Gale Is Adweek's Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year

Ten years ago, Gale did not exist.Five years ago, the Stagwell-owned agency did not have a media practice.And last year, it delivered a billion dollars in media billings and scored nine-figure revenue, growing at an astonishing 133% year over year. While Gale was shortlisted for Adweek’s 2022 U.S. Agency of the Year award—which honors creative agencies—and is the winner of Adweek’s Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year, its story is not as an integrated agency. It’s in, as Gale CEO and president Brad Simms calls it, a new class of shops: a business agency. Gale is nestled in a little pocket between traditional agencies mired in decades of ingrained structures trying to adapt to today’s landscape and consultancies racing to add creative arms to complement their strategic practices. “I find them just well built for today for this integration of agility, data and creativity all moving together with velocity,” said Yin Woon Rani, CEO, MilkPEP. “It's just somehow easier to work with an agency that was built to compete in today's reality, versus agencies that are sometimes dealing with a little bit of a legacy mindset.” The agency blends a number of core capabilities together—creative, digital and PR, as well as data and technology—but the catalyst that puts all of that work into practice is its media-buying arm. It’s the fastest-growing unit within the agency and now accounts for approximately half of the agency’s $120 million in revenue. Gale strives to act not as a traditional agency, but first and foremost as a business partner that solves real business problems and truly functions as an extension of the client. “Our competitors are less so the traditional agencies who are trying to move into the space and more so the consultancies,” said Sophia Zhang, managing director and business lead at Gale. “We built this agency from day one on this idea that we need to bring consultation, consultative, advisory plus creativity to all the clients that we work with.” Key campaigns:H&R BlockGale paired its database of 275 million households with H&R Block's first-party data to develop 12 different audience profiles that are based on potential value of the customer. It created custom messaging and tracked when customers were searching for tax services in order to target them at the precise moments they were likely to pick a company to do their taxes. It used pricing data to capitalize on a 10-day period in which it had a price advantage on a top competitor by significantly increasing its media spend. In an industry with nearly 100% awareness but little loyalty, Gale's work helped drive a 10% increase in revenue.MilkPEPWith just 7% of $30 billion in sports sponsorships going to women, MilkPEP used the NYC Marathon to put out an open call to sponsor runners in the race. More than 3,500 women signed up, and MilkPEP matched their race fees with donations to Girls on the Run, raising $600,000 for the organization. MilkPEP captured photos of its new spokeswomen and turned those images into OOH ads across New York celebrating their success in the marathon. The campaign drove nearly $12 million in earned media. When Gale pitched the concept, it had just 80 days to complete the execution. Old DominionUsing audience modeling, Gale developed not just areas and industries to target but also high-value individual targets for Old Dominion. This led the agency down a path to a high-profile sponsorship with ESPN College Football GameDay and stadium placements across 36 sports stadiums. Gale also executed marketing to drive recruitment for the brand, helping reduce open jobs by 90%. In 2022, the brand grew revenue by 29% and net profit by 44%. Becoming a media shop When Simms, who is also the CEO of CP+B, founded Gale in 2014 with a grand total of seven employees, the agency didn’t tackle media buying. It wasn’t until four years into the journey that the agency made the leap into media to back its consulting business. “We realized that 90% of [clients’] marketing budget was going to media,” Zhang said. “And if we didn't actually have control over that, there's nothing that we could have done from a consultation perspective that could have influence on what was happening downstream.” The agency found itself hearing from its clients’ CEOs, who were frustrated that their media agency didn’t understand their business and relied largely on vanity metrics that didn’t drive business outcomes. “So we needed to actually get into media to help drive our clients’ business forward in service of our consulting,” Zhang said. We spent five years mastering the craft in the dark and are just now showing we've got scale, clients and results.Brad Simms, president and CEO, Gale Delivering business outcomes Simms, who also serves as the Stagwell Brand Performance Network chief product officer, takes a hands-on approach with clients to ensure the agency is on the same page, laser-focused on the business objective at hand. “What Brad is really great at is, before we get into a tactic or a pivot, he takes us back to the business strategy,” said Jill Cress, chief marketing and experience officer of H&R Block, which works with Gale on multiple lines of its business. Gale handles media for the brand, as well as creative for its financial services brand, Spruce, and its Block Advisors business. “He understands the objective of what we are trying to do, and then works back to the impact that we need to consider to optimize against performance.” Simms said the agency bases its KPIs on business outcomes and not vanity metrics like impressions. “When you say that to a client, they like that message,” Simms said. “Ultimately, they're not looking for fluffy marketing numbers. They're looking for driving the actual business and however that opportunity or challenge is defined.” That approach has also resonated with Rani, who evaluates Gale on a very “robust” scorecard. She appreciates that Simms’ agency is bonused on the same metrics as her internal team. “There's a really tight alignment,” Rani said. “I say this as a client: I want my agency waking up every day caring about the things that I care about. I don't know if every business CEO would be willing to take on those terms.” Investing in talent A rapidly scaling business means Gale has not only had to hire fast and furiously but also retain its talent through merit-based, twice-yearly promotions. Employees are judged on their skills, using a competency matrix developed by a dedicated team that works with employees across the company to constantly refresh what capabilities employees need. Once an employee is able to demonstrate the necessary skills, they are automatically promoted during the next promotion cycle. Last year, Gale elevated nearly a third of its employees who began 2022 with the company. Even in a tighter financial market, Simms isn’t worried about the agency funding those mass promotions. “The cost of not doing that actually means you lose your high performers,” Simms said. “Those are the folks that bump up against artificial barriers the quickest, and they end up leaving.” Key wins: 15 new clients, including Dropbox (global media), Lumos (integrated marketing), Hertz (global data and CRM), Zappos (loyalty/CRM) Losses: Cadre Strategic moves: Launched innovation practice called Advance Party; added PR and influencer specialties; Stagwell introduced Gale's integrated model as the blueprint for Stagwell's Brand Performance Network. Revenue: $120 million, which is a 130% increase from 2021 DEI: Hired Jesse Perez as its first director of people, inclusion and experience. The agency is undergoing a 2023 fair pay review executed by Fair Pay Workplace to ensure equitable compensation across the company. The agency is recruiting talent with nontraditional backgrounds in STEM like quantitative physics and training them to do media, according to Zhang. She finds that employees who come from other media agencies often need to be retrained to understand how Gale evaluates and provides clients with data. Ultimately, the agency’s quiet investment in capabilities and talent has led to this breakthrough moment. “We spent five years mastering the craft in the dark and are just now showing we've got scale, clients and results,” Simms said. “We've got something that's different. And frankly, we've got something you should pay attention to that is actually backed up with a ton of work over the last five years.” Be sure to check out Adweek's Media Agency of the Year honorees in the Global and U.S. categories.

Media Agency of the Year

Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year Gale Deftly Blends Data, Creativity and Velocity

The Stagwell shop's media arm puts its consulting work into practice

Jameson Fleming

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Jameson Fleming