Dear Pieter,

Background

In April 2016 four digital agencies from the Netherlands joined forces to become one of the fastest growing and most successful digital agencies in Europe and beyond: DEPT Agency. Within the management of the newly found buy & build company (300 FTE, €30M turnover) I held the position of commercial director for the group. Within a very short time frame we grew from 4 to over 15 agencies across Western Europe (NL, DE, UK, IE) all still operating under their own name and specialism.

Approach

As the person in charge for the post merger integration for all roles involving new business & account management, I created a cross-sales program to raise the share of clients using 2 or more DEPT agencies. The program consisted of 5 core activities:

1. Salesforce as the one source of truth — all clients and contracts migrated into one database, enabling cross-agency identification, account plans, harmonised rate cards and named key-account leads.
2. A one-DEPT pitch ‘webshop’ built on Shopify where every new pitch or presentation was uploaded with a summary and team contact — letting 1,500 people tap into combined industry and platform knowledge.
3. A central sales support team of inside sales agents driving inbound campaigns, MQL→SQL funnel management, research, proposal support and Salesforce hygiene.
4. Quarterly sales bootcamps per geography (NL, DE, UK, IE) — case shares, specialism deep-dives, best-practice exchange, cross-sales identification and (importantly) drinks & dinner.
5. Migration into the DEPT brand in April 2019 — months of preparation to inform team, clients and partners, knowingly trading historical brand equity for the power of one brand and one team.

The transition to the one DEPT brand was a full management team effort (CEO, CFO, COO and myself), supported by an amazing team of professionals and our private equity partner Waterland.

Background

When DEPT won the bol.com account in June 2018 it quickly became one of our top 3 accounts in revenue and our #1 account in market visibility. I was already lead on Philips International and took on bol.com as well. Both companies were growing fast with demanding shareholders (Ahold for bol.com, Waterland at DEPT). I had to carefully balance my role as advisor to bol.com’s management (CMO & Head of Branding) with my role as Commercial Director and board member at DEPT.

How we ran it — for bol.com’s growth

• A team of ~25 DEPT specialists across strategy, creative, copy, social, dev, UX and motion.
• 5 dedicated account & project managers overseeing all incoming work.
• Every Tuesday the full team worked from bol.com’s offices.
• Weekly brand direction meeting with the CMO and Head of Brand Marketing.

How we ran it — for DEPT’s own growth

• As CCO we grew bol.com from a €3M to a €6M account by adding services and projects outside the original scope.
• In 2018 we acquired a large Amazon Marketplace reseller in Berlin and rolled it out across Europe — carefully navigated, since Amazon was the #1 e-commerce player in most of our other markets.
• We served Philips, Samsung and JBL — major trade partners on bol.com — which actually strengthened our position with both sides.

Background

In 2015 A Friend of Mine — the agency I founded, later DEPT Brand & Advertising — started working for the bol.com social team. The bol.com brand was slowly in decline: the long-running ‘mummy’-style commercials were showing fatigue, Billy was seen as ‘the old guy’, and Coolblue, Amazon and AliExpress were taking share. Bol.com ended its relationship with Etcetera and opened a pitch. Although we weren’t on the initial longlist of 20 agencies, I convinced the CMO and pitch consultant to include us. We made it to the final five and — to everyone’s surprise — we won.

Approach

• Revitalised bol.com’s old brand promise “De winkel van ons allemaal” as the foundation for everything.
• Built a strategy around Dutch & Flemish occasions: Vaderdag, Moederdag, Koningsdag, festivals, De Gentse Feesten, carnaval — “De winkel van Carnavalsvierders”, “De Winkel van Oranjesupporters”.
• Replaced the single 30" TV spot with multiple 15" short-form social/mobile-first commercials.
• Revamped the full brand identity with design firm DieTwee — app, shop, delivery e-mails, packaging.
• Refreshed ‘Billy’ into a vital thirty-something.
• For the festive season we re-introduced the iconic physical “Speelgoedboek”, later blended with the app.

The bol.com pitch is probably one of the best pieces of work in my life — I’m especially proud that the main construct is still used by bol.com today.

After an eight-year collaboration bol.com recently chose TBWA as lead agency, although DEPT retained part of the digital business.