5 Minutes with… Måns Tesch
Having grown up in the semi-socialist environment of ‘70s Sweden, Måns Tesch’s rare visits to the cinema unlocked a wonder in him that stuck. He recalls, “It was unthinkable to arrive late [to the cinema] and miss these glimpses into a more colourful and intriguing world.” The impact it left on him at a formative age, meant that 20 years later he’d choose to build a career in the industry.
Måns started his career at a youth media publisher after finishing his degree and it was there that the first mentions of the internet blew his mind. Following that, he heard of a national telco provider who was looking to encourage brands to get involved in trying out the World Wide Web through website creation. As this link between websites and audiences was formed, a digital agency was born and, well, the rest is history.
Now, as Grey's Asia-Pacific and Middle East and Africa chief strategy officer, Måns speaks to LBB’s Nisna Mahtani about the work that’s inspired him, what budding strategists should keep in mind and why diversity of thought creates something truly special.
LBB> A great place to start is the beginning. How did you begin your journey into the industry?
Måns> Straight after university, I went to work for a youth media publisher in Stockholm, where my older brother Johan happened to work as well. Our boss must have figured brothers should work together and asked us the career-defining question: “Hey Tesch brothers, I’ve got a bunch of people making homepages for the world wide web, but I’m not sure if it’s a waste of time. Could you figure out whether this internet thing is going anywhere?”
Pretty soon our heads were spinning, it WAS a revolution on so many levels, and writing a report to our boss didn’t seem like a revolutionary response.
Around the same time, we heard about an odd initiative from the national telco provider. With the endearing ambition to bring traffic into the old wires and encourage people to discover the World Wide Web, they were funding the creation of websites for companies who dared to be pioneers. Convincing brands to accept a free website wasn’t that hard, who would see it anyway?
Thus, a digital creative agency was founded by a bunch of twenty-somethings who were really excited to be in the middle of the second coming of the creative revolution. It turned out to be much more profound, but to me, it was a time of unsurpassed experimentation, discovery and free-flowing creativity.
LBB> What were some of the ads or campaigns you saw that initially sparked your interest?
Måns> MER 'Will you carbonate?’ - I can’t guarantee it will have the same effect on you some 25 years later, but I still remember that awkward feeling of jealousy caused by someone else’s work for the very first time. I was endlessly impressed by their audacity to put everything on the line by trying to make their most pedestrian, obvious, even downright dull product feature into something uniquely important by pretending that the whole world cares if this beverage will sparkle or not - and by risking it all they got away with it in style.
LBB> Can you share a little bit about what a day in your role looks like and some of the aspects of it that you particularly enjoy?
Måns> In my role, I have the privilege of learning from our brilliant community of strategists across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond, and the only certain thing is that every day will bring an unexpected twist or turn. What today looks like: I started out being briefed by a potential client in Thailand, followed by a discussion with our CSO in Hong Kong about next year’s objectives, then a few interviews with promising candidates in South Africa, and then when I get a moment free, I’ll be working on a pitch presentation in Dubai as well as rallying our international strategy community to provide perspectives on brand and category for an upcoming chemistry meeting.
What I love about this role is that it constantly keeps me on my toes. The fundamentals of our strategic approach remain the same, but the cultural context and the clients’ challenges are often wildly different across the region, so there’s no place for routine or repetition.
LBB> Throughout your career, what are some of the formative campaigns you’ve worked on which have shaped your outlook and approach?
Måns> I won’t bore you with our early efforts from when the web was just a baby: the world’s first interactive bacon-frying banner ad, sing-along karaoke emails, staging a nationwide hunt for a car hidden somewhere in the vast country of Sweden by using the new phenomenon of online maps, creating a website with a machine generating websites and so on…
Stella Artois' 'Le Courage'. Fast forward to selling our agency to the Lowe network and getting the opportunity to capture the rich heritage of Stella Artois and bring it into the digital age. In ‘Le Courage’, the user took the role of the master brewer on a quest to make the perfect beer - in the year 1366. As the master brewer, according to the beliefs of the time, you would have to overcome obstacles such as gods fighting in the sky, ships getting wrecked by the sun setting in the ocean, and falling off the face of the flat earth…
BBC's 'Blast'. You could sense the energy just walking through the door at Fallon London. After creating Cadbury ‘Gorilla’, Sony - ‘Balls’, ‘Paint’, and ‘Play-Doh’, the agency was flying higher than just about any other at the time. The confidence was palpable, and it felt like anything was possible. So, for a BBC brief to get underprivileged youth interested in expressing themselves creatively, we naturally went all out and set up a huge interactive, live art experiment. The user could sit at home and try their hand at creating real sculptures and paintings by using tools online connected to a studio at the Southbank.
WWF's 'Plastic Diet'. When I was based in Singapore, we received a brief from WWF there to create a media and public groundswell to put pressure on world leaders to take action at an upcoming UN conference on plastic pollution. To reach regular people around the world on a limited budget, we needed a radically different approach, and in our research, we discovered that we’re actually eating and drinking plastic, and when we quantified the weekly consumption, it was the equivalent of a credit card. ‘Your Plastic Diet’ created an iconic new symbol that brought the problem up close and personal and made it easy to talk about plastic pollution. All of a sudden, the prime minister of Norway, US senators and news anchors around the world started waving the credit cards around. More than two million people signed a petition to put pressure on world leaders in advance of the UN conference in Nairobi, where a globally binding treaty to limit plastic pollution was signed in March 2022.
LBB> You frequently speak at seminars and ad schools about strategy. What are some of the questions you often hear from people who are curious to learn more?
Måns> It used to be questions like, ‘How do you develop a brand purpose for a mid-size B2B construction firm in rural Germany?’. Questions like these made me realise that rather than the classic Nike type of examples, it’s even more helpful to use case studies from brands in more mundane categories and show what a radical difference great strategic thinking can make.
Recently, the future of advertising and creative strategy as a career choice has popped up as a canary in the coal mine. The death of advertising has become a risk-free provocation, and if everything can be done by bots, why not ads? Yes, sure, to some extent, but then again, around 70% of all content produced is seen by next to no one. There must be a reason why Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix are all betting on advertising as an important part of their business, and in an ever more streamlined and automated world, brands are more valuable than ever, they can be a magical tool to stand out and be distinctive.
LBB> Of course, AI has changed how we work and provides a vast amount of data and insights in a short time. How are strategists using this to their advantage in a changing market?
Måns> ChatGPT and similar tools should be used to their full potential by strategy teams since they primarily liberate them to spend less time distilling information and more time on analysis and turning linear thinking into leaps of imagination. That efficiency in itself doesn’t lead to creative excellence, it can optimise, and it can save time and money, but that’s not enough, advertising is also about effectiveness. The more brands use the same tools in the same way, in the name of efficiency and cost-saving, the more marketing and brand experiences will look, feel and sound the same.
Here’s where AI gets interesting: when we use it as fuel for imagination and as a space for exploration. We can instantly illustrate and dramatise strategic choices, we might merge seemingly awkward pairings in Midjourney, and maybe we’ll stumble upon a happy accident that inspires our creative direction. What will make all the difference is when strategists are inquisitive enough to experiment with AI tools armed with the knowledge of behavioural science, popular culture, and art history combined with counter-intuitive prompts that even stretch the imagination of the AI tool.
LBB> You have plenty of experience working across different brands to embed strategy within the creative to create a campaign that strikes the right balance. How does strategy enhance creativity, and vice versa?
Måns> A recent analysis of Torrance tests (testing creative thinking) from the ‘50s until today showed that results have gradually declined since the ‘90s. Why are we having a creativity crisis? The answer is that in modern society, there’s never a dull moment. We are overstimulated and have no time to let our imagination run wild. Similarly, strategy and creativity often behave like ships passing in the night; they spend a moment next to each other, handing over a formulaic document written as defined in the template, and then they sail off, never to see each other again, at least not until the next creative briefing…
That’s a shame and proof that we’ve become unimaginative. Strategy should instead be seen as the first creative exercise, using research and imagination to re-articulate the problem at hand as well as the potential solution in the most interesting way possible. Creative strategy is an opportunity to jointly challenge category conventions, be brave enough to shine a different light on human behaviour and dare suggest solutions that defy logic and reason.
LBB> Aside from AI, what are some of the interesting trends you’re seeing that you believe will be carried forward into 2024 and beyond?
Måns> Lower barriers to entry across a wide range of categories combined with the AI revolution will speed up the streamlining of brand experiences. Our industry has been run on logic and rational thinking for far too long. It’s a road that leads to uninspiring, average ideas. The brands that go against the grain and move away from chasing efficiency through programmatic and automation and instead embrace counter-intuitive thinking, who aspire to be truly different and authentic, will rise to the surface - let’s hope so, at least!
Another worrying trend that leaves little room for hope is the well-intentioned hunt to expose brands that engage in green-washing campaigns. Yes, it’s the right thing to do, but what’s troubling is its chilling effect on sustainability communication. If only the purest at heart dare expose themselves, every other brand that aims to improve but isn’t there yet might feel the risk of being hung out to dry as green-washing bandits are too high. Could the creative industry contribute to creating a more universal certification program for brands to prove their level of commitment and how far they’ve come in their efforts?
LBB> For those looking to take a deeper dive into strategy, what are some resources or platforms you recommend?
Måns> Brand and creative strategy used to be quite a secretive and exclusive profession, with little guidance beyond having a mentor or junior-level employment. Luckily, today, there’s so much inspiration to be found for people who are curious to learn. You can follow the most interesting thinkers for free on LinkedIn, read their blogs, and listen to their podcasts (Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher, Fergus O’Carroll’s On Strategy podcast, Jo Arden, Tom Roach, Rob Campbell’s blog, Les Binet, and the list goes on).
LBB> It’s important to dedicate time to hobbies and interests outside of work as well. How do you choose to spend your free time?
Måns> Fifteen-something years ago, my wife and I bought a crumbling stone house from the 1600s on top of a hill in the quiet, wine-making country of Languedoc in the south of France. Slowly bringing a four centuries-old house into modern standards of living without ruining its soul and authenticity takes endless amounts of time, but it’s an endeavour that we’re both passionate about and never grow tired of. We’re constantly researching, discussing and debating the myriad of ongoing projects in our (now a little bit less crumbling) house in a faraway land.
Beyond that, nothing beats running as a release from long days on Teams calls whilst sitting in front of the computer. Here in Dubai, the beach trail from Burj Al Arab to Jumeirah Beach is magical around sunset.
LBB> What’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned from your experience so far?
Måns> Diversity of thought is a beautiful thing. After spending the past seven years working across the wonderful kaleidoscope of cultures across Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, I often get to experience the value of the outside, uninitiated perspective. Looking at a problem or challenge with fresh eyes - without being clouded by traditions or preconceived notions of how things are usually done - often generates interesting new directions to explore. But it would be utterly useless without the exchange of thoughts and perspectives, back and forth between the initiated and the uninitiated, as that diversity of thought or collision of differences is usually what sparks the inspired strategic directions that eventually become ‘Famously Effective’ ideas.
