Verizon's Denis Budniewski Talks About Agencies, Compensation, DEI and More

Bill Duggan You made the transition from agencyside some 25 years there to clientside at Verizon a few years ago What has most surprised you about that transitionDenis Budniewski I loved my career on the agencyside but haven39t looked back since joining Verizon four years ago While there are many similarities there are differences between agency and client life and the ability to adapt can make or break someone39s transition Understanding how to navigate a big matrixed organization and building cross functional relationships are critical to success And on the brandside often individual compensation is more closely correlated to achieving your personal and company goals which helps keep you focused on driving resultsDuggan I love your title quotExecutive Director of Marketing Investment and Transformationquot What are some of the transformation activities you are currently involved with at VerizonBudniewski My transformation team acts as internal consultants in marketing to help drive and operationalize change We are currently rolling out a new workflow management tool to all marketers and agency partners This will bring transparency and time savings to how we operate as marketers Other priorities are helping to navigate the intersection of media content and personalization at scale from dynamic video content and the use of AI and machine learningDuggan Can you broadly discuss Verizon39s approach to agency compensation amp8230 and what is working particularly well And is there anything new being consideredBudniewski I39m really looking forward to the ANA Financial Management Conference to speak more on this topic The starting point for any compensation discussion should be talent At the end of the day clients don39t hire agencies they hire people And you have to ask yourself fundamental questions such as are you looking for a onestop shop that does everything or a holding company model or group of specialized agencies Does your client organization work best when the agency is structured with more senior level talent more doers or somewhere in the middle These factors are your biggest variables and drivers of compensation Then the compensation model needs to be fair transparent and aligned to the needs of the businessDuggan In 2021 Verizon along with its agency partners announced a plan to make a longterm commitment to DEI What has the progress on that initiative been like and what has been the most exciting result for you so farBudniewski In April of 2021 we publicly announced our Responsible Marketing Action Plan RMAP as a way to hold ourselves accountable to metrics from staff diversity to investments to brand standards You know the saying quotWhat gets measured gets managedquot Importantly the elements in our RMAP program weren39t new to us Verizon has had a long commitment to DEampampI especially in marketing so this public announcement was also a way to help other marketers One of the most exciting results has been the growth in diverse talent Across Verizon marketers and our external agency partners at the end of 2022 our combined staff is now 408 percent people of color which is significantly higher than the recent ANA average for marketing organizations at 323 percentDuggan What advice would you give to other clientside marketers who are looking for more effective ways to evaluate their agency relationships and the value they bringBudniewski First do it You owe it to your company your marketers and your agency partners to conduct regular and twoway evaluations Agencies should always know where they stand in terms of talent operating model structure and importantly the work And agencies should have the opportunity to provide clients with feedback as well At Verizon our agency review meetings involve the most senior agency leadership not the daytoday account leadership The meetings provide a forum at the highest levels to have direct and very candid conversations that result in action plans to drive continuous improvementClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Verizon's Denis Budniewski Talks About Agencies, Compensation, DEI and More

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Bill Duggan

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Verizon's Denis Budniewski Talks About Agencies, Compensation, DEI and More

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