Monzo’s AJ Coyne: Agencies should know their clients’ categories ‘inside out'

Agencies have a responsibility to know their clients’ categories “inside out”.

This is according to AJ Coyne, vice-president of marketing and growth at Monzo. Speaking at Campaign Live 2025, he said: “If you are gifted a piece of business and you are working with a bank or a telco or whatever, you have a responsibility to know that category inside out.

“It is your responsibility to be on the pulse of that and know that far better than the client. And if you can prove that and improve the commercial side, then you will get far more upstream and then build new models as a result.”

Coyne was joined on stage by Karen Martin, chief executive at BBH London – Monzo’s creative agency – and Chris Lewis-Jones, managing director at Publicis Media and group client lead at Monzo.

The panel discussed Monzo’s decision to opt for a network model for its creative and media agencies, following BBH London and fellow Publicis-owned shop Starcom’s appointments in April.

BBH London took over from Uncommon Creative Studio, while PHD Manchester was the incumbent on Monzo’s offline media account, which it ran as OMG Team Coral with wider input from Omnicom Media Group. The online element was run by Monzo's in-house performance marketing team.

Use and understand the product 

The trio referred to Monzo’s “The Book of Money”, a guide for people who find money “confusing, intimidating and out of reach”, as an example of what can come out of this kind of network collaboration.

Created by BBH London in partnership with Freuds, the campaign included a pop-up in Soho called “The book nook”. The experience invited people to generate a unique book cover tailored to their financial aspirations.

Coyne shared that he was pleasantly surprised when he realised the Publicis team had read the book before attending meetings with Monzo, and argued that agencies taking the time to use and understand the product makes all the difference.

“Zero shade to any of the previous partners. But ultimately, it got to a point where we needed a set-up from an agency network that allowed commercial thinking," Coyne said. 

“To ultimately have one set of partners that were working for Monzo with mutual benefit. Someone that could bring us on our next phase of the journey, which is international expansion.”

Taking out the headaches 

Martin added that it was clear that Monzo, which has 13 million customers in the UK, has a commercial objective to grow and expand. 

She added that an integrated approach to agencies means taking out “a lot of the headaches” and ensures that everyone working on an account is working towards the same goal.

“The exciting thing about Monzo is it is an incredibly creative business. So to have that at the core, with the commercial objectives sitting firmly in our minds, it was our job to come together and work out what's the best way and the best plan to pull that together,” she explained.

A more holistic view 

Speaking from a media perspective, Lewis-Jones said Publicis has been building these “parallel models” for almost a decade, where there can be cross-collaboration between different channels at the network, taking a "holistic view”. 

“It comes pretty seamlessly to us understanding very quickly exactly what AJ’s needs are and what the business’s needs are to shape the right grounds within the group to work together.”

Coyne agreed, adding that due to Monzo’s aim for growth and expansion, it was important for the business to have that connectivity among its agency partners. “The power of that integrated model to allow you to pivot together and push back at the right time is super useful.”

He said that the time this saves all of the teams is like “night and day”. Martin added that it makes the teams far more agile.

Debate is good, leave egos at the door

However, this does not mean everyone is on the same page all the time, according to the BBH CEO. “You still have to have the same healthy, robust debate as you would in any other room together. It's not just an assumption that we're all part of a group, that everyone is just going to seamlessly agree. Debate is good,” she said.

Martin advised agencies and clients alike to “leave agendas and egos at the door”. She concluded that it's “really rewarding” when different teams from the same network come together on one client, “when it works”.

Lewis-Jones also stressed the importance of “collaboration and human connectivity” at a time when tech, AI and data are more powerful than ever. 

Despite this, Coyne added that creativity is “still the North Star and it is the multiplier of growth in any business for any brand”. However, he said it is crucial that clients and agencies are “upfront, aligned on incentives and are transparent with each other throughout the process”.