Exclusive: Hornby and Mayo on future of Bates CHI & Partners

According to the new network's CEO, David Mayo, 'bespoke teams' comprising members of both agencies have already been working on two major pitches, one of which is Samsung.

Speaking from Seoul, where the brief for Samsung is ongoing, Bates CHI & Partners executive chairman Johnny Hornby told Campaign Asia-Pacific that the team comprised creatives from New York, Bates' chief strategy officer Mark Sinnock, and some London representatives.

“We're planning on continuing to pull together cross-disciplinary teams across geographies in response to client need,” said Hornby.

Besides a core creative practice, CHI & Partners also has media planning arm M/Six, social-media arm The Social Practice, and a recently acquired direct marketing agency, Rapier.

Mayo commented that he planned on bringing the Ogilvy & Mather management exchange programme into the new network. “It's very much part of my DNA, so we will be giving talent from Bates and CHI & Partners a chance to work across different markets and with different teams,” he said.

The network will also be operating out of hubs in Singapore, New York and London, with talent from both agencies present. Bates has also been adopting CHI's 'big ideas' process, said Hornby.

The idea for a joint venture with Bates coincided neatly with the growing ambitions of CHI's clients in London, Hornby said. “Our client base over the last decade has taken us to the US and now they're giving us opportunities to work with and help them in the region here. Second, Asia is a very exciting and interesting part of the world,” he said.

At Cannes Lions last year, CHI was recognised as London's leading independent agency. It has also been one of the UK's leading agencies for the past 10 years. Both Hornby and Mayo agreed that the joint venture with Bates would help infuse creative pride back into the Asian network.

“Bates has suffered a bit recently, probably because it has such a legendary past and has found it hard to live up to, but I don't think it will take a lot to rekindle it,” said Hornby. Hopefully, he added, the now “more complete” global network will position Bates CHI & Partners to win some bigger pitches, as many of those are global, rather than regional.

The decision to name the network Bates CHI & Partners in Asia-Pacific, but keep the London and New York offices under the CHI & Partners identity, was based on “what works best for people in terms of awareness”, said Hornby.

“With all its heritage you wouldn't want to drop the name 'Bates' in Asia, so here it comes first. But the Bates name has disappeared from London and New York, and adding it would be confusing, whereas CHI has been a lead agency there. Also, we don't just call ourselves CHI, we're CHI & Partners and that's important to our philosophy,” he explained.

Despite moving in less than a year from heading a two offices to a global network of 16, Hornby doesn't seem convinced that he's moving fast enough.

“The world's moving fast and so are our clients; we have moved quickly but there's still a ways to go,” he said. “We have ambitions to take this network even further and launch offices in Korea, Japan in Australia, but not immediately. This next year will be about consolidation."