Rishad Tobaccowala | The Omnicom IPG Merger - What it Means & What's Next | Part 1

Summary

CMO Confidential: Rishad Tobaccowala | The Omnicom IPG Merger - What it Means & What's Next | Part 1

Release Date: March 25, 2025

Host: Mike Linton
Guest: Rishad Tobaccowala
Network: I Hear Everything Podcast Network
Presenter: Props (www.props.co)

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Introduction

In this episode of CMO Confidential, host Mike Linton welcomes Rishad Tobaccowala, former Chief Strategist and Growth Officer of the Publicist Group, to discuss the monumental merger between Omnicom and IPG. This merger has significant implications for the marketing agency landscape, and the conversation delves deep into its potential impact, industry consolidation trends, and future predictions.

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Overview of the Omnicom-IPG Merger

Timestamp [00:35]

Mike Linton sets the stage by highlighting the sheer magnitude of the merger: Omnicom and IPG, two of the largest holding companies in the marketing industry, are combining forces to form a behemoth with over 100,000 employees and $25 billion in revenue. He introduces Rishad Tobaccowala, emphasizing his expertise and previous discussions on similar topics.

Rishad Tobaccowala adds his perspective:

"I basically believe that what is happening is a recognition that one, our industry is oversupplied. So this is one way of taking out some capacity."
[02:09]

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Industry Oversupply and Consolidation

Timestamp [02:09] - [04:54]

Rishad explains that the marketing industry is facing an oversupply of agencies, leading to consolidation among top players like WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis. He notes that over the past 90 days, 95-100% of major pitches have been won by the top three companies, indicating a significant concentration of market power.

"Now if you have 12 platforms that you have to play with besides a lot of other small people, this..."
[07:00]

He further elaborates on how the merger aims to streamline operations and enhance scalability in key areas: media, data, and technology—domains where scale offers substantial competitive advantages.

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Benefits of Scaling: Media, Data, Technology

Timestamp [04:54] - [08:21]

Rishad discusses the strategic focus of the merger on scale-based businesses. Unlike creative advertising, which doesn't benefit significantly from scale, areas like media buying, data analytics, and technology integration do. By scaling these functions, the merged entity can drive costs lower and optimize operational efficiencies.

"The returns on investment of these companies tend to come from data, technology and particularly media."
[04:54]

He emphasizes that data and technology are critical for maintaining competitiveness, especially as the number of major advertising platforms has expanded beyond just Google and Meta to include giants like Amazon and Walmart Connect.

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Challenges of the Merger: Execution, People, Culture

Timestamp [09:50] - [15:41]

While the merger presents strategic advantages, Rishad highlights significant execution challenges:

1. People and Culture: Integrating two large organizations involves merging diverse cultures and managing massive layoffs to achieve the projected $750 million in cost savings.

   "If you're world class talent, you're looking around and saying, what am I going to go through two years of pain to figure out whether I'm the right side of 750 million people."
   [13:00]

2. Systems Integration: Combining different operational systems and processes can lead to inefficiencies and operational hiccups.

3. Talent Flight: The uncertainty and potential disillusionment among employees may result in a massive talent flight, undermining the merger's intended benefits.

Rishad draws parallels to a previous failed attempt at merging Publicis and Omnicom 12 years ago, attributing the failure to differences in control and culture.

"The other is they're going to have to explain to everybody, including the young people, why is this good for me."
[14:06]

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Predictions for the Marketing Agency Landscape

Timestamp [16:10] - [22:25]

Rishad forecasts a future where the marketing ecosystem comprises "whales" and "plankton".

• Whales: Dominant companies with expansive capabilities in data, technology, and media.
• Plankton: Specialized, agile agencies and service providers that offer niche expertise and adaptability.

He believes mid-sized agencies will struggle to compete, leading to their acquisition by either whales or plankton, effectively eliminating the middle tier.

"The ecosystem is going to be whales and plankton, and that's it."
[19:08]

This dichotomy reflects a trend towards either being a large, diversified agency or a specialized, agile player, with little room for mid-sized firms.

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Advice for Clients Navigating the New Ecosystem

Timestamp [22:25] - [27:56]

Rishad offers strategic advice for clients operating within this evolving landscape:

1. Continuous Learning:
   Clients should dedicate time daily to understand the changing ecosystem, especially with the integration of AI and other emerging technologies.

   "Spend an hour a day learning. Get people to come and tell you."
   [23:28]

2. Strategic Partnering:
   Large clients, particularly Fortune 500 companies, should prioritize establishing relationships with one or two of the top "whale" agencies for comprehensive strategic and technological support, complemented by specialized "plankton" agencies.

   "The thing you want to basically say is, okay, who is my lead agent, not lead agency."
   [26:13]

3. Vendor Management:
   Effective management of multiple vendors is crucial. Clients must develop the ability to seamlessly integrate efforts from different specialized agencies to achieve cohesive marketing strategies.

   "One of the biggest skills over the next decade is going to be ... vendor management."
   [27:56]

Rishad likens this approach to a "Master Blaster" model, where large agencies provide the overarching strategy, while specialized partners execute specific components efficiently.

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Conclusion

The merger between Omnicom and IPG signals a transformative shift in the marketing agency industry, emphasizing consolidation and scalability in data, technology, and media. While this creates opportunities for dominant players, it poses significant challenges in execution, particularly concerning people and culture integration. The future landscape is predicted to polarize into large, versatile agencies and specialized niche players, leaving little room for mid-sized firms. For clients, adapting to this change involves continuous learning, strategic partnerships, and robust vendor management to navigate the increasingly complex ecosystem.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this discussion, where Mike Linton and Rishad Tobaccowala delve deeper into the implications of the Omnicom-IPG merger and explore strategic responses for marketing leaders.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Our industry is oversupplied. So this is one way of taking out some capacity." — Rishad Tobaccowala [02:09]
• "The returns on investment of these companies tend to come from data, technology and particularly media." — Rishad Tobaccowala [04:54]
• "The ecosystem is going to be whales and plankton, and that's it." — Rishad Tobaccowala [19:08]
• "Spend an hour a day learning. Get people to come and tell you." — Rishad Tobaccowala [23:28]
• "One of the biggest skills over the next decade is going to be ... vendor management." — Rishad Tobaccowala [27:56]

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Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

The CMO Confidential Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice then visit iheareverything.com welcome to CMO Confidential.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

The podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions and choices that go with being the Head of marketing. Hosted by five time CMO Mike Linton.

[Mike Linton]

Welcome marketers, advertisers and those who love them to Chief Marketing Officer Confidential. CMO Confidential is a program that takes you inside the drama, the decisions and the politics that go with being the head of marketing at any company in what is one of the most scrutinized jobs in the executive suite. I'm Mike Linton, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, ebay, Farmers Insurance and Ancestry.com here today with my guest, Rashad Debeca Walla. Today's topic, the Omnicom Inner Public Merger. What does this mean and what's Next? Now, Rashad was the former Chief Strategist and Growth Officer of the Publicist Group. He's a best selling author, an in demand speaker and the host of what's Next, a podcast that provides a wide ranging look at the future. He has also recently published a new book titled Rethinking Work which we will also discuss later today. This is his third time on the show. Welcome Rashad.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Thank you, Mike. And thank you for having me back.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, well it's always fun to have you on the show. Provocative, interesting and wide ranging. So let's start with the topic at hand. This massive merger. Omnicon and ipg, they're both huge holding companies and they're going to have a company with over 100,000 employees and more than 25 billion in revenue. If I'm reading everything right, tell us your take on this whole thing.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Well, I basically believe that what is happening is a recognition that one, our industry is oversupplied. So this is one way of taking out some capacity. The second is that while there continues to be significant amount of room for specialists and niche agencies and marketing service providers, the business is tending to consolidate and concentrate with the top three or four. I recently heard that approximately in the last 90 days between 95 and 100% of all major pitches were won by the same three companies.

[Mike Linton]

Really?

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

So that's three companies just rolling. We're going to go back to oversupply, but yeah.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So basically what is starting to happen is you have, you know, wpp, Omnicom and Publicis. And now if you considered Omnicom IPG as one company, it's almost become very concentrated. Not that there is an amazing talent and amazing people at other companies like Adensu, right, Et cetera. But it's almost like there are these three big companies, then there's like a big gap, then there are a number of other companies like, which are rollups like Stagwell and Brand Tech and others. And then there are like niche companies that clients also have around them. But almost a lot of it is going through these big companies. And I believe that the reason that this acquisition or this merger, it's actually an acquisition very clearly of IBG by Omnicom is because one, there are benefits to scale in three areas of the world of marketing, which are the three areas that agencies are tending to grow in. One is media, without a doubt. The second is data. And the third is technology and media. And data and technology tend to be scale based businesses. What many of these companies started as, which was creative advertising and communication, there are almost no benefits of scale, right?

[Mike Linton]

Because creative is still right.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So there are no benefits of scale. That doesn't mean creative isn't important to these companies or that creative, you know, does not require data and storytelling and a whole bunch of other stuff. But the reality of it is the returns on investment of these companies tend to come from data, technology and particularly media. And if they can scale up, they do a few things. One is if you scale up, you basically have the ability to drive costs lower. Just through that you get some benefits obviously from media and from data. And you also take out some capacity in the industry because the industry has been having a little bit of excess capacity. And that you see because one way that agencies win business is by cutting prices.

[Mike Linton]

Is this a race to the. As part of this, are you going to lead with cost versus creative or are you going to lead with Data and Tech vs Creative?

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

I think you're going to lead with Data and Tech vs Creative. But what would also tend to happen is when businesses now for all practical purposes have three choices. And usually businesses try to have a company and then someone else that they can also leverage against that company. So in effect now most I think clients are going to recognize that there isn't the demand supply initiative that they thought that there was, that there is less supply, especially relevant supply. If you want scale based global media, data and tech, and you want someone who happens to be on your side, you have to use some of these companies because you no longer can just go and Say okay, I'm going to use Google, okay, because Google will sell. Google will sell Google inventory utilizing Google technology and Google data and they won't sell you any Meta stuff and they won't sell you any TikTok stuff and they won't sell you any Amazon retail or Walmart connect stuff. So what tends to basically happen is you will. We've come to this place where there was a, there was a moment in time when there was a lot of capacity in the industry, oversupply of agencies and there was consolidation it seemed in the digital landscape to two or three players, Meta, Google and that was about it. Now what we are basically seeing is there's actually wild competition in, there's much more consolidation actually especially post this acquisition. If you really want to play in the big leagues, you can't have a small creative agency doing your media, your data and your tech. It ain't going to happen. You got to go to these large players at the very same stage. You no longer have the ability to say I'll do this in house because I only have to deal with Meta and Google. Now you basically have to deal with the last I counted, at minimum there are at least 12 major platforms in the United States that you have to play with. Well, it's no longer two. So now when you have 12 platforms that you have to play with besides a lot of other small people, this.

[Mike Linton]

Assumes TikTok still makes, makes it through all the stuff.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yeah, TikTok makes this stuff. But you know the, the scale of Amazon in the advertising business or a Walmart connect in the advertising business are huge. Right. And that's what people don't realize. So besides all of these things, the other is things given up for debt, they're out of the same scale. Like X is coming back like Amazon said, they're putting a whole bunch of money in so there's a whole bunch of money coming back. So it's, so it's no longer this whole idea of hey, I got to deal with two people, I got to do deal with 12 people. The other is no particular client actually now has the scaled based data to actually compete. Maybe there's a png, maybe there's a Walmart. Right? But even that is going to be I think very, very hard. So in effect I think this is recognizing in order to compete you have to have some skill. This is what I think these, these folks are doing and what we. So that's one. Now there's another way that, so that's what I call the smart part. Of what they're doing. And all the people in both companies, and I know a little bit of their management, are very smart people. So I would not say that this is crazy people. These are actually smart people who know what they're doing. Now, some people basically say, okay, therefore, they are in good standing and they will move forward. Now, recognize that. I don't know what their strategies are. I don't know exactly what they're going to do, but they're going to have some significant challenges. And those challenges are going to be, I think, threefold. And I'm sure they're aware of it, but I don't know if they recognize how deep those challenges are, because I've actually gone through this adventure before, so I think I now know. So one is we tried one of these little things. In 2013, Maurice Levy and John Wren tried to do a Publicis Omnicom version.

[Mike Linton]

Yep.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

I remember that did not work for a variety of reasons. Combination of control and culture. Okay. This time around, it's very clear who's controlling who, which is fine. But what basically begins to happen is you now have these two companies coming together, and clearly there's going to be. Now they're Talking about, like, 75 million of cost savings, I think.

[Mike Linton]

I thought it was 750 million.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

750. 750 million.

[Mike Linton]

Sorry, sorry. A billion in cost savings.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Cost savings. So a lot of that is not going to come from, like, real estate costs. It's going to basically come from people.

[Mike Linton]

It's all got to be people.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So one is, it's. That's. That's. That itself is very difficult. Second, there's going to be, you know, different systems coming together, which is very, very important. And the third, which is the thing that we've learned is what they're now trying to do. The best I can tell is what Publicist Omnicom tried to do 12 years ago. But the world has changed. So from outside, even though these are very smart people, I'm beginning to wonder whether they're solving for yesterday's problems. So there's a few things. The first, to great extent, I think, to a great extent, if you're trying to catch up, as they might be trying to catch up with Publicis, which has been doing particularly well the last three, four years, the best I can tell, and again, I don't work at Publicis anymore, that I don't think Publicist is standing still. They're going somewhere else. Okay. And so what happens is these people are trying to fill something that publicity is running away from primarily because I think they're beginning to see what the next frontiers might be. And I again don't work there. So one is, this sounds a little bit like an older, older problem, but here's the big issue here. I think the biggest issue is this is to solve for companies like this. And I've learned this having had the opportunity to work at Publicist and be involved in things like Sapient and Epsilon and Digitas and Razorfish, which are not mergers, they were acquisitions. So this is like an acquisition. Technology changes really fast, people change really slow. Okay? And what basically begins to happen is you can have an amazing strategy, you can have amazing M and A plans, you can have amazing reorganization plans, but it won't work unless you bring the people along. And the people are going to say, tell us why this is good for us. And now many leaders are looking at the $750 million of cuts and saying, this could potentially be good for us. We know it's going to be two years of amazing pain for publicists because I guess we were sillier. It took us four years, okay? Assuming these people are twice as good, it'll take about two years of pain. So if you're world class talent, you're looking around and saying, what am I going to go through two years of pain to figure out whether I'm the right side of 750 million people? So they're going to have, I think, a massive talent flight problem, which is number one. Second is they're going to basically have to explain to everybody, including the young people, why is this good for me? I understand it's good for Omnicom and IPG shareholders, but why is it good for me? And when you tell people it's good for the holding company, they'll say, well, we don't have too much equity in the holding company.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. And it's surely not necessarily great for your career.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So. Right. So the second is, how am I going to be incented? And the whole question simply is, will they be incented in today's goals or tomorrow's goals and what will they be? World class companies like Conde Nast are now a shell of themselves today. Not because they weren't had smart people, but because for year after year they incented the sale of magazine pages. So they kept talking about multimedia, but you got promoted by selling magazine pages. And then the last is, where is the training? Usually when you take out $750 million, you take out all your training. And I truly believe that if you want to get from year to there. Yes, strategy M and A and reorganizations are important but if you haven't solved for the people, you haven't solved for the incentives and you haven't solved for the training, you're going to have an issue. So that's number one. So that's the first thing. The other is I've never seen the rate of change in the world's landscape as it is today. And as a result if it takes you two years to get something together, the world you'll be facing will be completely different. And one of the, I think the, so in effect strategically what they're doing makes a lot of sense. The question is execution and the execution is really about people. And if you actually look at a lot of their management, it's financial times. Okay, I have two followers before we go further.

[Mike Linton]

So if, if this is, is, you know, if the industry is actually, it's oversupply shrinking, does this say the other two already big players win more and the mid size agencies get. This is the beginning of the end for them or the little agencies get rolled up. What happens, what happens to everybody else? The two other bigs and then the, all the mid sized small companies running around.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Okay, so obviously with an asterisk which is I used to work for many, many years at Publicis and I continue to be an advisor to them. Therefore anything I say about them is highly biased. So take that aside. I think they're probably the very best position right now because they've gone through all the pain, they're doing really well and they're just, they're starting to work on all cylinders. So that's one of the, one of.

[Mike Linton]

The two other killing it on the data front too and on everything.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

And right now they're doing really well and everything I can sense is they're doing very well. So that's really good. I sense that WPP is prepping for a private equity sale. There's absolutely no way that model works anymore. Okay. And, and, and, and, and in effect so that can be very powerful. You know a WPP with private equity can be very powerful, but I just don't know how they seem to be hemorrhaging and continue to hemorrhage. Omnicod has always been relatively strong compared to a lot of other people. They continue to, they were just, you know, along with publicist they were very strong these years and IPG has a lot of assets including Axiom and things like that. So I would expect they'll be fine. Now Dentsu, I basically Believe will become primarily a Japanese company. No one talks about Havas. Okay? Remember, all these companies, they're all basically gone, right? So right now it's like, okay, there's this Omnicom IPG thing and there's this publicist thing. They seem to be going to be doing okay. WPP is a work in progress. And then everybody else seems to be shrinking, and then the middle is no place to be. The middle is absolutely no place to be. And this. I. I said something five years ago and people thought like, I was crazy. And I do say crazy shit all the time. And I am crazy.

[Mike Linton]

That's why we love you on the show, right?

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

But you know, when people said about S4 and Martin Sorrell and WP when he did this for. I said, too small, too focused, too late. And everybody said, what are you talking about? I said, just watch. A year later they called me and said, you know, his stock price is whatever it is. I said, just watch. Okay? And now he's up for sale. His stock price is at 15 cents on the dollar, right? It's so. It's so small that if publicist decided to buy them, it would be like buying a shopper marketing agency the entire S4, right? I mean, it's ridiculous, right? My whole stuff is how the hell do you become as focused on technology when the world is broadening, right? And all of that. So all of these middle things are all. I mean, they're gone away, but there's no reason for them.

[Mike Linton]

So it's fair to say you got to be big or you got to be super specialized.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yes. So yes, was. I basically believe. I basically believe. And it's one of the last one of the chapters in my book where I say, what does the future of companies look like, right? Because I'm thinking of, okay, the future of work. So where should I want to go? Work? So where will the future companies look like? I believe the ecosystem is going to be whales and plankton, and that's it. And, you know, somebody said maybe there'll be a squid euro there. Okay? It's whales of plankton. And a whale will be some dominant companies in every industry and some dominantly sized companies and plankton will be people who are specialists, fast, provide a whole bunch of interesting things. And then everybody else is going to be whose middle size is going to have to be either helping the whales or the plankton. They'll be just enablers. So I'll give you an idea. People say, what is this wheel and plankton model? I said, today the wheel and plankton model, for instance. Think about the world of creative and creators. YouTube is a whale. A YouTube creator is a planter. Okay? And a YouTube creator basically gets paid 70% or 60% of all the revenue that YouTube gets from them. But YouTube basically provides them with a global audience infrastructure underlying technology and they feed off each other. YouTube and. Right. And so similarly it's not become a whale, but if you think about in the world of publishing, substack, okay, is a whale in the world of publishing like WordPress was and I am a plankton. So I publish a torture every Sunday. And I don't need any technology. I just use them because I don't charge anything. I use them for free because they charge 10% of what I charge. And so I'm free, right. And I reach 30,000 people every Sunday for free. And I couldn't do that before. It's a wheel and plankton thing. So my whole stuff is what's your specialty? You know, what's your absolute world class killer edge? And by be about saying nonsense on my substack, but whatever that is, okay. And then you line up with plankton or with whales, everything else becomes very in between. And there are all kinds of new companies that are allowing a lot of stuff to happen. So for instance, there's a company that is now run by a friend of mine who used to work with me called Andrew Swinellan called Inspired Thinking Group. And it's. He, he, he now, you know, basically will have, you know, he's growing at a incredible like 30% a month. Nonsense. He's got 800 employees. And what they basically do is they use a technology called StoryTech and they basically help both the big agencies and everybody else who come up with what they call halo ideas. The big ideas.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Basically find a way to make 50,000 versions of that really cheaply and quickly and easily.

[Mike Linton]

So let's, let's keep the sea metaphor going.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yep.

[Mike Linton]

I got these whales, I got these plankton in there. I'm a client, I am looking at all these whales, I'm looking at the plankton. How should I be thinking about the next set of years as a client when I look at this or if I, if I want to do a review or like what should I be thinking about?

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So if I have a client, I think the first thing I do is I would basically think about another C. And I'm talking about not the letter C versus the cc. Right, which is.

[Mike Linton]

I see what you just did there.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yeah. So the first thing that I would basically do, if I were a client is I would tear up my calendar and put in an hour every day to learn, which is first, make sure you understand what the landscape looks like. So there are a lot of clients who basically say, we are hiring this company to help us on AI. And my whole basic belief is that is ridiculous.

[Mike Linton]

That is terrible, because you gotta know how to use this yourself.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

So my whole stuff is it could be AI or anything else. So spend an hour a day learning. Get people to come and tell you. Talk to every person. You have your existing agencies, new suppliers, understand the ecosystem. Because I'm no longer in the industry, and I'm a seller and a buyer. I'm actually selling books. I don't even know what the hell's going on. So, you know, to a certain extent, get smart about the ecosystem by looking at both your existing partners, other partners, and everything else. That's number one. Cognition. You gotta spend time figuring out the landscape. So with that, I think this is what they will see in the landscape. But again, you see it from the lens of your own eyes in your own company. I think what as a client, besides learning, I would. Depending on the size of the client. But let's say Fortune 500 companies, let's go with that. I would basically say, all right, I need to find a way to decide how much of my business do I handle inside versus outside. I'm not talking about agency services, et cetera. I have a feeling that it's gonna end up being about 80% outside, 20% inside. It's not gonna be 50, 50. There were some people who were thinking 20% outside, 80% inside.

[Mike Linton]

The reason, Bob, you can't keep up with the.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Not only can't you keep up, but what happens is your economics will go to hell. And you can't fire yourself. It's just. It just is not gonna work out. And what is basically happening is the ability to hire talent from anywhere in the world on the fly versus having in house. It just won't work. You have to have some in house, obviously. So I'd say 28s was. Most people will end up. Different people will end up with different things. But. But you have to basically say, okay, what am I keeping inside? What am I going outside? Then with the stuff that you've decided to go outside? I would. If you're a fortune, you know, big company, I would basically say my sort of base agency or base partner should be one or two of the big six or seven people. And the way I'm saying big Six or seven. I'm not being completely loyal and I'm going to name some names that are not necessarily of the names we think about. So clearly, you know, look at a wpp, look at a IPG Optica, look at a publicist. I would look at those three for sure. But I would also basically look, though they don't have media operations, but they have other operations at an Accenture, a Deloitte. Okay. ATCs. So the thing you want to basically say is, okay, who is my lead agent, not lead agency, one of my lead. The big partner made partner that I have.

[Mike Linton]

Are you talking strategic or are you talking data or tech? Or when you say lead, what do you mean by lead?

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Help me transform my marketing.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, so that would be strategic and vision.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Strategic vision, but also data technology. Here's what basically happens is I can go and give somebody a vision, but I can't land the plane. So that's not who you should hire. Right. You need somebody who can actually run. Run some of these things. So also initiative. But it's one of your big activities. It's both. And so you. I'd go with one of the. And so if you're a very large client, you'd say, okay, I'm using the main one is this. And I've got another one like this to keep the other one honest or whatever it is. So you got those two. And then after that I'd go to all specialists. But whoever your main person is, I'd say I expect you to plug and play with the other specialists. And if you don't, I'll. I'll go to the other person I've, I've got on the side hired. There's a plug and play. So the idea basically is it's like Master Blaster. You basically need a big thing to blast all over the place. And then you need some additional. It's from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. There was a Master Blaster. So you did the Master Blaster model.

[Mike Linton]

Thank you for clarifying that. I was gonna. I thought it was, but I wasn't sure.

[Rashad Debeca Walla]

Yeah, it's basically Master Blaster. So basically you need. If you're a large company, you need one of these big people to be your main partner. And then you have some other people with. We had.

[Mike Linton]

Oren Hoffman was on the show and he was saying one of the biggest skills over the next decade is going to be. And I think he's, he's right along this plankton analogy. Vendor management, the ability to work with people to get that 80% you're talking about, right?

[Podcast Announcer]

This is the end of part one of our show. Join CMO Confidential next week for part two of our discussion with Rashad Tobacco Walla on the merger of Omnicom and ipg. If you are interested in diving deeper on any of our topics, visit YouTube for more shows and shorts. Until next time, hey all you marketers, stay safe out there. This is CMO Confidential signing off.