TBWA Worldwide Names Neal Grossman Chief Compensation Officer

NEW YORK, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- TBWA Worldwide today announced the appointment of Neal Grossman as Chief Compensation Officer -- a new role that Neal will assume in addition to his current responsibilities as Chief Operating Officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day's Los Angeles office.  Grossman's responsibilities will have an emphasis on managing the relationship between procurement and marketing and helping deliver value-based models that are both beneficial to the agency and its clients.

"We need to be part of the solution. This whole drill is about inspiring efficiency and value. But the current process is incredibly inefficient and has little to do with value.  Our people should be spending their time building brands," said Tom Carroll, President and CEO TBWA Worldwide. "Having Neal focused on compensation will make the process less contentious and more productive."

Grossman said of the challenge of creating value-based compensation models: "The biggest challenge of delivering value-based models is finding the right balance of tradeoffs between risk and reward. If we are serious about wanting a new model, we will have to be honest about how we quantify our value and our risk in a way that is equitable to both agencies and clients."

"Linked to the whole definition of value is the ownership or additional participation in the benefits derived from ideas when they extend beyond advertising, whether it's a TV show or a new product. As brands themselves become the message and that increasingly becomes a vehicle for advertisers to engage their customers, agencies will want to have conversations related to agency participation in new revenue streams to advertisers not dissimilar to those that other content providers would expect to have."

"Also, as agency compensation has been squeezed to the level it has, the need to define the scope of work in more detail has become more important. Agencies are not used to saying no to their clients; however, based upon where the industry is today, the scope of work needs to be managed more tightly and additional fees need to be requested, before work commences, when scope of work extends beyond what was originally agreed. My concern is that while this may cause a greater strain on agency/client relations, everyone needs to understand that we are in business to make a profit just like our clients and we can't afford to give away work for free."

Neal first joined Chiat\Day as its Corporate Controller in 1986. In 1992, he was promoted to Senior Vice President/Finance prior to his appointment as Chief Financial Officer of the Los Angeles office in 1995. In 2001, Neal was named Chief Financial Officer of TBWA Worldwide, North America and served in that position until 2003 when he was named Chief Operating Officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles.  

Neal is an active member of the advertising community and is currently Chairman of the 4A's Large Agency Finance Committee. He has served as Founding Chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies' (AAAA's) Western Finance Committee and as the Treasurer and a member of the Board of Directors of thinkLA. He has served on the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and AAAA joint task forces related to guidelines for effective client/agency agreements (2002) and agency compensation guide (2006); the AAAA's task force on guiding principles for consultants; and the AAAA's task force which was successful in lobbying major sales tax reform in the state of California (passed into law May 2000). He is also one of the cofounders of the Art & Design Academy, a program jointly developed with the Light-Bringer Project (a nonprofit arts organization) to give high school students an understanding of creative and technical roles in the advertising agency world.

Prior to joining the agency, Neal worked at the public accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand (currently PricewaterhouseCoopers). Neal is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and has a master's degree in business administration (MBA).

About TBWA Worldwide

TBWA Worldwide (www.tbwa.com) creates Disruptive ideas for global clients, including ABSOLUT, adidas, Apple, Beiersdorf, GSK, Henkel, Infiniti, Mars, McDonald's, Michelin, Nissan, Pernod Ricard, Samsonite, Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Airlines, Sony PlayStation and Visa. TBWA is one of the fastest-growing networks in the Top-Ten worldwide advertising agencies, and was named 2008 Global Agency of the Year by Advertising Age and Adweek magazines. Fast Company Magazine placed TBWA 24th on its 2009 list of "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies."  TBWA has 267 offices in 77 countries, and approximately 11,000 employees worldwide.

TBWA is part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com), a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

SOURCE TBWA Worldwide