Media veterans launch independent agency Cairns O’Neil

Two senior media executives have launched an independent agency catering to small to mid-sized clients seeking an alternative to the bigger multinational shops.

Longtime OMD Canada managing director Sherry O’Neil and former Dentsu Canada director of communications planning David Cairns are the principals in Toronto-based Cairns O’Neil Strategic Media Inc.

While the two partners have long histories in Canadian media, they didn’t meet until last year when O’Neil contacted Cairns to “commiserate” about their shared experience working with multinationals.

“We just started talking about the business, and got jazzed up about the opportunity to be different from what is currently being offered,” said O’Neil. “The big agencies have focused on being big and we’re juxtaposed to that in that we’re selling quality and attention to detail and senior engagement.”

Subsequent discussions with prospective clients found that their primary gripes include a lack of senior level involvement with their business and media agency partners that aren’t attuned to their strategic needs.

“Everyone nodded their heads vigorously when the discussion started about the level of strategic involvement on the agency level,” said Cairns. “It seems that some of the large agencies are working on so many accounts at any one time, there just isn’t the opportunity for individual planners to spend a lot of time actually delving into strategic issues.”

Cairns said that while multinational agencies are aware of client concerns, they are hamstrung in their attempts to reinvent themselves because they are constantly striving to achieve onerous revenue targets. “It’s a share battle to win business from their competitors,” he said. “Within that, there’s not a lot of opportunity to think about better ways of doing things.”

“It became quite clear to us that there was definitely a gap in the market, particularly with small to mid-size clients who really didn’t have the global clout to high enough on the food chain within the big multinational agency environment,” added O’Neil, who was vice-president of strategic planning and Toronto general manager for Astral Radio until last year.

While Cairns has launched several independent businesses, including David Cairns & Company (which was sold to Aegis about 10 years ago) and the consultancy Asylum Thinkgroup, this represents O’Neil’s first involvement with a start-up.

Formally launched six weeks ago, Cairns O’Neil currently has four clients with media budgets ranging in size from $500,000 to $8 million. While they wouldn’t disclose client names, they come from the telecom, tourism, financial services and association sectors. “We’re already building a pretty substantial portfolio,” said O’Neil.