a Chief Revenue Officer
An interview with Dalton Mangin, Chief Revenue Officer, Quigley-Simpson
Dalton Mangin is a seasoned marketing professional with over 25 years of experience on both the client and the agency side. He recently joined Quigley-Simpson, the largest woman-owned full-service advertising agency in the country, as its Chief Revenue Officer. As CRO, he will be responsible for overseeing Quigley-Simpson’s growth and brand strategy, forging new strategic alliances and partnerships, and managing agency communications. The Continuum recently sat down with Dalton to talk about the power of independence, how the distinction of performance marketing is fading, and why every advertising agency needs a Chief Revenue Officer.
Take us back a bit, how did you get into advertising in the first place?
After college, I started working for the CEO of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The airport’s goal was to offer more flights and routes, especially international routes. Our mission was to convince airlines like Lufthansa and Swissair that the Metroplex was better than going through other cities such as Houston, Denver, or Atlanta. One of the first things we did was to work with an ad agency to help us. We selected The Richards Group in Dallas. The agency was started by Stan Richards, the author of The Peaceable Kingdom: Building a Company without Factionalism, Fiefdoms, Fear and Other Staples of Modern Business. Although ironically, The Richards Group faced significant controversy years later – at the time it was an extremely well-run shop that people like Michael Dell would visit for lessons on running a business.
As a client, I worked closely with our agency, and I loved the multiplicity of what our agency did – from business strategy to creative and campaign development. I knew that agency life was my future.
You spent much of your career in advertising working within a large holding company; what are the advantages and disadvantages of that model in your experience?
Having a big network can sometimes be advantageous. There are many resources at your disposal, amortizing costs across multiple agencies.
At the same time, I believe the focus is often on growing the holding company’s share price for the stockholder, and client goals are secondary. It's a different dynamic that runs through everything, and it means that executives often make decisions for internal reasons rather than what’s best for clients.
“There is definitely a blur now between brand-building initiatives and performance marketing. These were once separate, but everything is now performance-based.”
Is that why you decided to make the jump to an independent agency?
It was a factor, for sure. Carl Fremont, our CEO, also spent a lot of time at holding companies, and in our initial conversations, we aligned philosophically. At Quigley-Simpson, in particular, we focus on providing a full marketing solution with the ability to impact the entire customer journey. It all goes hand in hand. A brand requires strategy, creative and media to be completely aligned. Once brands acquire customers, the need then shifts to cultivating relationships with them, cross-selling and building loyalty, and ultimately, a valuable long-term relationship. Our mantra at Quigley-Simpson is to be Brand Led, Demand Driven, Impact Obsessed, and when we do this, we can help our clients achieve exponential growth. That’s why I’m so excited about the new role because I love ensuring it all comes together.
Chief Revenue Officer is not a typical job at an agency, although now a few agencies are starting to have them. Why did Quigley-Simpson create it? What does it entail?
The goal of a Chief Revenue Officer is to ensure the agency is well-positioned to help our clients grow their business. At Quigley-Simpson, we essentially flipped the role from the traditional Chief Growth Officer. If I were a Chief Growth Officer, my role would be about growing the agency business by finding new clients. But as a Chief Revenue Officer, I have a different focus. I begin with the premise that our primary goal is to collaborate with our clients to grow their revenue, first and foremost. If our clients are doing well, we will be retained, and our agency growth will be an organic byproduct. This requires an understanding of our client’s business, category, customer, and overall marketing landscape to inform the marketing levers we can pull to extrapolate exponential growth. Of course, technology, innovation, and creativity are also leveraged from across the agency. To ensure we are diligent in this effort, we conduct ongoing cross-capability business reviews, digging into each client’s business performance to identify growth opportunities.
“I begin with the premise that our primary goal is to collaborate with our clients to grow their revenue, first and foremost. If our clients are doing well, we will be retained, and our own agency growth will be an organic byproduct.”
This is an exciting time for performance marketing. Can you talk about what you are seeing in the industry right now?
There is definitely a blur now between brand-building initiatives and performance marketing. These were once separate, but everything is now performance-based. Digital has enabled measurement at every stage of the purchase journey and can be optimized for outcomes. Agencies must be able to uncover insights from a multiplicity of data and work with clients to adjust their marketing approach and execution across all touchpoints. Quigley-Simpson’s advantage is that we can pull many levers, such as creative, media, UX, and digital components, to optimize results.
Quigley-Simpson is also at the forefront of embracing modern technology and AI, which is an area that is really dynamic. What do you see happening there?
We could spend days on this topic. We are taking innovation through tech and AI seriously. Agencies that don’t will definitely be left behind. As an independent agency, we can prioritize our clients’ needs and invest in innovating new offerings that help drive exponential growth. Just the other day, we were talking with a new client, and she mentioned how she was doing a data export and building a custom view on a weekly basis. Upon hearing that, we offered to automate that to free up her time to focus on the insights as opposed to building. Freeing up time through technology is essential for agencies looking to review performance and optimize quickly. This is one basic example of leveraging tech to get to a better place.
From a creative perspective, AI is being leveraged by our art directors, copywriters, and designers. AI is starting to see itself being leveraged for storyboard creation and producing finished deliverables. The programmatic/ad tech side of the business is an area that we are embracing as well. Quigley-Simpson is in the beta of two new programmatic marketplaces. This summer, we will officially be live in the market with multiple launches. I can’t wait to share more as these launches will bring curated programmatic marketplaces that include audiences of certified content providers that are deemed multicultural and also deemed highly responsive, ultimately aligning with our goals of achieving incremental reach and driving greater ROI. The aforementioned examples are just a couple of ways that tech can be embraced to be more efficient, be more effective, and deliver greater impact.
June 13, 2023
