New Chapter At Saatchi X

For Jessica Hendrix, the new president, USA, of Saatchi & Saatchi X, there’s almost nothing more exciting than sitting across from a client who is seeking help with an issue. 

“I love solving problems. I love collaborating with other people to find a better way to do something, a different way to do something — a new, innovative approach,” she said.

She sees a problem as a catalyst for ideas that can be game-changers in the industry and enjoys rolling up her sleeves with her team “and coming back with some really amazing solutions to those problems that we can test, learn from and reapply — that really have an opportunity to change the shopper landscape and ultimately drive sales for our clients.” 

Effective July 1, Hendrix took over the lead executive role for the Springdale-based company from shopper marketing industry veteran Dina Howell, who announced her retirement as worldwide CEO for Saatchi X. 

The title difference between Howell and Hendrix reflects changes to the company that occurred during the last two years, Howell said.

Saatchi X had been operating offices throughout the world, as the shopper marketing arm of New York City-based Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Paris-based Publicis Groupe. However, the company decided to integrate its Saatchi X offices abroad with nearby Saatchi & Saatchi branches.

Only in the U.S. is Saatchi X a separate entity. There are about 125 employees in the local office, 20 in Chicago, and 25 in Cincinnati, Hendrix said.

But Saatchi X still provides input, resources and training to the foreign offices, as the resident expert in shopper marketing.

“We’ve always been seen as innovators in that space,” Hendrix said.

Before Howell took on the role as CEO of Saatchi X in 2010, she worked for 22 years at Procter & Gamble, finishing her career in that company as vice president of global media and brand operations.

During her time there, Howell led an effort to explore marketing toward the shopper, separate from the consumer, in an effort to directly influence purchases.

“It seems so obvious now, but it really wasn’t at the time,” Howell said.

In 1997, a strategic move from Cincinnati to Bentonville for proximity to supply client Wal-Mart Stores Inc. resulted in Howell meeting Andy Murray.

He had recently founded Brandworks Consulting, which eventually became Saatchi X, and Howell’s P&G team was his first client.

“Andy ended up stepping up and became an amazing partner, and we both grew our businesses together, along with Walmart,” Howell said. “Everything started to click. It all started to work.”

The foundation was laid for the shopper marketing industry, now a major player in retail.

 

Shopper vs. Consumer

Today, shopper marketing encapsulates a broad range of disciplines. The digital revolution has resulted in the constant addition of new platforms for communication with shoppers.

“It’s really an ecosystem,” Hendrix said. “It’s not a pallet in a store or an ad you saw on Facebook. It’s all of those things working together to change a behavior and influence you to buy a product.”

It goes beyond advertising that is aimed at the consumer, intended only to influence his or her perception of or attitude toward the brand. 

“Instead of ‘Wow, Pantene’s a great product,’ it’s ‘I’ve got to get that on my list to pick up at the store because I want to try a new variance that they have, or a new solution that they have, or a new product that they have.’”

In 2004, Howell moved back to Cincinnati with P&G in order to open the Center of Expertise for shopper marketing, where she and her team created the science of shopper marketing, including the development of tools to measure return on investment. 

And she continued her work in the industry after her retirement from P&G, when she accepted the leadership position at Saatchi X, bringing her back to Northwest Arkansas.

 

Seamless Transition

Howell’s primary goal during her early years as CEO was to create a seamless transition from the leadership of Murray, the founder.

It was important for her to maintain strong, healthy growth for the company and “to keep the troops happy.”

Howell sees employee satisfaction as crucial, especially in competitive fields like shopper marketing, where she says it is easy for staff members to find new jobs.

Hendrix agrees and said company culture will also be a key focus in her leadership.

“A core part of who we are is a group of people feeling like they are a part of something bigger,” she said. “There is mutual respect, mutual admiration. Everyone feels like their thoughts and work are valued.”

Saatchi X leaders regularly make what they call “joy deposits.” Those could be a catfish meal for the staff on National Catfish Day, an annual ping pong tournament, or a visit from a live camel at the office on a Wednesday. 

They try to make work fun, and those efforts were validated last year, when Advertising Age magazine named Saatchi X one of the top 20 best places to work.

Along the same vein of staff morale, Howell identified early in her role as CEO the potential upsides of submitting for awards.

“I knew how great the agency work was. You know, I had just come from the client side, and I knew that it was fantastic, and so it really helped validate that for the employees and is also great for the clients,” she said.

Saatchi X won more than 100 awards in four years. Among those were 16 prestigious Effie Awards, noted for an emphasis on judging the effectiveness of the work.

 

Saatchi Shift

Client evaluations also had never been better, and P&G gave Saatchi X a supplier excellence award in January.

It was one of five to receive the designation, among thousands of agencies that work with the brand, Howell said.

The success made her comfortable to turn over the reins of the firm.

“When you’re in a pivotal position in a company, whether it’s a CEO or senior leader position, you really do want to make sure that you have left the company in a better place than you found it, whether it’s that you’ve left a legacy or just have done your job well,” she said. 

“I looked around and felt that we were really in very, very good shape in almost all of our metrics, and I felt like it was the right time, because I knew my husband and I really wanted to retire,” Howell said. 

Howell is moving to St. Augustine, Florida, to be near her extended family. She plans to join some public boards and also to continue her decades-long work with Give Kids the World, a nonprofit that provides cost-free vacations to children with life-threatening illnesses.

Her daughter will be a sophomore at the University of Arkansas in the fall, and Howell said she is happy to have that as a reason to come back and visit.

“It’s really an amazing place,” she said. “We chose to live here twice.” 

 

Hendrix at the Helm

Hendrix moved to Arkansas from Iowa, starting with Saatchi X in 2007.

She makes it a point to spend as much quality time as possible with her son and daughter, ages 4 and 6, respectively, and she and her husband of 12 years also have a weekly date night and take annual vacations, just the two of them.

It is a priority for Hendrix to work toward balance in three main areas of her life: career, health and family

Similarly, she points to three elements that must work in tangent at Saatchi X: the company, the work and the people.

Of her successor, Howell said, “Jessica has really rocketed through our company. The clients love her. Everyone loves her.”

And, although she “recognized an amazing talent” in Hendrix from the beginning, her readiness to lead the company did not just happen, Howell said.

Howell attributes much of her own success to mentors like Tom Muccio, president of the P&G Walmart team for years; Bob McDonald, then-vice chair of P&G and now-secretary of U.S. Veterans Affairs; and John Pepper, who served as chairman of the board of The Walt Disney Co. for several years, after retiring as chairman and CEO of P&G.

By the same token, Howell personally mentored Hendrix. Their interactions included monthly lunches at the Cracker Barrel, where it was unlikely that someone in the business world would overhear important conversations.

In addition, Hendrix counts longtime Saatchi X managing director Jim Cartwright as a key mentor.

And Hendrix says she has quite a legacy to live up to from company founder Murray, in addition to Howell. “They are both legends in the shopper space.”

She plans to pull from the “spirit of innovation” cultivated by Murray, in addition to a “disciplined approached” coined by Howell. “It’s a great combination.

“I have the opportunity to write the next chapter and build the path forward,” Hendrix said. “The work that we have done in the shopper space since we started in [1996] has been revolutionary and evolutionary, and we have a huge opportunity to continue to move that evolution forward.”