Global brands are taking notice of Epsilon, Michael Cullen writes
Epsilon? What’s it all about? A sign in the agency’s boardroom tries to explain: “We make connections that bond people to brands”. Owner holding company Alliance Data Services (ADS) is quoted on the NYSE top 500. Online visitors to Epsilon’s website may explore in different languages why they represent “a new breed of all-encompassing marketing”.
The Irish business started with a small direct response agency called Acorn, built on the simple ethos which says ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. At a time when marketers worried about media spend efficiencies, the mantra caught on. In winning Google and Dell and industry awards, it became impossible to keep Acorn’s success a secret.
After running Acorn for over four years, Phil Cottier, MD for the Epsilon network in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), decided it was time to move things on. Acorn was acquired by Epsilon three years ago and just recently its multinational moniker became official. The market was pretty flat at the time. Cottier decided if they were to made headway and grow the business, it would be by picking up international clients based in Ireland.
“We went after global operators clients based out of here,” Cottier says. “We were lucky to win Dell and Google and that gave us a footprint and a huge understanding of the digital world. Nobody else got close to what we have now. We’re working out of the coalface. When innovation comes through, we are part of it and it gave us a huge advantage.
Problem is, when you do that, someone is going to be looking at you. Along came the US venture group Lake Capital. Little did Cottier realise Lake were building a portfolio to offload quickly. Having done due diligence and everyone appeared happy, six weeks later and they had to do it all over again. ADS had been part of American Express and it still manages credit card programmes for department stores like Sears and Bloomingdales.
It also owns LoyaltyOne, which operates Canada’s air miles reward programme. Just as well as Cottier spends a lot of time in airports and flying to and fro. While not quite as prolific a globetrotter as WPP’s Martin Sorrell, he clocked up 125 international flights last year. “Epsilon is about delivery,” he says, “a platform to engage one-to-one with consumers.”
The expertise in all things loyalty, data and the technical side of things was there in droves, but what they really needed was the creative talent. That’s where Acorn could help grow the business. How can small businesses afford to use a huge email database? The cost of getting into that game is horrendous. Epsilon opened the door and invested in Ireland.
Senior VP Emmet McCaughey cites a local craft beer brand – whose owner prefers to remain anonymous – which Epsilon has worked with from day one. From modest beginnings, they are now going global. If you were to ask most people do they know Pinergy, they would probably say “ah yes, rugby star Paul O’Connell”, and not mention Epsilon’s client.
But, McCaughey adds, the fact is PrePayPower is Ireland’s fastest-growing utility in the sector with over 110,000 customers. “We do everything for them,” he adds. “We don’t even like to use the word ‘agency’ anymore, because we’re a marketing business.” Cottier says the Acorn team was handed the job of building an Epsilon story for the rest of the world.
With the technology and creative capabilities sorted, they now had to define themselves and create an identity in the marketplace. All of the Epsilon rebranding across the international network was done in Ireland – as Cottier puts it, the team in Dublin “wagged the big tail” over in the US. “We’re a global marketing company – not an agency,” he insists.
In 2013, Acorn made the headlines with plans to double its workforce to 200 by 2018. The project is supported by the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland. Apart from Google and Dell, other Epsilon clients include Jaguar Land Rover (above), Yves Rocher, P&G, Pfizer, Cartier, Tesco, Vistaprint and Bristol-Myers Squibb and Derek Richardson’s Wasps RFC.
Epsilon’s main office is beside the canal on Percy Place. But they are fast running out of space and the current lease expires in September. Its data centre is located nearby and it provides storage for European clients. Epsilon also has an office in Sandymount. But as any IAPI agency boss will testify, getting one’s hands on a property over 15,000 sq ft is a feat.
McCaughey said losing the Acorn name was not easy. But at least they had a major say in how the Epsilon brand came about. They did a roadshow last October which meant telling 4,500 people in the company about the brand and where they were going. “It was two weeks of hell to be honest!, Cottier says. “It’s cool that we’re driving the creative vision.”
Acorn ran a staff hire ad for “an agency with a focus on creativity that delivers results. But we would say that, wouldn’t we? Two years ago, we had 30 staff – today we’ve almost 100. Our account people are bright, energetic, intelligent professionals who can squeeze a marketing budget until it screams for mercy and coughs up a killer ROI.” (Epsilon’s US boss Andy Frawley now says ROI is dead and a new metric is needed for customer relationships).
So from where did the name Epsilon originate? Doesn’t it sound more like a computer giant? Cottier says the name came about quite bizarrely. It appears three Harvard graduates were trying to create an alumni, similar to what Mark Zuckerberg and his pals did at Facebook. While Facebook was about creating a social media network, Epsilon meant databases.
Phil Cottier is in charge of running the entire Epsilon network for the EMEA region. As his job entails a lot of international travel, he relies on his two deputies, Emmet McCaughey (above) and Ann McDermott (below), to look after the business in his absence. With over 30 people in its creative department, Epsilon plans to double its total workforce to 200 by 2018.
While the company’s digital capability is established globally, they are now set on trying to develop media buying and planning services. One of Epsilon’s biggest wins recently was Wasps RFC in England. The company was hired to provide marketing expertise geared to “getting bums on seats”. Being a seasoned rugby union fan, Cottier was delighted.
“I’ve been a Mad Man for too many years!” he says. “At about 26, I moved from the client side at L’Oreal, thinking that advertising was an easier life. I got poached by BBDO. Most of my career was with agencies on mergers and acquisitions. I did the QMP deal for DMB&B. What comes to bite you on the backside, comes back to bite you on the backside!”
He mentions his former Publicis boss Maurice Levy, who was due to retire before the deal with Omnicom collapsed, and how it might do when it is run by an American out of New York. Apart from media buying, what other marketing services might Epsilon consider taking on? Cottier mentions sponsorship as a possibility, but really that’s another day’s work.
