John Wren : Let me start off, media wins, creative wins as well as media wins as well as Precision Marketing wins all contributed to the performance that we had last year. And going into last year, we were still cycling on a couple of account losses that we had, had previously. So new business did have an impact in getting us to where we were in 2022. That strength of batting above — at a very high average and above our weight because I think we deserve every win we got. But there was quite a bit of activity at the end-ish second half, end-ish last four months of last year. And we were very successful with it. And we continue to be successful as we go into this year on things that we announced. And we don’t have a crystal ball, as Phil said earlier, but we do have some sight in terms of accounts that are stable because we have multiyear contracts and accounts that people have got into review, maybe not become public yet or not.
And we’re not in a defensive mode, and it’s already February. We’re still — and we’re on our front foot, and we continue to be on our front foot. So I’m very comfortable that the wins that we had in the latter part of last year will be contributing starting in the second quarter of this year, and that’ll benefit the rest of ’23. And I’m also confident in the teams that we have answering these briefs and the collaboration that is not just media or just creative or just precision marketing but our holistic approach is responding to the clients’ business needs. In my reference in my first answer, to convergence for media, in truth, that’s the only third party that accurately accumulates and follows wins and losses, but they only do it in the media sector.
There are a heck of a lot of wins in all the other areas of our business as demonstrated in the growth areas that you saw with the exception of COVID closing China and some other headwinds had on our execution business. But those should even — they haven’t lightened up just quite yet but they will. In truth, China opened up extraordinarily well in that area. In the month of December, we weren’t prepared to handle all the demand that there was in December. So I’m bullish on where that particular business can be as we get further and further into the year, contributing to the strength that we have across all of our other areas.
Phil Angelastro : I would just add, Ben, that when we talk about growth and in this case, growth in media, it isn’t just new business wins. It’s growth of existing clients, which all of our three global brands when you look at their full year numbers performed quite well in terms of growing their businesses, and there isn’t a direct correlation necessarily between the media industry and/or the pricing of media and our revenue streams. I think the more complexity there is in that landscape, and I think it’s clear. It’s a much more complex landscape today than even just a few years back. Retail media being one of those examples, the more complexity, the more in demand our services are.
Ben Swinburne : Got it. No, that’s helpful, Phil. And then maybe just — I don’t know if there’s a connection between the new business wins and your margin target. So I didn’t totally understand your answer earlier on why we’re not — why margins would be flat to down in a year with this much top line. Is there some staffing up ahead of new business coming on, that’s part of that. Is there anything structural change? Like if you continue to put up 3% to 5% growth in ’24 and beyond, I think we should see margin expansion, but want to make sure there’s nothing we’re missing.
