Bill Davies Leads Tech-Forward Agency Model at Racepoint Global

In November last year, Larry Weber, founder and chairman of Racepoint Global, hired Bill Davies to be the agency’s new CEO. The mandate – take the leading Boston-based tech-forward agency to the next level.  

As he describes it, Davies’ path to CEO of Racepoint Global is a coming home moment, albeit after a 22-year journey. Davies had worked with Weber as the Weber Group’s CFO and COO and Weber Shandwick’s CFO, before his career took a detour to experiential agency Jack Morton, owned by the Interpublic Group.  

The Jack Morton experience was a wild ride, Davies shared in his first interview since taking on his new role at Racepoint, a CommPRO industry member. Leaving as Co-Global CEO, during his time with the firm he oversaw the agencies’ growth, working with clients including Google, Microsoft, Meta and GM.

Through his two-decade tour with Jack Morton, Davies stayed in close touch with Larry Weber, both a friend and mentor. Davies shared with CommPRO a number of reasons for the shared confidence that it was the right time for him to join Racepoint, and that his experience was the right fit to drive its growth.

Changes in the Media Landscape  

The dramatic shifts in the media landscape are creating a new opportunity to combine experiential agency expertise with other below-the-line communications and marketing skillsets such as PR, Davies noted. Imagine a campaign where immersive brand experiences seamlessly align with powerful storytelling in earned media—this integrated approach not only captures attention but forges deeper, more meaningful connections with audiences in a crowded marketplace.Agencies need to be able to do this seamlessly and reach markets around the world. 

“For these technology companies the world is a small place. When you send a message out of Silicon Valley it is going to hit London, Dusseldorf, Singapore, Hong Kong and Rio De Janeiro, so you have to be on it.”

With the decline in the power of the TV commercial, the demand for below-the-line capabilities has grown. “The confluence of experiential and earned communications and how they come together can be super powerful. That’s what we do really well at Racepoint.”

Holding Companies to Boutiques

Having worked for one of the large communications industry holding companies, Davies recognizes the strengths, but also the challenges of the business model. He notes that many of the largest businesses in the world have been making a conscious decision to hire “boutique” agencies to meet their needs because they are fleet of foot, passionate about client businesses, and are not looking to upsell to other firms in the agency network. “The pressures, structural challenges and shifts happening in the media are making the holding company business model difficult.” 

The opportunity for Racepoint is to bring together the range of expertise needed to leverage owned-experiences, including influencers, conferences and events, and then radiate out these messages using earned media for example. To do this well in one agency you not only need talented professionals, but a culture that leverages the interest of professionals to be engaged across disciplines, and specialists who are motivated by seeing their work being broadly shared.   

Getting to the heart of the strategic opportunity, Davies said, “The future needs to be defined by where our clients want us to be, not what the industry has done in the past.”

All Companies are Technology Companies                       

Larry Weber was early to recognize and advocate for the idea that all companies are tech companies.  Davies notes that Racepoint recognizes that technology companies have a unique set of challenges. “Trusted advisors who have lived and worked in technology are key to helping them navigate the increasingly rapid pace of change in the industry.”     

“There’s a whole group of companies that aren’t seen as tech, but want to be seen as tech,” he adds. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, 99% of the conversations were about AI, with industrial companies, including Racepoint clients, at the forefront of these discussions. 

Strategy and Storytelling  

Although Davies discussed ways in which the communications world and business models are changing, he’s quick to give credit to Larry Weber as someone with an innate ability to see “where to puck and industry is going”. He shared two areas of focus that aren’t changing for Racepoint – the importance of strategy and storytelling.       

“At a fundamental level storytelling is driving everything. Our creative ability to identify and tell stories is the strongest part of our output. We need to create content that makes events and experiences really compelling.” To do this successfully, he notes that bringing different disciplines together at the ideation stage is a powerful way to build alignment around ideas and how to leverage them.  

He adds that “strategy is the tip of the spear. It needs to be driven by data, but not to a fault”. The goal is to find the insights and data that can be used to 

communicate with target audiences. 

Clients expect us to be nimble and agile enough to be their partner, understand their businesses and challenges, make an impression, and generate returns quickly. “Empathy is key, you’ve got to put yourself in their shoes and understand the pressure CMOs are under… that puts pressure on us to do what we need to do to make our clients successful.”

Personalization

With pace of change increasing – Davies expects to see the equivalent of the last 20 years of changes over the next decade – there’s a sharp focus on personalization and hyper-personalization of technology, and ultimately, storytelling and messaging. He believes companies who can be authentic, human, real and simple will have the greatest change of success. “That’s a communications challenge,” he notes. “Some people do not want companies to know everything about them. Winning the heart of the consumer will be based on recognizing that we are all different.”   

The idea of using AI for ‘better’ and more efficient processes, content generation and promotion rather than ‘more’ will be essential to PR going forward. Davies notes that this is an ongoing conversation within Racepoint. “We want people using AI to ensure that our team gets to do more meaningful and challenging work that’s even more rewarding.”

With change as a leitmotif for the discussion, Davies provided perspective on navigating through uncertain times. For a CommPRO Martin Luther King/Inauguration Day article, he said he had reached out to his daughter – who has taught at inner-city schools for her perspective on the points he wanted to make.         

Having noted that change – as it has for Racepoint Global – brings opportunity, he highlighted the importance of empathy and trying to stand in another person’s shoes to listening and understanding. And, that being brave and having the courage to share opinions with the goal of building trust was another takeaway.  “The word trust was prominent at CES with companies discussing how they can build trust. If we can find the middle ground, build community together, we can all find hope for a better future.”           

Racepoint is an independent integrated communications agency that helps tech-forward clients succeed by shaping and leading the conversations that matter. Find out more about Racepoint by visiting its CommunicationsMatch™ profile here.