5 Minutes with… Francisca Maass
Balancing cost decisions, finance meetings and general creativity, coupled with new business, Francisca Maass takes her dual role of president and chief creative officer at Grey Germany in her stride.
Having joined the Grey team in 2019 – after time spent as a Cannes Lions jury president and former managing director at creative agency thjnk – Francisca Maass is familiar with the way in which Grey operates globally. In her dual role, she now supports the agency’s global CCO and international president Nirvik Singh, while also flexing her creative muscles within her agency.
To hear more about finding a diverse team to spark creativity, some of the trends that will continue to be hot topics going forward and what kind of work she hopes to see, Francisca speaks to LBB’s Nisna Mahtani.
LBB> As chief creative officer, you’ve also taken over the president role at Grey Germany. How has your role changed as a result?
Francisca> I took over as president and CCO at the beginning of last year and it was a process of being one on one day, and then both the next! It was a hard cut, and on the one hand, a lot changed and on the other hand, not so much changed. I’m involved in every cost discussion and finance meeting and on the other hand, I’m still doing all of the creative stuff, leading the creative team and working on new business.
I gave up some of the day-to-day from the creative point of view but therefore, I took over a more overlooking position, seeing the bigger picture of the whole agency. It’s quite interesting and a lot of fun, I’m really happy that I have the ability to do both.
LBB> Being a female leader in the industry, what are some of the positive things you’ve seen and what could be improved across the board?
Francisca> There have been a lot of changes in the past few years. I’m not that old but I am the older generation right now, and when I look back, things were quite different. Everyone is aware that there need to be changes and they’re trying to create those changes however, in some circumstances, women are being used for the sake of it. The notion of ‘we need a woman, so let’s use a woman’.
There are instances when women would have been the better choice, and there are instances where men or more diverse talent would have been the better choice. With that in mind, we aren’t there yet when it comes to creating meaningful changes, but everyone’s aware and working towards it.
LBB> How is the Grey Germany team mindful of supporting women and diverse talent in general?
Francisca> Grey Germany has a really female-driven leadership team. There are four women and one man, so we never had the feeling that we needed to specifically implement anything to support that, especially because the wider team is doing a great job in taking care of finding diverse talent.
We consider: Do we have people with diverse backgrounds? Do we have older and younger people? Do we have women and men, equally? Do we have a gender pay gap? Grey and WPP take surveys twice a year to ask these questions and make sure we are doing what we can. In some ways, I do feel that we are doing well with having diverse talent and working towards that.
LBB> How does a diverse workforce support the creativity and innovation within an agency?
Francisca> It always helps. If you have people with different backgrounds, different attitudes and different perspectives, everyone comes together to create a bigger variety of work. We love it. Of course, we also have international people because we have local and global clients, so we have a lot of English speakers who don’t speak German, and that works well.
We also listen to our team, for instance, one of our employees brought up the fact that the agency closes on Christmas, but they don’t celebrate Christmas, they have another religious holiday which they celebrate. Keeping that in mind, we thought, let’s give a ‘diversity day’ to everyone at the agency so that everyone following different religions can use the day to celebrate their beliefs.
LBB> Are there any specific pieces of work which come to mind that you’re keen to shine a light on?
Francisca> There are two that I love for different reasons. The first is for Tumi, the luggage company [video above]. I know everyone is speaking about this idea of ‘borderless creativity’ when in actuality, it doesn’t work in some cases. However, I’m proud of Tumi because this is a case where international collaboration works. We have a joint team with New York – where the account team and two creatives are supporting – and we have the CD team from us in Germany.
We’ve been doing this for two years since we won the client. It’s a great campaign, it looks great and we’re telling great stories. I’m proud that we’re making it happen and showing, yes we are a network and yes it works. If you are eager, and dedicated and have people who are nice to each other, the collaboration across different offices works.
The other one is idealo, a price comparison platform in Germany. We did a very funny rewritten song, which was just fun. We’ve had a lot of purpose-driven work over the last few years and for me, that was something that I thought was fun, and that’s it! The campaign received a gold award in the category ‘Loud & Bold’ at the Best Agency Award Germany, which is awarded by marketing decision-makers from brands. We’re proud of that.
LBB> What’s a key thing to remember when it comes to finding and retaining talent?
Francisca> Everyone is fighting for, and struggling to find, the right talent and the right people. There has been a lot of change from agencies about how to work together, what you expect from people and what they expect from you. Today, I think the most important topic, is how to find a good way to integrate everyone and have a good company culture. I can’t hear about it anymore but ‘work-life balance’ is very crucial.
LBB> What are some topics that will continue to be discussed going forward?
Francisca> Unfortunately I can’t look into the future, though I’d love to be able to!
AI for sure, it’s a big topic and will continue to be a big topic. I don’t know if the metaverse is really gone, but I also think there will be more fun and funny campaigns. Humour is a trend that’s coming back – at least I hope so! That would be my prediction but it’s always really hard to tell.
I’m a little tired of seeing purposeful work for the sake of it – but things to do with nature and moves towards peace in the world would be nice to see. Also, there are always topical things, for instance, we have the current topic of the right wing in Germany as well as France, which could gain more attention and influence the creative work.
We are communication experts, we can make people talk about things. I would love to see that we as agencies are tackling topics such as what’s happening on the streets and in the cities, to be more responsible in trying to change things.
LBB> What would you like to see change in the industry?
Francisca> Pitches and pitch culture. We’ve heard so much about how we go into pitches, pitch fees, and pitch fees. How many agencies are there for pitches? It’s still not solved. Everyone speaks about it but nothing changes – this annoys me.
The other thing is also the topic of pricing. There’s a lot of inflation out there and the German government has a scheme which has subsidised things, the taxes were reduced for certain businesses and so on. The people at agencies ask for more as a result, but when you discuss it with clients, they don’t want to pay any more – rather, the agency fees are going down because everyone’s trying to be the most competitive.
I think it would take everyone in the industry to come together to make a change on that.
