Madison Avenue Makeover The transformation of Huge and the redefinition of the ad agency business

In August 2021, author Michael Farmer was invited by Mat Baxter, the new CEO of Huge, the global digital agency owned by Interpublic, to become an independent “ fly on the wall” observer to record the strategic and operational transformation of Huge. Baxter was Huge’ s fifth CEO in four years. Huge had had a history of slow growth, client churn and marginal profitability. This book is the riveting story of Huge's journey through its transformation, with a revised mission, a new line of fixed-price products, and a single global organization that would permit Huge to help its clients accelerate their top line growth rates. "It’ s one thing to organize a change plan that assigns responsibilities to senior executives,” mused Baxter, “ and another thing to have the sum of their efforts add up to something greater. That is what we have achieved." Madison Avenue Makeover provides a unique insight into how one company changed in order to survive, and at the same time, redefined the advertising agency business.

Prior to founding Farmer & Company in 1992, Michael Farmer was a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group and a Director of Bain & Company. He headed Bain’ s Munich, Paris and London offices during Bain’ s decade of European expansion in the 1980s. He is the author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter.