5 Minutes with… Craig Atkinson

Craig> I've always been good at a few things, and I think it's really important to know what you're good at. Historically I think I've been good at 1) leading a team of people, and being very clear about guidance of what we have to do, 2) I'm pretty good at using real words to describe what's happening. So, I speak to a lot of people who only understand tech, only understand strategy or only understand the old way of doing things or have crazy ideas about the new, whereas I'm often in the middle, sort of as a translator. 3) importantly, with clients, I was always pretty good at having a clear vision of what was going to happen, change-wise. But then to explain it to them in a way that they understand is really powerful. And finally, I really like fixing things. 

Every job you described in that question was either about making a new thing because something in the environment has changed and we need to take advantage of it, or spotting something like the company still spending 90% of our client's money in linear television, and working out how the hell we fix that. 

At Code3 we have large groups of experts, folks that are doing a lot of commerce work, we do a lot inside of Meta, Tiktok, Snap, and Twitter. But while clients love an expert, they don't love a group of different experts, who all have different opinions and all want to talk to them directly. So, I'm a proud generalist. I think that there's value in people that are generalists. I don't know how in vogue they are at the very moment, but everyone has worked with a data or a tech specialist who can't get anything done because they can't explain what they want to do. So, I truly consider myself a generalist. 

Craig> I'm a generalist within the world of digital - I've always been in digital. But I actually think everyone needs to learn more about pure marketing. Amazon has this thing called AMC, Amazon Marketing Cloud. It's incredible what's in there. The problem is the people who have the magic skills of pulling the data out don't know anything about marketing. They know how the tech works, but rarely are they given the use case of a marketing client and the framing of their specific needs. I try to make everyone read [Byron Sharp’s] ‘How Brands Grow’. It's an old book but it's the most simple language I've ever seen about marketing and it's always going to remain true. No amount of AI, TikTok, Apple Lens or any of that stuff is going to change the fundamentals of marketing. It's not sexy, but it couldn't be more true. 

Craig> The original business was called Social Code, which around 10 years ago had a very rapid ascendancy. It was like every fortune 500 client around the world was either a client or wanted to be. But this is the curse of expertise in our game. When you have only one relationship with a client, you're way too easy to fire. They didn't diversify the offering early enough but fortunately, in 2018, it acquired a very small commerce agency - though every commerce agency in 2018 was small. At the time it was 2 or 3% of the revenue of the business. This year, it'll be almost half of the revenue of the business. It offers super deep expertise. Amazon likes to tell us that we're the best kept secret inside Amazon, even though it's my job to make us the worst kept secret. So, that was bought and the creative agency was built, mostly because no one told them not to really. In social, you have to have creative because it doesn't work without it, so they just started doing it. It started with some of the transcreation type stuff, but is now a full creative offering. 

Craig> Clients need generalists and specialists. I describe it as architects and builders. By that I mean, neither group can exist without the other. I don't care how good of a carpenter you are, you cannot design a home. And as an architect, you also can't do the plumbing or the electrical work, so there's a real balance there that has to happen and be connected. You probably do want to go talk to the plumber about certain things throughout the process, but you don't always want the plumber calling you to ask you what to do. But that's what happens in agencies, where the programmatic person will keep calling and asking for direction on X, Y, and Z - that's what the generalist is there to do, to coordinate and orchestrate all of that work, and hopefully understand the strategy of what the client strives to do. This is a broad statement, but I would say most scaled digital agencies in the States are hugely over developed on expertise and underdeveloped on generalism, partly because they all need to make money and having both is expensive. But I think clients are demanding it more and more. 

Craig> We had lost a couple of clients the year before. Mostly I find my whole job is about change. I often tell people, whatever your job title is, your job is change management - period. It doesn't matter what level you are. And I don't believe that the business changed enough in anticipation. If you don't change enough in anticipation, you will be changed. That's what started happening last year - change came to town, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. So, my time so far has been triaging that, and now really leaning into where we are going to be, and providing a lot more clarity about where we're going so that we can build to a future state rather than just staying right in the moment in front of us? You get stuck there, without a vision, without any clarity, and, frankly, without a galvanised force to just do stuff. An old boss of mine would always say, 'just start by starting'. I love that because it really does help stop navel gazing and consideration that doesn't help you. I try really hard to have a bias to do that, to just start doing things. 

Craig> Honestly, I think that early on I imitated it. I was working when I was 14. I always wanted to work, and I was always given authority to do so. So, I learned the wrong way to do things by accident and by mistake. I think over time, I've had enough terrific mentors that taught me a lot about the positive parts, but I've probably learned more from the terrible bosses that I've had. When I was younger, say 15 years ago, I would meet people who are now my age, and they would say things like, I'm really doing this to help the next generation get along. I was maybe a little cynical and sceptical, but it's true, I genuinely am doing this because I want the team under me and their people to be successful, because ultimately, I and the company will be successful if they are. It's not really about me. I've had bosses where it's been all about them. And it sucks. 

Craig> And work is supposed to be fun. It's not always going to be fun. Sometimes it will be horrible. But the bends of history in this business should be fun. We've made choices to do a dynamic thing, we should at least enjoy it. If you're miserable every day, you should change what you're doing. I do think there's an element of leadership that's important to be able to take what you're trying to do seriously, but not yourself. I don't think I have a big ego. I don't think people would tell you that I do. I very deliberately try to stay humble and be alternatingly serious about what we're trying to do, but very light-hearted about myself.  

Craig> Sometimes I ask people to write a press release from the future just to force them to think about what's happening in our business. Personally, I see the economy getting better, I see us avoiding a catastrophe, maybe having a pretty OK outcome. I wish I was more optimistic that AI would manifest in a way that was meaningful right now. I think it's going to make all the things that algorithms are already doing better. It's not going to replace what humans are great at. But humans aren't great at button pushing, humans are much more creative, much more interpretive, and insight-oriented. I think we'll be doing more of that, and AI will continue to replace the drudgery. Maybe that will result in a different balance of our staff, and we may have fewer entry level people as a result. But I think the people who are there will spend more time doing the things that they enjoy and why they got into this business and less time on the drudgery. 

Right now, AI is an algorithm with a personality, but a kind of silly personality. Maybe it'll get more powerful. I'm definitely not an end-of-world type person. I'm pretty practical, and I just think we're going to continue to do what we're doing. 

I do think you'll see a lot more commerce integration. Commerce was for a long time a very special, rare breed, exceptionally difficult thing to do. But Amazon is forcing that whole business towards the centre again. They want to talk to you about the upper funnel, they want to talk to you about their television programmes, they want to talk to you about streaming video. I think you'll see the commerce people get a little bit closer to the middle as these waves come through. TikTok is clearly the next wave. That's great for us because TikTok rewards creativity, depth of social knowledge and commerce. That's what they want to do and that's our whole identity. So, I am really excited about the future.