Even a shrink couldn’t fix media agencies’ narrow mindset: Why Dave Gaines ditched GroupM to build Media by Mother, takes no mark-ups on media buying – “just data entry” – KPIs staff on learning, planning Apac launch

After two decades at GroupM, Dave Gaines quit to launch Media by Mother, an offshoot of creative London hotshop Mother that he reckons may ultimately be subsumed by its progeny. A major frustration with the WPP-owned business, per Gaines, was the inability for swathes of its people to think laterally, critically and stay curious. He hired a shrink to try and fix the problem, and then tried to take a creative-agency led approach to media within WPP. Ultimately, neither worked. Now Media by Mother staff – many liberal arts grads – are KPI’d to read, listen and learn outside of their current remits to better understand the bigger picture. If they do, they get up to 15 per cent more salary. If they don’t, “there are plenty of other places they can work.” The agency doesn’t make any money from trading media, “the money flows through their pipes, not ours”, and Gaines says media buying is a misnomer: “it’s just data entry”. Meanwhile, he reckons those arguing over Recma billings rankings are bald men fighting over a comb: “If you think scale is important, you don't know how an auction works.” After hitting its five-year growth targets in two years, Media by Mother is now planning an Apac office, and a Naked 2.0 model – except with execution, which Gaines reckons was Naked’s downfall. Its precise Apac location will be determined by finding curious, T-shaped contextual operators. He reckons Australians are better at that than US peers… but it’s a low bar.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.