When news leaked out in early June that longtime CDM leader Kyle Barich was leaving the company to pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity outside health, peers in and around the agency world reacted with something akin to sadness. After more than 20 years at the company, he ascended to the CEO post in early 2016. He was highly regarded for his work and well-liked on a personal level.
But while the timing was a surprise, there was a complete absence of the conspiracy theories that usually spring up in the wake of a high-profile leadership change. Barich wanted to do something different. CDM had a deep bench behind him. And that was that.
CDM New York president (and 19-year agency veteran) Chris Palmer was quickly named as Barich’s replacement. He wasted little time installing a new global leadership team: Deborah Polkes, Denise Henry and Lila Shah-Wright, who have collectively spent nearly 60 years at CDM, were promoted into the new posts of chief creative officer, chief strategy officer and COO, respectively. Henry also holds a leadership position at CDM/BBDO joint venture HealthWork.
When asked if the new executive team had changes in mind, Palmer cracks, “Come on — I’ve been in the job, like, three days.” However, he makes it very clear that he believes he inherited an enviable situation.
“Kyle has been an extraordinary leader for this agency,” Palmer says. “We’re standing on the shoulders of what he built.”
MM&M estimates that CDM grew its revenue by just under 11% in 2018, to $137.5 million from 2017’s estimated sum of $124 million. Head count nudged upwards as well, from 550 full-timers at the end of 2017 to 575 at the end of 2018.
CDM declines to confirm (or deny) the revenue figures, but acknowledges that 2018 was a growth year. Prior to his promotion, Palmer reported that the firm “grew in every way that matters. It was by far our most successful year ever for creative recognition and we expanded our client base dramatically without seeing any go out the back door.”
Each of the offices enjoyed its share of successes. CDM New York established new relationships with industry giants like Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly and Genentech as well as with Reata Pharmaceuticals, a growing player in the realm of rare disease. CDM Princeton transformed its client mix to include more high science–type brands, winning assignments from BioMarin and Sage Therapeutics and launching Sun Pharma’s psoriasis drug Ilumya.
“We’re helping smaller companies brand themselves, establish the marketing situation and launch their first compounds. We really get in the foxhole with them,” says former CDM Princeton president Gregg Geider, who was elevated to CDM New York president when Palmer ascended into the CEO post. Craig Romanok, described by Palmer as “literally the pillar of that agency,” was promoted into Geider’s former role at CDM Princeton.
The New York office tapped Dominic Orologio and Melissa Weiss to work together as executive creative directors, and promoted both to EVP. Former director of business growth Dan Rudin, who Palmer calls “one of our brightest rising stars,” became EVP, director of client services when 12-year CDM veteran Jennifer O’Dwyer, who was associate partner, director of client services, left the company around the time Barich did. Palmer stresses that the timing was coincidental.
The bulk of the agency’s personnel changes over the last year were additions. Among the highlights: CDM Princeton brought in former GHG EVP, chief creative officer Gary Scheiner as its executive creative director, while CDM New York hired former Young & Rubicam SVP of global operations and production James Ewing as SVP of global operations.
“The idea of investing in your people and creating a strong cultural glue has never been more important,” Palmer says.
As for client work already out in the world, Palmer points to a recent campaign done on behalf of the American Heart Association as a particularly proud moment for CDM. The campaign, “Good Food Gone Bad,” featured cartoon vegetables taking revenge on the junk food making New Yorkers sick. The goal was to show how people can effect change in their own neighborhoods.
“It addressed a real need in New York City, which has what they call ‘healthy food deserts,’” he says. “As you move into lower-income neighborhoods, you find fewer fresh, heart-healthy foods. We tried to approach that issue in a fun way.”
When the conversation turns to broader changes in the business, Palmer brings up the ever-present subject of data. While he says that what CDM is doing in that realm hasn’t changed significantly, how the agency is doing it has continued to evolve.
“This year we committed ourselves to having data fuel our entire strategic process, from inception all the way to back-end analytics,” Palmer explains. “We have some proprietary sources that give us a very high resolution of the message and channel preferences of individual prescribers. We can use that data to understand where and how to deploy the things we’re making.”
Also on the agenda for the months and years to follow is an effort to, as Palmer puts it, “reimagine the agency for the next decade. We’re going to take the rest of this year to imagine the systems and processes and structures that will guide CDM into the future.”
Creatively, Polkes says, that means broadening the agency’s mandate to include “much more experiential work.” Strategically, according to Henry, that means a push to more effectively leverage the collective brainpower of its global workforce. “Strategy can and should be defined by anything from data to content to customized plans,” she says.
And under Shah-Wright’s guidance, look for CDM to find new ways to thrive in a demanding service environment. “I’ve been fortunate to have had my career caretaken by the folks at CDM, and one of them used to say, “‘Good, cheap and fast’ — you can’t have all three,” she says. “Well, now clients want all three. The goal line keeps shifting, but we’re going to keep giving them what they want and need before they even realize they need it.”
From the July 01, 2019 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
