Mel Arrow on Why Friction Drives Creativity
Mel Arrow has been with McCann London in the role of chief strategy officer for 18 months. During this time, Mel has worked on accounts like Just Eat, Xbox, Dettol, and Nurofen, using her sharp strategic insight to help the agency win not one but two Bronze Effie Awards for the latter’s campaign, ‘See My Pain’.
Her appointment reinforced the agency’s all-female C-suite leadership team and, while McCann London is not the first in London to claim this, it’s certainly one of a very select few to do so. Not daunted by the agency’s storied 150-plus year history, Mel is thinking about success in chapters, and about how she can help to write the next one. “Right now, there’s a unique opportunity to contribute to one chapter of that legacy, and I’m excited about it.”
A team success
Building the right team around her was vital to Mel and she knew the kind of attributes she was on the lookout for to continue instilling a discipline of strategy at the agency. The idea was to surround herself with people whose thinking she found generative and innovative, the kind of thinking that brands so desperately need today.
Mel found her team in Aaron Harridge, head of strategy, and Jonathan Brown (JB), head of strategic product. “Aaron has done work I genuinely envy, and we’re completely aligned on what makes for great strategy: insightful, simple, impactful, and directly tied to the work, not separate from it. I was looking for a head of strategy who shared my perspective on strategy while bringing something different to the table – and Aaron does exactly that. We have a lot in common (we’re both relatively new parents at a similar stage in life), but he’s much cooler than me – he even has his own radio show! Together, we approach things from very different angles, which is fantastic,” explains Mel.
“Then there’s JB who’s experimenting with what strategy can become, beyond what it is now. When I joined, he was already leading Atomic Soup, a McCann London product spearheaded by the agency’s strategy team, that serves as a weekly virtual creative accelerator. Now, JB is developing entirely new ways of working as a global strategy collective, experimenting with AI, and pushing the boundaries of what strategy can be. He and Aaron bring very different perspectives and approaches, but together, they complement the way I want to shape and build strategy at McCann London.”
While Aaron, JB, and Mel all have a lot in common, they necessarily approach strategy differently and therein lies the team’s strength. “We form a better whole,” Mel adds.
Something that makes Mel really good at what she does is being comfortable with discomfort, and she instils it in her team too. She embraces contradictions and savours the process of finding the best solution. “Every project begins without a clear answer, and the excitement lies in the journey of discovering it together. It’s about trusting your talent, insights and strategy to guide you. If you always knew the answer at the start, there’d be no room for surprise or innovation.”
The sentences ‘I don’t know,’ and ‘I don’t agree’ have a natural presence in Mel’s team and she says that “these moments of honesty are crucial.”
“Great creativity doesn’t come from everyone agreeing – it thrives on positive pressure and constructive conflict. Challenging ideas, questioning if something could be better, and pushing from good to great are all part of the process,” she explains.
An evolving approach
Since Mel joined McCann London, a lot has changed in the country, especially from the angle of politics and economics. The shifting mood has had a massive impact on her and how she’s approaching her work. “One of the most appealing things about McCann London when I was considering moving here is the breadth of household-name brands we work with and the wide social spheres they touch. For example, Just Eat isn’t just about food; it reflects how the country feels – whether people need comfort food, are feeling active, or are prioritising health. Durex touches on themes of love, relationships, and even loneliness, while Dettol is about germs but also speaks to themes of home, family, and socialising.
“In essence, our work spans almost every aspect of people’s lives. Understanding how they’re feeling and weaving those truths into how we execute for these brands is absolutely crucial,” says Mel. A core philosophy, ‘Truth Well Told’, guides the agency and is ever present in the commitment “to uncover and understand the real truths about how people feel across all areas of life.”
There’s also been a shift in what clients are looking for from strategy now, notes Mel. “Clients are increasingly focused on big structural challenges, like sustainability goals tied to new regulations; they’re exploring how to reduce reliance on glass in favour of sustainable materials and addressing these shifts from a brand perspective – how it affects their brand, suppliers, and supply chain.” Strategy is the tissue that can (and good strategy should) connect the structural and the cultural changes in a way that feels meaningful for consumers and effective for brands.
Mel adds: “We’re on the front line of these conversations, working to develop smart solutions that can guide our creative colleagues in crafting impactful responses. That’s what’s exciting about strategy – you’re the bridge between the internal world of advertising and the external world, connecting the realities of society to what we create.”
In recent years, fewer and fewer brands have managed to make a big cultural impact, to have that proverbial watercooler moment, and that's down to a lot of reasons including media and audience fragmentation. So what does it take for brands to reach the mainstream? Is that still even covetable or is it more important to be meaningful to the target market?
Mel strongly believes in the value of being “culturally relevant and genuinely connecting with culture.” The key, for her, lies in authenticity. “It must come from a true and credible place within the brand, with a sincere desire to contribute to culture rather than exploit it. Too often, brands try to buy their way into culture or borrow from it, often through talent partnerships, but consumers can see straight through that.”
We’ve all seen just how fast a brand can become a part of the cultural conversation for all the wrong reasons. “In today’s hyperconnected world, where something like the Jaguar rebrand can instantly spread across every demographic, people are incredibly savvy. If it’s not authentic, credible, or genuinely adding to culture, it won’t resonate.” Far from scaring brands from engaging in culture, it’s more of a cautionary tale: find out what matters to your brand and to your audience and build on it and find the nuance that’ll make the right people pay attention.
But Mel can understand how mistakes and missteps happen. “Sometimes cultural misfires happen because the ideas make sense in rooms filled with marketing jargon. But they’re not interrogated from the perspective of a real person. When those strategies go public, they can feel alien – products with strange language that fail to resonate with people in the real world.”
Her solution is simple: aim for simplicity. Mel explains it: “There’s a tendency to overcomplicate with jargon or ‘nonsense language’ in our industry. While it might make sense on paper, it often alienates the very consumers we aim to connect with. We need to ensure our ideas and language are so clear that anyone – even a friend at the pub – could easily understand them.” So while there are ‘complicated’ processes and techniques that she’ll employ when needed, she’ll never turn away from the powerful lens of simplicity to measure her strategy work against.
Where a brand fits in is one of the tasks for Mel, another is ensuring that it also looks the part – the right marriage of form and content. “It’s my job to explore the full spectrum of cultural possibilities for our brands and find authentic, credible ways to integrate them into those spaces. There’s also to understand not just where a brand fits but to ensure it’s culturally aligned in design and aesthetics. It’s obvious when a brand misses the mark visually or stylistically, standing out awkwardly instead of blending naturally,” she says.
“A good example is the shift in social media content. Brands are now better at adapting to platforms like TikTok, where authenticity and lo-fi aesthetics often outperform polished, high-production content. In the early days, brands would post overly shiny, professional-looking content that felt out of place in a more casual, unpolished feed. It’s about understanding the depth of a culture. What is it really about? What defines its authenticity? What are the aesthetics and rules we need to follow to credibly engage in that cultural space?”
In practice, this might look like the ‘cheeky controller’ McCann London worked on for Xbox in partnership with ‘Deadpool’; it’s what it sounds like – a gaming controller featuring Deadpool’s buttocks on the back. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s experiential. It’s exactly in step with the IP and the tone that consumers expect from it.
Diversity is non-negotiable
As the industry’s discussion about talent and diversity continues – often with not a lot of action – Mel has her own approach. She believes in hiring through a ‘focus on potential rather than past success’ and knows from experience that diversity in the room only ever yields good results. “I now have enough evidence to see that more diverse groups consistently arrive at better, more unexpected answers. I get bored in rooms where everyone thinks the same way; it’s friction that drives creativity. Without diverse perspectives, we miss out on the chance to push boundaries.”
When so many ideas, platforms, and executions have been explored, done, and repeated twice over, the industry simply can’t afford to not seek out and embrace talent with fresh perspectives and ideas. As Mel sees it, “Our job is to keep pushing into new, surprising spaces, and that requires diversity. I’ve always believed in this instinctively, but now I’ve seen the proof – different groups of people bring better ideas. It’s no longer just about the need to hire diverse talent; now it’s about actively seeking it because I know the results are worth it. We’re lucky to have incredibly talented people here, and I believe that a new generation of diverse thinkers is emerging – people who are unlike any talent we’ve seen in the industry before.”
Finding that talent is one thing, creating the right conditions for them to thrive is another. “You do have to make a greater effort to find diverse talent and create an environment where they feel comfortable sharing their ideas and want to join. Part of this involves focusing on potential rather than just past success. And I don’t think this only applies at the junior level – it’s something we should consider across the board,” Mel says.
“It’s a tricky balance because you want to hire people with proven track records, as it’s an easy proxy for knowing they’re good at their job. But I don’t believe past success is the best indicator of future potential. To truly assess potential, you need to care about it. We’re a human business, and our product is our people. So at every level, especially if you have the power to hire, it’s crucial to make an effort to meet new people in our industry. Every week, think about how you can bring great people in, train up existing staff, and foster more accessibility for diverse talent. Our product isn’t physical; it’s what’s in our brains, and that deserves a lot of thought and care,” she confidently adds.
The work, the work, the work
Looking ahead to the new year, Mel isn’t going to be making any radical changes, which makes sense considering how well the agency is doing and the high calibre of work it’s delivering for clients. Mel’s plan is to “do the things we do really well for more clients, in more exciting ways.” One big focus will be effectiveness – something the agency has been good at executing “but we haven’t necessarily been loud enough about shouting it from the rooftops,” she says with a laugh.
Ultimately, it’s going to be about the work (“It’s all about the work – everyone here is here to make great work.”) and ensuring that everyone is aligned on how to make it the very best it can be via a solid relationship between strategy and creativity. It sounds simple enough but don’t be fooled: every move will be powered by insights and strategy to help brands stay authentically connected to culture in a way that delivers effectiveness and creativity at once.
