Cultural Power In Europe: M+C Saatchi’s Vision of Relevance Through Difference
“I really believe in Europe. There are very few places in the world where you can find the clash of so much diversity,” says Carlo Noseda. As M+C Saatchi Group Europe’s chief executive officer, it’s Carlo’s job to maximise the promise of the agency’s positioning and deliver ‘Cultural Power’ across a complex continent that involves navigating a patchwork of cultures.
To stitch those together, the Group has created a united European team – instead of offices in various countries, Carlo says, “we have a European community which is made up of specialists. If you are born in Milan and you want to work from home in Milan, you're more than welcome. But if you want to spend a month in Berlin, in Stockholm, in Madrid – that's Europe. We are gathering people because of what they want to do, instead of if it's an Italian brief, you get the Italians; if it's a German brief, you get the Germans.”
He says the Group is building teams with a stronger point of view, but not always views that agree. “I like when you confront what you have in mind with someone that thinks the opposite, because it is from the clash that you get the best. Not from the same people, the same ideas – from different people, new ideas.”
It’s hard to compare M+C Saatchi to other groups in advertising. “We are the biggest of the smallest and the smallest of the biggest,” says Carlo. “So we have that kind of agility, and still we are entrepreneurial.”
He’s an embodiment of that, having co-founded M+C Saatchi in Italy. “So we were appointed to run Europe, for me, it was like a startup,” he adds. That’s why he wanted to build this united model.
As global CCOs Rob Doubal and Lolly Thomson told me last month, the Group has tools such as the Cultural Power Index to tie those previously fragmented teams together. “It's a shared language, a software that we can use all over the world,” says Carlo, “implemented with cultural nuances depending on the region, because South America is different from Europe, and North America is different from Asia.”
In a few words, Carlo sees the Group’s new positioning of Cultural Power as a “brand's ability to shape, influence and move with the culture, not just reflect it.
“It's when a brand earns relevance,” he says, “becoming part of people's lives, conversation, values. In other words, it's when you don't build affinity just through products and campaigns, but through a stronger point of view as a brand.”
Cultural power allows brands to stay ahead of trends, as Carlo sees it. “If you get stuck in trends, then you are immediately commodified, and you're seen as many others who are stuck in trends. Consumers are looking more and more for brands that get their world, that understand them. Brands that can take a stand, and brands that feel real.”
Artificial intelligence is a relevant context for this. “Everything will look the same,” predicts Carlo because “everything will be the result of a prompt. And if you're not a very good prompter, if you don't know what you're looking for or how to ask the right questions, the output will look the same.
“How to make the difference is to bring up a conversation that matters, and reflect it with a language that is real – the language that's ahead of trends,” he continues. “This is, in a nutshell, what I believe cultural power has to do: shape conversations, create real connections, and matter in people's lives.”
M+C Saatchi is like software, Carlo says, speaking of the shift from ‘Brutal Simplicity of Thought’ towards ‘Cultural Power’. “We did the upgrade. Then bang, there's something new – new shortcuts and new tools.”
The first result that he has witnessed is that creative processes are more grounded. “‘Cultural Power’ gives us a shared language to the cultural world. And the Cultural Power Index is a compass. It's turning intuition into measurable insights and is helping us to avoid being superficial, but to produce and have ideas that resonate in today's world.”
It delivers a score for any given brand. Setting a goal for a higher score on the Index becomes the needle pointing north. “With that number, we are all aligned,” says Carlo. “We act as one. We have one KPI, aligned and agreed with the client, and then we all work towards making that number stay exactly where it should be.”
Of course driving sales has to be any ad agency’s focus. “It's fantastic to sell products – that's why we exist,” says Carlo. “But if we can have another layer, which is improving people's lives, making the world a better place – I have two kids, and so I'm responsible for leaving something to them which is way better than the one that I found. So that's why I do this job, and I want to do it with consciousness.”
One project from M+C Saatchi London that demonstrates ‘Cultural Power’ is Absolut’s ‘Born to Mix’ featuring a UK activist and artist, Olly Alexander, as he brought together a group of change-makers to form a choir. “I love the idea of having that as an anthem for diversity and inclusion,” says Carlo. “It was a new way to prove that true progress happens when we mix. It's the ultimate expression of the diversity of thought – not done in a traditional advertising way. There was loads of fun. There was something which was a glue, gathering people together.”
And the results were impressive, “56% increase on social media, 121% boost in share of cultural conversations,” Carlo reveals. “Also, if you go through the conversations online, they were not about the product, but about what the product was standing for in the world. That is exactly what we mean when we think about cultural power. It’s rooted in the product, and there's a truth behind it. Because when you have to advertise vodka in today's world, you mix it. When you drink, you're bringing people together. You have fewer barriers. You open your heart, you open your mind, you're together. So it's a way to express the purpose of the brand in sync with today's world.”
It’s a way Carlo’s been working for a long time, before the new positioning. When he co-founded the agency in Italy in 2010, they were working with Leroy Merlin, a French DIY brand. The line they came up with was, ‘If you can imagine it, you can do it.’
“We started to tell people: just come. It doesn't matter if you don't know how to do it. Just imagine what you want to do – and here, you can. We celebrated doing and do-ers. And we were very proud because we shifted the perception of a brand which was very problem-solving (‘I have to redo the bathroom’) and we became more inspirational. We gave people the confidence of doing something fantastic for their family. And confidence means endorphins. Endorphins make people happy. So we became culturally relevant [...] It became something people were posting on their social media. That was something at that time that was not yet called cultural power. But thinking back, it probably was."
‘Cultural Power’ changes how Carlo will approach talent across the European Group. “In a few months, we will be empowered with generative AI, so everyone in the organisation will be able to be a producer, a strategist, a creator,” he says. “We are building teams that can reflect the values and the culture we speak to. And so it's not about hiring creatives – it’s about hiring cultural voices – people that are plugged into different subcultures, that are part of movements. So again, it’s a clash.”
It also changes the agency’s relationship to the brands it works with – ‘partners’ rather than ‘clients’. “Partnership is something that has to be done together,” he says. “Shaping culture is a huge responsibility. So it’s not something that a supplier can do. It’s not something that you buy off the shelf. It’s not something that comes out of a brief. It’s something that you do in the long term – sharing issues and celebrating together.”
In a world where too many brands are forgettable, Carlo wants to work with the brands that will last forever, because they are a badge. “People are turning to brands that represent them. And so we cannot have brands that lose momentum and pretend to be voices of the world without knowing the vocabulary of this new world. So: relevance with purpose. I would say this is, in a nutshell, what I would love to be remembered for.”
