5 Minutes with… Lisa De Bonis
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As Huge’s global chief product officer, Lisa De Bonis oversees a mission-critical piece of the agency’s transformation. She has led her team to craft and deploy a suite of new products that meet or anticipate Huge clients’ needs — something that the agency dubs the lynchpin of its transformation into a ‘creative growth acceleration company’.
Before joining Huge, Lisa served as managing director at Accenture Interactive, operating in multiple leadership roles across the UK and Europe. Lisa was also the co-founder of Work Club, where she spent eight years helping build one of the most successful independent digital creative agencies of its time, before being acquired by Havas.
LBB’s Addison Capper spoke with Lisa about how she and her team are integrating AI into their practice and why Huge is transforming in response to a ‘broken industry’.
LBB> You're the global chief product officer at Huge. To get things started, how do you define that role and what does it entail?
Lisa> My role at Huge may sound complex, but its purpose is simple. It’s to help our clients solve problems more effectively, creatively and quickly than ever before. To do that, my team and I designed a flexible set of products that fall into three categories: experience transformation, technology realisation and growth creation. Together these products are helping the brands we work with fulfil the promise of their technology investments, discover new sources of growth, and transform their customer experiences.
It’s an exciting role to have because I get to interrogate the ‘why’ behind a client’s ask, as opposed to the ‘what’ or the ‘how’. My team and I uncover the root of our clients’ issues so that we can, in-turn, agree with them on what measurable and sustainable success really looks like.
Once we’ve done that, the process is pretty straightforward. We design small,
fast-thinking and cross-functional teams that are experts in pulling together some of the most unique, tailored and relevant product solutions out there.
LBB> The role is somewhat reflective of the evolution of Huge as a business. Can you tell us more about that and why the company is changing its approach to how it works with clients?
Lisa> Huge’s evolution as a business is a direct response to the fact that the industry as a whole was broken. We realised that the ‘goodwill service’ agency model had become grounded in simply creating beautiful work and chasing new business, as opposed to creating beautiful work that also produced real, tangible results and long term partnerships.
With that realisation burning in the back of our minds, we decided to take a leap and make a drastic, first-of-its-kind change. We reinvented our offering by adopting a more
productised approach (which is where my role comes in), and we reset our model to be purely client-centric, focused on value and able to operate globally.
Eighteen months later, the new Huge is working. We have invested in data and AI capabilities to better support our clients, we are driving substantial and sustainable growth for them and we are showing the industry that creativity can lead to true bottom-line results.
LBB> You and your team "craft and deploy a suite of new products that meet or anticipate" client needs. Can you give me some examples of products you have worked on for clients and how they came to be? Is there anything you're particularly proud of?
Lisa> I’m always impressed by the work we do at Huge, but one example I’m particularly proud of is what we did with a well-known sports betting company. They came to us with a disruptor mindset and a proven record of innovation, but felt it was time to enter the next phase of their journey. They wanted help with three goals: drive new growth, unlock new demand and enhance how fans experience sports media.
Challenge accepted.
We tailored and delivered a product for them called ‘Growth Offerings Creator’ which produced three market-validated, viable, revolutionary new bet-types that amplify the play experience for the punter, as well as broaden the company’s customer base. As a result, these new bet types have been estimated to deliver multi-million dollar incremental turnover per year and almost 10% in contribution margin.
LBB> The word ‘anticipate’ in that previous question suggests that this is a very proactive activity, as opposed to traditionally working on a client brief. What are your thoughts on that?
Lisa> I have worked with hundreds of clients over the years, and I’ve noticed that one fact remains consistent: clients value creativity that drives results – and they want those results delivered at speed. So to meet those needs, we meet with clients as early as humanly possible. We bring in data, insights and cross-industry experience to think about ‘early starter solutions’ and then use those ideas as a foundation for deeper discussions.
It’s a proactive and consultative approach that ultimately allows us to better understand our clients’ desires and capabilities, move faster, think bigger, iterate and tailor our products as needed.
LBB> You've worked in roles across customer experience, digital, strategy, and account management. How does all of that experience feed into your work as chief product officer?
Lisa> Our promise to our clients and our people is to help them ‘Make Huge Moves’. And guess what? ‘Huge Moves’ don’t happen in silos.
It’s because of my work experience across creative, digital marketing and consulting industries that I’ve been able to gain a deeper understanding (and respect for) what it takes to deliver brilliant ideas that have real impact. I draw on those experiences every day when we’re iterating our solutions, and when I’m problem-solving with our clients.
LBB> What are key qualities you look for when hiring talent for your product development team and why?
Lisa> The ‘product mindset’ is totally different from what’s needed for one-off projects. It’s a way of thinking that says, ‘What we do is permanent, yet always evolving based on market feedback, changing conditions and financial needs.’ So, when I’m hiring talent, I’m looking for people that are genuinely comfortable with ambiguity, experimentation and continuous iteration. I need them to be quick and pragmatic, deep-thinkers but also capable of ‘doing’ the work. And last but not least, they also need to have a ‘growth’ mentality - meaning they are proactive, consultative and capable of exploring what’s possible versus what’s probable.
A job in the product world is strategic, creative and technical all at the same time, so those who are start-up thinkers and operators, and who can naturally move fast, take risks, and pivot - without batting an eye - will thrive.
LBB> How are you and your team interacting with new technologies such as AI, and what implications do you believe they could have for the part of the industry you operate in?
Lisa> We are actively infusing AI across all we do at Huge by integrating new technologies and capabilities across our business and weaving it into our products and solutions. We are placing a bet on it becoming our superpower, accelerating our ability to deliver better – not just faster – results for our clients.
For example, because of the rapid generation possible with AI, our team is quickly producing and iterating on image concepts that best suit our clients, jumpstarting written articulations of ideas, and experimenting with the ‘what ifs’ that arise in the creative process. We no longer worry that we’ll lose time by veering off track to explore these new thoughts. Instead, AI is enabling us to do precisely what we should be doing – taking more risks in discovery that can lead to innovative thinking.
For example, to explore the tension between new technology and human creativity, we worked with AI to develop a visual manifestation of Pantone’s 2023 Color of the Year, Viva Magenta – an unconventional colour, representing an unconventional time in today’s society. To reflect the zeitgeist of the era, we leveraged generative AI by inputting messages and feelings generally associated with the colour (such as bravery, optimism, fearlessness and nature) to prompt images that adequately conveyed those ideas in an unconventional way.
AI is a fascinating technology that we equate to having a helpful assistant at the ready, but it’s critical – both in our view and our clients’ views – that humans remain part of the entire creative development process. Why? Because we believe humans help navigate the risks and rewards of technology, as well as uphold standards of privacy and quality that technology cannot do on its own.
LBB> 2023 has been and looks to continue to be a challenging year economically - how is that impacting the work that you are doing and the kind of conversations you're having with clients?
Lisa> Economic challenges are not going to end in 2023, nor will they wrap up in the near future. In fact, this continuous cycle of change we’ve all experienced over the past few years is here to stay. So as I mentioned earlier, one of our primary reasons for transforming into a creative growth acceleration company was to show businesses that creativity really can drive sustainable business results in unpredictable environments.
As for the conversations we’re having with clients, we’re helping them understand that while growth is still possible, they have to start making big, leap-frogging changes to accelerate that growth and ensure their businesses remain viable.
They don’t have to do it on their own, though. We’re working with them to infuse innovation into both existing products and services, and we’re introducing new offerings that will exist well into the future.
LBB> How did you wind up in advertising in the first place? Was it an intentional endeavour or more of a happy accident?
Lisa> A complete accident!
During my third year of university in the UK, I went to study abroad at the Université de Paris-Dauphine in France, which is a highly reputable and hard-to-get-into university. As ‘erasmus’ students, we were given the option to spend the second half of the year working if we found a suitable gig. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t having the most fun, so when a fellow foreigner told me about a last-minute internship position opening up at CLM BBDO, I didn’t hesitate. That same night, I went for a late night interview for a role in their global new business department and the rest is history.
LBB> What is one, newly-developed consumer product that you can't live without right now?
Lisa> Does coconut yoghurt count?
