Agencies of Future Will Honour Past, Yet Won’t Be Personality-Based. Those That Die Won’t Be Mourned

To earn its place amidst a cluttered landscape and economic headwinds, an agency must answer one question, R/GA’s newly-promoted global CSOMelissa Jackson Parsey proposed: “Why should you exist?”

“And if we can't answer that question, then maybe, and this is maybe controversial, maybe some things won't exist. I worked at JWT [J Walter Thompson, the former WPP agency]. RIP,” she said, “and I've seen it firsthand, and the truth is, nobody really mourns it, because actually, when things aren't clear, their value isn't clear, the world keeps on moving. 

“And this moment is really hard, but it's also a really great prompt for us to be even clearer about where we are creating value for our clients, and judge success by the quality of problems they're giving us to solve. 

​“It's an amazing moment for disruption to ourselves, for us to let go of things that we thought were sacred, but actually were potentially holding us back.”

Her comments came on a panel discussion on the LBB Beach in Cannes, dubbed ‘The Future of Agency Brands’. BBDO CEO Nancy Reyes and M+C Saatchi CEO Zaid Al-Qassab dissected their repositionings, and Leo South Asia boss Amitesh Rao reflected on why the Publicis agency ditched the ‘Burnett’ in its name. The agencies of the future won’t be as personality-based as agencies of the past, he said.

“I don't think weathering the storm now comes from an incredibly talented and incredibly powerful mind of one person. It comes from culture. The way our lives have transformed thanks to that crazy word called technology … It is impossible for one mind to stamp that kind of influence that can endure. 

“There are personalities who influence culture, but culture outlives personalities, and that's the one thing that will define the successful creative company of the next couple of decades or century.”

The Leo leader referenced a quote from the agency’s namesake founder, “‘What helps people, helps business.’ Now that’s a belief system.” Leo’s legacy is critical, because, “your heritage is a way for you to embrace and groom and nurture a belief system that builds culture,” but future-proofing an agency depends on following through on those principles.

​“Your past defines your beliefs, so your future is about how you live up to those beliefs. As creative brands, what is it that holds a creative brand together? Fundamentally, it's just one thing. It's culture.”

BBDO’s ‘The Work. The Work. The Work’ served as a “belief system for a long period of time for us,” Nancy noted, “so much so that if you went anywhere around the world and people said, 'What matters to you? What does BBDO stand for?' they would say, 'the work'. That's an incredible accomplishment to have that. And sometimes, as a result, you don't have to actually keep saying that. It's now, what do you build on top of that?” 

Of her decision to switch to the new positioning, ‘Do Big Things’, she said it “was time to build something new that we could modernise on top of. And again, we didn't have to convince anyone at BBDO that at the end of the day, it is all about the work. What we have to convince everybody of is what we do every day is in service of solving big business problems, and that's a company I want to work for.”

M+C’s Zaid was a client for 30 years before he led an agency, most recently as Channel 4’s chief marketing officer. He repositioned to ‘Cultural Power’ because he refused to be an agency that couldn’t do for itself what it sells to clients. 

“Why do all clients laugh about how badly branded and positioned their agencies are? Because they do, all the time. To go to someone who's meant to help you develop your brand but who seems to have no idea how to treat their own seems rather ironic.”

​He simplified a complicated industry. “I tend to break it down and say, we do four things across our whole industry. We have people who do strategy, thinking stuff. We have people who come up with ideas. We have people who make shit, and we have people who place shit. That's about the agency landscape. But at least you need to know which one of those you are and which you're not. 

“What M+C Saatchi was really good at, has always been good at, focuses our efforts on, is very much the idea of thinking and ideas. We're not so big on making, and we're not so big at all on placing. And thinking and ideas is the future of our industry, because the big tech companies are going to do all the rest.

“I'm not trying to turn M+C Saatchi into a tech company – I know some agencies are trying to do that – because I don't think I'll win. These guys are really good at tech, and they have really deep pockets, and I don't have a spare several billion to spend on developing technology. What we do, they will never be really good at. And as long as we are at the forefront of how our world is evolving, we will be able to survive and thrive.”