The challenge

Under the leadership of a new CEO, Barclays was looking to transform its organisation. A new centralised marketing department was responsible for delivering greater effectiveness from a £150m+ budget, which was fragmented across over 200 marketers and more than 50 agencies.

Quadrant was asked to help define the new Group Marketing Operations function, including structure and role profiles, and support the improvement of processes. In addition, we were given the responsibility for creating a process for selecting agencies; reducing the number from over 50 to no more than a handful, who would be long-term business partners.

What did we do?

It was clear to us that the traditional ‘beauty parade’ pitch was not appropriate, so we developed an innovative three-stage approach to finding agencies and individuals with the right fit.

The third stage involved inviting 14 shortlisted agencies to attend one of two assessment days, where the participants were set three tasks, all based on ‘live’ Barclays briefs, including working in mixed agency teams.

The final selection was based on performance rating scores, video replays from the assessment days and assessors’ observations, facilitated by Quadrant in a workshop with the internal assessment team.

What was the breakthrough for Barclays?

The breakthrough was the selection process. Traditional pitches work for some clients but when an organisation, like Barclays, is looking for more of a partnership with its agencies, it is essential that culture, values and chemistry are taken into account.

All the participants, whether selected or not, found the assessment days to be a truer test of partner capability than set-piece presentations.