WPI Summit Reading Materials
Speakeasy Guild
1. Age of Abundance: How the Content Explosion will Invert the Media Industry
By ​TAL SHACHAR​ with ​MATTHEW BALL
If you read a list of mankind’s most important or influential inventions, there’s not far you could
go without coming across those of Thomas Edison. Oddly, however, it’s unlikely you’d ever see
the device he so-routinely identified as his favorite: the phonograph. While it didn’t defeat
disease, conquer the night skies or take flight, the phonograph was just as Promethean as
vaccines, electricity and the Wright Brothers’ ‘Flyer’. For thousands of years, media was a
privilege of the elite, concentrated in cities and confined to a single moment in time. With
Edison’s phonograph, music had become non-rivalrous, infinitely replicable and indefinite. Yes,
it took decades until the average family could afford a record player or radio, but the dawn of
democratized consumption had arrived.
Unfortunately, however, this same trend led to an ossification in content creation and
distribution. Records, after all, cost money. Production was expensive – as was distribution,
marketing and promotion. So expensive, in fact, that almost every artist lacked the capital
required to actually release their music – a need that paved the way for record labels (or TV
studios, film studios, publishers etc.) that would finance said efforts in exchange for hefty royalty
fees and content rights. These money men though wouldn’t and couldn’t afford to invest in every
artist with a dream. Given the upfront cost of talent development and distribution, labels
invested in “Arts & Repertoire” men, whose job it was to sift through countless musicians in
order to identify the select few with “commercial viability”. Potential artists were then further cut
down in number when it came time to actually distributing their content – and then again via
marketing/promotional support. Underlying this fact was an unavoidable truth: content
publishers had scale-related disincentives to support more than a handful of artists. Why record,
distribute, market and promote 15 albums if you can achieve the same unit sales with 10?
Though this system was far from ideal, it was the inevitable outcome of a market in which talent
was abundant, capital limited, distribution bandwidth (e.g. shelf-space, broadcast spectrum,
print layouts) scarce, barriers high, and the cost of failure significant. But as a result, the content
industry slowly shaped itself around a mysterious cabal of financiers and executive tastemakers
that essentially programmed the national media identity. And anyone who wanted in had to
move to New York, LA or Nashville, pay their dues and hope to work their way up until they
could call the shots.
Of course, the music business was far from alone. The more expensive the medium, the more
constrained the supply, the smaller the community and more homogenous the content. Local
disc jockeys, newspapers and TV affiliates did have the opportunity to repackage and
reprogram – to imprint their personality or take, if you will – but this was limited in scope, drew
upon only the content that was already distributed, had to fit within an existing corporate identity
and, again, depended on access to capital or infrastructure.
Over time, however, technology did what it does best: production costs fell, quality went up and
distribution bandwidth increased. Economics, in turn, improved, as did the industry’s carrying
capacity – the number of artists, titles, and pieces of content that could be supported. The
media business was beginning to loosen up.
But it took until the late 2000s – more than a century after the phonograph – for creation and
distribution to truly democratize. With the Internet, distribution became free and truly non-rival (if
a bit non-excludable), while the proliferation of low-cost media equipment, mobile devices, and
powerful editing software dramatically lowered the costs of production. The rise of creator-based
consumption platforms and crowd-funding platforms, meanwhile, eliminated many of the
remaining barriers hindering independent content creation. This meant that content could not
only be created by those outside the business, but that commercializing this content became
significantly less expensive and risky. This led to a massive increase in available, indexed and
distributed content.
While the media business benefited from many of these changes, the consequences have been
fundamentally destabilizing. The television industry has experienced such a surge in original
content that annual cancellation rates ​have quintupled over the past 15 years​ (twice as many
original scripted series were cancelled last year than even​ aired​ in 2000). Since 1985, the indie
film industry has seen a nearly twentyfold increase in the number of theatrical releases even
though ticket sales have remained flat (in 2014, the Head of SXSW’s film festival decried that
“the impulse to make a film had far outrun the impulse to go out and watch one”). ​Plummeting
music sales and unprecedented competition​ have made launching a new artist so expensive
that catalogue sales now make up more than 200% of major label profits (in 2014, David
Goldberg privately encouraged Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton to ​essentially​ halt A&R
efforts, as well as investments in actually making new music). With the democratization of media
creation, it’s easier than ever to make content but harder than ever to make a hit.
Ironically, the increasing difficulty in creating hits has not bolstered the “hit maker” system but
rather further weakened it instead. In 2013, Macklemore became the ​first unsigned artist since
1994​ to have a number-one single in the United States – a feat he repeated just three months
later. Mega-star Taylor Swift has been with an independent label since her debut album and
multi-platinum groups such as The Eagles and Radiohead have left the majors to start their
own. The struggles of print publishing are well-known, but the uniqueness of some of “print’s”
recent successes are worth mentioning. The ​50 Shades of Grey​ trilogy, which has outsold ​The
Harry Potter​ septet on Amazon in the United Kingdom and made author E.L. James 2012’s
highest-earning author, became a viral hit on FanFiction.net long before it was picked up in print
(and it’s unlikely a publisher would have bought the rights upfront). Andy Weir’s The Martian is
another self-publishing success story.
This metamorphosis is about far more than ever increasing amounts of content and a handful of
stars existing outside the traditional media ecosystem. The entire media business is inverting.
For decades, scarce capital and constrained distribution capacity meant that the media’s
industry bottlenecks sat in the middle of the value chain. Today, however, the bottleneck has
moved to the very end: consumer attention. This shifts the balance of power from determining
what should be made to finding a way to convince people what to watch, listen to or read in a
world of infinitely abundant content.
The preeminence of this challenge has given to the rise of a new type of aggregator-distributor,
including news content sites like Gawker, the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed; video and music
aggregation services like Netflix, YouTube and Pandora; and even physical products
subscription offerings like Birchbox and Lootcrate. What’s more, it enabled the major social
networks to use their customer data to build massive stickiness, launch their own publishing
platforms and become traffic kingmakers. More broadly, this shift has swung the balance of
power from programmers with the ability to greenlight content to curators with the ability to get
that content heard, seen or read. Of course, the old programming and financing guard remain
important, but with the democratization of production and the explosion of content creation, the
power of 1st party programming is quickly being eclipsed by the ascendance of 3rd party
content curation. The gatekeepers are still manning their posts, but the city outgrew the walls
and the barbarians circumvented the gates entirely.
The Tastemaker Curator
To date, curation has primarily been delivered in three ways. Most common is algorithmic
recommendation powered by behavioral and social graph data – e.g. Facebook’s newsfeed,
Spotify’s Discover Weekly, Netflix’s content feeds. Second is hand-picked selections delivered
by and through the major distribution platforms – e.g. Twitter Moments, Snapchat stories and
Beats Radio 1. Third are one-off recommendations and shares by individual users – posting a
Spotify playlist, reblogging a tumblr post, sharing a link or retweeting a tweet. Suffice to say,
curation today is dominated by well-capitalized technology-media companies and supported by
significant manpower and bandwidth.
However, the next evolution in the media value chain will be the rise of decentralized curation –
with individual tastemakers building up mass followings and driving enormous consumption by
recommending various articles, videos, shows, films, albums, exhibits and so on. While there’s
no way to effectively do this at scale today, the transition is long in development. Almost
everyone today remixes content they’ve created with 3rd party content (just look at any social
feed), reviews and engages in media commentary (ditto) and uses the recommendations of
others to decide what to watch, see, listen to or even believe. Similarly, every social graph
includes a handful of node users whose endorsements proliferate across the social web. The
formalization of this influence will therefore represent both a natural and value-add extension of
existing user behavior.
To this end, multimedia curation is and will continue to be pioneered by today’s web influencers:
YouTube, Instagram and Twitter celebrities such as Connor Franta or Michelle Phan that have
already developed, personal and authentic voices that transcend individual verticals, genres and
brands and influence millions. But it is not and will not be confined to these digital influencers
alone. “Traditional” celebrities that connect with their audiences on a deep level – a Howard
Stern, Taylor Swift, Glenn Beck or Kardashian – are positioned to and in some cases already
beginning to dive into curation. Mindy Kaling doesn’t have 6M Twitter followers, two books and
her own TV show just because she’s funny, but because her taste, endorsements and
perspective resonates.
The template already exists: Martha Stewart and Oprah both built extensive, multi-category
empires in the pre-digital era largely based on the power of their stamp of approval. With new
distribution technologies, the influencers of today, and maybe Martha herself, will be able to
build even more comprehensive empires than ever before, all built on the power of their taste
and delivered via inexpensive but massively distributed web infrastructure.
This ability for consumers to tap into specific voices will also be critical as more content and
more users come online. Consumer time (or “attention”) doesn’t scale with either the volume or
ready availability of content at their disposal. Discovery functions, too, have a maximum. The
significance of 1,000 likes, 400 ratings or 3.2M plays is very different with 3B Internet users than
it was with 500M. Not only does contextualizing these social cues become impossible, but the
demographics of the reviewers continues to change – first in terms of age and income, then
geography and culture – making it difficult to understand the personal validity of any crowd
based metric. That’s not to say that a product on Amazon with 1,400 reviews and a 3.8 star
rating isn’t good – just that the common review mechanisms found across the web
mathematically soften taste out to the average. This works a lot of the time, but we tend to have
very particular tastes in certain categories – and there is a certain staleness created by
narrowing these averages down using look-a-like groups and other algorithmic techniques. Not
to mention the fact, that such an approach often lacks the element of serendipity and surprise
from discovering something you loved but didn’t expect (especially if you would otherwise have
avoided it). As a result, curators both solve a media painpoint and enrich consumption.
Where Will this Be Built?
The most likely enablers of the age of curation will be today’s social platforms. Though rarely
viewed as such, these companies – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram – are
already in the business of content creation, remixing and distribution. As such, the expansion
from one-off filters, albums, shares and vlogs to curation would represent an organic evolution
of their existing user toolset. More importantly, however, this change will be critical if these
platforms want to continue to grow user engagement and manage the massive influx of user
created and user-submitted content.
Many services have invested in centrally-managed human curation feeds in recent months –
such as Snapchat’s Live Stories or Instagram’s event and theme-based “Explore” collections –
but these can only scale so far without the help of the crowd or truly massive content
investments (just ask Encyclopedia Britannica). Twitter, notably, is already planning changes
that will enable brands and everyday users to create their own moments and Instagram has
been promoting curated follower lists from top influencers on the platform for months now.
Others are likely to follow.
To support this, Facebook, Twitter and company will require a broad set of new user tools and
capabilities – such as the ability to bundle multiple types of on-and-off platform content, create
evergreen collections, offer paid subscriptions and connect to physical goods fulfillment. Buy
buttons are just the beginning. As a result, we may even see a new type of social platform
emerge.
However, curation-centric services won’t just be served by the social giants; there are already a
number of in-market players today. Music start-up Dash Radio, for example, enables
tastemakers to create their own OTT radio stations – free from the need to be “advertiser
friendly”, FCC compliant or audience-maximizing – and has accumulated t​ hree million​ US
monthly users to date. Meanwhile Spot, an app out of Expa, recently launched with the goal of
providing the means for people, experts and influencers to rate and recommend their favorite
restaurants and other locations. In some cases, curators will have their own dedicated apps –
case in point, the massive success of the Kardashian clan’s apps (particularly Kylie’s), which are
in effect vehicles for the families to curate both content and products including clothing, music
and other media.
Influencer Inc.
As these capabilities become more available throughout the social web and individual curators
grow into the power of their voices, many will expand beyond simple curation and commentary.
Brand extensions, licensing partnerships and hired staff will be commonplace – just look at
Bethany Mota’s massive Aeropostale partnership to catch a glimpse. The most successful
curators will even begin commissioning content themselves. In many ways, the
programmer-to-curator shift will appear to come full-circle. But the distinction is critical.
Traditional creatives (though talented) gained cultural influence through their connection to
insiders and access to capital. Today’s curators are influential because they have relationships
with audiences. They’re hired by fans because of their taste, not hired by executives to satiate
the appetites of fans. This, when combined with frictionless commerce and fan engagement
channels, can also make these influencers far more wide-reaching and multi-vertical than even
the Oprahs and Martha Stewarts of the past. As such, their influence in taste making is an
inversion of the classic model, not merely the replacement of old tastemakers with new.
For this same reason, many non-media brands will embrace curation in the hopes of
strengthening their own consumer relationships and establishing a distinct voice in the age of
social marketing. The first movers here are likely to be brands that have already achieved large
footprints across multiple social networks, emphasize lifestyle rather than just their products,
and interact with their customers several times a week (if not more than once a day) – RedBull,
GoPro, Starbucks, and Soulcycle are just some of many potential curator-brands. It’s not hard to
imagine any or all of them operating their own Twitter Moments, Snapchat live stories or
newsletter services as part of their apps and loyalty programs, not merely as marketing efforts
but as integral parts of their consumer offerings. This shift is in already process at Starbucks.
Users can now listen to the company’s music playlists right from their loyalty application and add
their favorite tracks to their Spotify account.
Programmers and Programming in a Curation World
As curation’s role in both content discovery and consumption intensifies, content companies will
not only see their programming advantage continue to erode, they’ll also need to change much
of their existing beliefs, norms and business models. For most curators (and audiences), the
distinction between content type (e.g. art, music, film, TV) and class (“premium”, “low-grade”,
“UGC”) is without value. They curate according to their voice and interests, not library
categorizations. This, of course, will prove prohibitive for Big Media. Few will want to
acknowledge the competitiveness of “less valuable” content (this claim has been at the core of
pitches to marketers and ad agencies, after all), let alone subject themselves to risk of
unmanaged content adjacency (“what if the next recommendation doesn’t align with our
brand?!”). As a result, most content creators will initially resist influencer-based distribution,
though its growing importance as a channel will make this retreat only temporary. If Mindy
Kaling “owns” your target audience, you’ve few options other than to distribute through and with
her.
More progressive content owners, however, will create technology and release strategies
specific to influencer-based audience acquisition. Publishers, for example, already enable
socially referred traffic to slip through paywalls – a model that should be extended to other
media categories such as music, podcast, film and television. In addition, we’re likely to see
subscription add-ons that allow curators to provide their followers with an opportunity to
consume content from directly inside a curated environment. More simply, some content owners
will look beyond distributing advance copies to journalists and include key curator-influencers.
To promote its artificial intelligence original series, for example, AMC should have sent
screeners to the likes of Elon Musk (who boasts ​3M Twitter followers​ and often warns of the
dangers of AI) and Marc Andreessen (who has ​450k followers​ and vehemently rejects AI
alarmism).
Regardless, traditional players will struggle to flex their cost structures, organizational models
and incentives for the curation era. Few curators will see the need to purchase content licenses
or commit to minimum guarantees. As a result, the monetization of curator-distributed content
will tend towards revenue shares and branded content – neither of which mesh well with
Hollywood today. What’s more, Tinseltown is already struggling with fragmented audience data,
complex release windows and unpredictable ARPU.
Open Source Content
Six years ago, Simon Cowell was asked to explain his gift for identifying musical talent. While
his answer seems reductive, its simplicity explains why the shift from programming to curation is
so significant: “I have average tastes. If you looked in my collection of DVDs, you’d see ​Jaws
and ​Star​ ​Wars​. In the book library, you’d see John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon. And if you
look in my fridge, it’s children’s food — chips, milkshakes, yogurt.” For nearly a hundred years,
mass market programming was an essential capability in the media business. Content creation
and distribution were too expensive and failure fraught. But that doesn’t mean that our cultural
tastes were some sort of objective standard alongside universal truths such as the equality of
man or “thou shalt not kill”. They were defined and constrained by legions of Simon Cowells –
white, high income men with common backgrounds and a shared idea of what was or should be
listened to, watched or read.
In the decades since the phonograph was invented, technological changes have enabled our
tastes to expand, our artists to diversify and our content to swell in abundance. While the
notional shift from programming to curation can feel academic, it represents a crucial step in the
democratization of media. Through thousands of individual curators, each of us will be able to
escape the tyranny of averages and the limitations of algorithmic recommendations, as well as
benefit from the ability to become tastemakers ourselves. For once, if we can’t find something
good to watch, read, or listen to, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
2. The Open Agency Manifesto
By John Winsor
*This article is meant to be a draft to spark discussion and debate. I would love it if you helped
in creating a new, sustainable model that folks can operationalize. Let’s do this together. I look
forward to continuing to revise and improve it as we go on.
Throughout my various agency experiences both founding and working within existing
structures, I’ve learned so much about what works and doesn’t in agency business models.
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from folks who run agencies of all sizes. There are is a lot
of anxiety. Yet, what looks like a problem on the horizon is really a beautiful opportunity for
reinvention.
We are in the midst of a radical revolution. While some call it the digital revolution it’s much
bigger than that. For sure, digital technology is at the foundation of this revolution, but it is only a
catalyst and facilitation to the change that’s under way. What’s really at the core of this change
is that digital technology has made people more efficient than ever, so solving for their old
inefficiencies is now irrelevant. And, is causing all kinds of questionable behavior as has been
documented by the ANA and more recent DOJ investigation. Fundamentally, economic value is
created by keeping up with, and solving for, today’s NEW economic inefficiencies.
That’s certainly true in the advertising agency business.
Historically, agencies took advantage of the inefficient ways people communicated economic
exchange through a few analogue methods. If you had a car to sell it was really inefficient to put
a sign on it and drive it around town. That inefficiency meant that ads were not only more
efficient but also created economic value for the agency, the media and everyone that worked in
these industries. Our industry was built based on scarcity. Scarcity of media and scarcity of
talent.
In scarce marketplaces closed systems work well. In a closed system, the goal is to create a
competitive advantage by locking in customers and then milking them throughout the lifecycle of
their relationship. Certainly a well-run closed system can generate lots of revenue and profits.
To do that, the company needs to be highly structured and highly organized. Historically,
agencies have thrived in the world of scarcity. It even helped when agencies created mythology
around their leader. Names such as Ogilvy, Chiat and Bogusky become celebrated for
undefinable magic or deep cultural understanding.
Today, creating an agency based on a closed system might work in the very short run but
sooner or later innovation in a closed system becomes incremental. Complacency becomes the
operating paradigm of the people. The goal in any closed agency model based is to preserve
the status quo. It propagates the things that agencies have become known for,
passive/aggressive behavior, arrogance, underwhelming clients by charging too much and
delivering too little often too late.
Our business models became irrelevant yesterday.
Abundance is replacing scarcity. Now there is an abundance of media, everything from
YouTube to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, an abundance of talent, anyone with a
computer and a connection can participate in the game and biggest of all, an abundance of
ideas. It’s hard to find the signal with all of the noise. Likewise, a new set of technology based
companies that are now doing agency like work better, faster, cheaper and, most importantly,
more measureable.
Yet, there is a role for agencies. With all of the abundant tools and options out there today many
CMOs have told me they wish that agencies could reinvent themselves, getting beyond their
own business models, to provide long-term strategic and creative vision, curation and guidance.
They long for the days of the trusted AOR yet know that they can’t afford an agency with an old
FTE model when there are so many more options that are more efficient.
If agencies don’t change they have a good chance of following other media industries, such as
newspapers that have seen its revenues shrink to 1950’s levels. And music, which we’ve all
seen the demise of in real time over the past 10 years.
An abundant and open world demands an open agency business model that uses open tools.
Open systems are just the opposite of closed systems. They’re not only much more dynamic but
also much more competitive. In an open system competitive advantage is framed in the context
of collaboration. And, the competitive set becomes much smaller, everyone in an open system.
It’s not about the way agencies historically operated by command and control. It’s about
inspiration, collaboration and curation. From these three principles a more fast-moving open
system allows an agency to generate better and more innovative creative solutions to clients’
problems for a better value. Thought leadership, transparency, speed and measurability are the
hallmarks of an open agency. The thought leadership attracts customers and fast, fluid and
collaborative innovation keeps them.
While it’s just the beginning, open agencies have the ability to be in sync with their clients and
culture. They can swim with the current of change instead of against it. By harnessing the power
of ideas from everywhere and curating them to creatively solve brand’s business problems not
only will agencies survive but they can thrive. By using technology to be more open, agencies
have the ability to play a much more important role for their clients, using creativity at the C-level
of their clients to help them solve seemingly insurmountable challenges.
The alternative is to continue to be relegated to the tactics of coming up with another ad and
being forced to be a vendor caught in the vicious cycle of cost control from procurement
departments.
If agencies are to lead we must be the change they want to see.
For the open agency (or for that matter, agencies in general) to thrive there needs to be guiding
principles that help spawn a million permutations of what the agency of the future will be, no
matter what their expertise.
Here are a few to start with:
1. Flatten the organization structure – Technology replaces much of what middle management
does. In a pre-digital era they interpreted data, they managed assets and internal approvals.
Now, technology is replacing those roles. The biggest impediment to changing faster is that
agencies look at employees as financial resources, charging clients for senior people’s time
whether they add value to a client’s business or not. An open agency is driven from the
bottom-up not the top-down. It lacks the unneeded bureaucracies that slow things down with
technologies that speed things up.
2. Be radically transparent – Agencies are famous for their lack of transparency. Start by being
transparent internally. Have once a month transparency meeting where everyone in the agency
gets to see everything, from the status of the work to the financials. With clients, be totally
transparent on where things are and how to save money and time working together.
Transparency is the fasted way to grow trust.
3. Move from managing by command and control to inspire and support – It takes courage to
change the way you do things and to be radically transparent about what works and what
doesn’t. You still need to measure the right things but creating an open agency, by its nature, is
full of insecurity. Focus on getting everyone on the team involved by inspiring and supporting
them.
4. Be ruthlessly agile – Mature agencies, and brands for that matter, move slowly. And, they
should as most are managing in decline these days. That takes a lot of slow, deliberate effort of
ringing out every penny. On the other-hand, an Open Agency is messy. It takes a committed
team and a philosophy of ruthless agility. Move fast, fail fast and once something works build it
fast. Whole paradigms will shift. Accept it. Take advantage of it.
5. Allow ideas to come from everywhere – Many agencies mantra is that ‘creativity can come
from anywhere’, yet crowdsourcing has scared the hell out of most agencies and holding
companies. This is just a tool to allow ideas to come from everywhere. Set up your own open
platform to allow people in from outside your agency. Likewise, be sure that ideas can come
from everywhere internally. Set up both digital and physical ideation sessions. Capture them
digitally.
6. Charge for value instead of cost - One of the biggest challenges for agencies is reinventing
their pricing models. Most have gotten stuck pricing around the billable hour. Yet, agencies
inherently create value for clients. Tim Williams at the Ignition Consulting Group is doing a lot of
good work around reinventing the compensation model. If agencies can not only charge for the
value they create they will also they will be more aligned with their clients’ success.
7. Do less with less – As the cost of making things drops radically think about making things
first. Get real. Prototype something for a client instead of presenting it. Think about small ideas
instead of big ones.
8. Create the right culture – We are all a product of our culture. If we work in an office with lots
of closed meetings and the hierarchy of office size being equated to level of the occupant. Open
agencies blow that up. Sit at the same table. Hold meetings in the open. But it’s bigger than the
physical space. Think more like a start up. One of the hallmarks of the startup community is an
attitude of giving before you get. And, if we want a culture that promotes changing faster it
means allowing everyone to ask forgiveness and not permission. That might wreak havoc on
the traditional agency hierarchy but it is essential to go fast. Lastly, leave the politics at the door.
Politics kills culture.
9. Have a purpose - One of the biggest things that agencies lack is a purpose larger than
themselves. IDEO is a great example with their emphasis of changing the world through Design
Thinking. A purpose will not only give a rallying cry to everyone in the company but also be a
lightening rod for thought leadership leading to great client and talent recruitment.
10. Focus on transformation not innovation– Often companies try to fit innovation efforts into
their current systems. It just doesn’t work. That’s why Kodak failed. Innovation needs the ability
to pivot and fail. It needs time to find the best path to the future. Instead, most companies have
a bureaucracy that is setup to maximize a mature system. Such a management style will kill
innovation. Open agencies focus on architecting transformation not only for their clients but also
for themselves. It means not making innovation some underfunded appendage but taking the
most profitable part of the agency and transforming it. At the core of an open agency is
changing before you are forced to change.
We’ve talked about change for many years in our business. 2017 has to be year we stop talking
and start doing. Big companies are already capitalizing on the open door of opportunity. Our
competition is now Accenture Interactive, ​IBM Interactive​Experience, Deloitte Digital, PwC
Digital Services, Meredith MxM and YouTube Labs. It’s agency’s turn to take the lead.
Going forward, the most celebrated people in our industry will be those who reinvent the model.
Maybe there needs to be a Cannes Lion for business model reinvention. The time is now.
3. From Brand Platform to Brand as a Platform
By John Winsor
Today, disruption is everywhere. It’s created a powerful cultural tension. As Thomas Friedman
brilliantly pointed out in ​Web People vs. Wall People​, the US presidential election is teaching us
that digital transformation is dividing us. In it, he describes two segments of society, one looking
backwards, the other looking forward. When describing those looking forward he observed:
“Web People understand that in times of rapid change, open systems are always more flexible,
resilient and propulsive; they offer the chance to feel and respond first to change.”
Just like people, brands fall into similar categories, either looking backwards for inspiration or
looking forward. Wall Brands or Web Brands.
Wall Brands can exist for a while still. They can find ways to exploit their current business
models and brand platforms with tried and trued tools, partners and media. It’s a mental model
that’s worked for a long time. Yet, the bureaucracy needed to create these systems becomes
old, tired, stifling, and expensive.
Instead, Web Brands see the world differently. They don’t see permanent brand platforms but,
instead they see their brands as a platform. Instead of a brand being an entity that serves
customers, a brand becomes a facilitator connecting different members of an ecosystem.
First, what is a platform?
By definition, platform has two meanings. First, it is a declaration and documentation of a point
of view, for example a political party’s platform. Second, it’s a physical base structure that can
hold people, things and be built upon. This second meaning of platform has evolved in the
digital era to be technology-based, with the most successful companies creating a digital space
that can hold people and be built upon.
Historically, brands have thought about themselves as the first definition, a declaration of who
they are and what they stand for, a one to many conversation that worked well in the world of
broadcast media. However, in the age of digital transformation, brands need to shift their
thinking and become a foundation for the ecosystem that surrounds them, allowing for
connection and growth through the brand. No longer will it be enough for a brand’s two-way
conversation to exist only via responding on social media. Brands must invite their consumers
in, creating a physical or digital space that can drive connections among all - a many to many
conversation - a platform.
Platforms are at the core of successful digital transformation. They enable more fluid
connections and relationships within existing ecosystems, i.e. marketplaces or networks. The
best platforms ease friction, and result in driving growth within these ecosystems by elevating
the value of each party.
GE’s Evolution
While there are lots of examples of platforms in the startup world, Uber and AirBnB, wreaking
havoc in an industry, how does a traditional brand make the transition to a platform? One great
example is General Electric. GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, ​recently laid down an ambitious vision​,
to be one of the top ten software companies in the world by 2020. Audacious. To make things
even more daunting Immelt told the world there is no plan B. “It’s either this or bust.”
As GE is digitally transforming itself it is focused on creating platforms. With the spawn of new
sensors in every machine that GE and its competitors make, the obvious question becomes:
who will emerge as the company that could create the software that allows these sensors to
connect with each other, and become the backbone of the Internet of Things? To accomplish
this GE has focused its efforts on creating an open platform, ​Predix​, that allows itself, other
companies and developers to contribute to the software development. Predix will connect its
customers with creators of software that drives the Internet of Things.
In another project, GE’s Beth Comstock connected with Local Motors (a company we work with)
to use their co-creation platform, Forth, and their Micro-Factory philosophy to apply a platform
approach to innovation for their appliance division. The effort, named ​1st Build​, has been a
game changer. It’s increased the product development cycle speed 24x, by combining a
collection of open tools from crowdsourcing ideas, co-creating design, and crowdfunding sales.
While this new open approach has been a success it has also caused internal tension. In a sign
of progress, GE’s mindset is changing to embrace this tension and incorporate the in-house
staff with the open platform. Beth Comstock recently said, ​“Leadership is about navigating
tension. Tension is actually good.”
GE is well on its way moving from a brand platform to a brand as a platform. What can you do to
move your brand into the future? Here are three ideas to get started:
1. Change the mental model​ - Like humans, every company has it’s own mental model.
It’s an alchemy of experience, personalities and the culture in which they live. Beth
Comstock’s comment, “Tension is good,” is a great example of a leader challenging a
current mental model. It’s startling to hear. But, sometimes, small words cause big shifts.
Likewise, it’s important to create a mandate. As Jeffrey Immelt said, there is no plan B.
What’s standing in the way of changing your brand’s mental models?
2. Change the incentive structure​ - The story of another great industrial company,
Kodak, and it’s demise is not one about lost opportunity but one about calcified incentive
structures. Everyone inside Kodak was incentivised to efficiently put chemicals on
plastic. It was in their DNA. Every machine in every factory, every accounting system
and bonus plus every activity was about this. To move from the brand platform world to
the brand as a platform world incentive structures must be reinvented. To make their
digital transformation successful GE will also have to rethink their incentive structures.
What is your “chemicals on plastic” incentivization system that’s holding you back? How
can you incentivize your teams to move from the linear pipeline approach of creating
your brand platform to the more organic system needed to create your brand as a
platform?
3. Moving from stories to narratives​ - The last few years people have talked a lot about
brands needing to become storytellers. The act of storytelling only reinforces old brand
platform habits as stories are one to many. Instead, when building your brand as a
platform think about narratives. Narratives are big stories that facilitate a space for
everyone to participate in. There are several prevailing cultural narratives always at play,
the Silicon Valley narrative, the Climate Change narrative, etc. Likewise, both Jeffery
Immelt and Beth Comstock have done a good job in transitioning the GE brand story to a
narrative that invites others within the industry to help steer how manufacturing fits into
the digital era. How do you move your brand story to a brand narrative that allows for
co-creation built on a platform?
4. Accenture Interactive looks to set up in-house trading desks for clients in
threat to agencies
By Gideon Spanier
Joy Bhattacharya, managing director and the UK & Ireland lead at Accenture Interactive,
revealed at a Campaign breakfast briefing that some of the group’s clients are looking to take
their digital media buying in-house.
Bhattacharya said that there has been "a lot" of discussion with clients, particularly around
"programmatic and all this stuff coming out" about a lack of transparency and fraud in the digital
media supply chain.
"We are having certain discussions with our clients" about "how can we set up in-house trading
desks" for them, he said.
"My view would be that’s the way you can drive [a] complete level of transparency."
The move by ​Accenture, the most acquisitive of the management consultants​ in marketing
services, could be a major threat to media-buying groups as it threatens to bypass the role of
the traditional media agency.
Bhattacharya insisted Accenture Interactive did not want to move into media buying.
"That’s a space we think our clients should own," he said. "We would like to help our clients
build that capability in-house and drive complete transparency in that process."
However, Accenture Interactive would be happy to help a client build an in-house trading desk.
"We’ll set it up for them, we’ll help our clients man it and whatever that is required," he said.
Bhattacharaya suggested Accenture Interactive is keen to play a hands-on role in managing
every other part of the media and marketing process for clients – apart from media-buying.
"Everything else we can partner [with clients on]," he explained.
Accenture Interactive has bought ten agencies in digital, design, user experience and creative
services, including ​Karmarama​ and ​Fjord​, as part of an effort to help clients deliver an
"end-to-end" customer experience from new product development and execution to marketing
and delivery.
Industry analysts say brands "in-housing" their media-buying is a growing trend.
Bhattacharya was speaking alongside Ben Bilboul, the chief executive of Karmarama, at
Campaign’s breakfast briefing, called When The Consultants Met The Creatives, in front of a
sold-out audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London.
The breakfast was held in association with SI Partners, the global M&A practice that specialises
in advising creative and technology businesses.
Brian Wieser, an analyst at Wall Street firm Pivotal Research, said in a note last week that it
found there was a "relatively signficiant escalation" in the number of "large brands have brought
programmatic media buying in-house (and taken it away from holding company agencies)".
He pointed "in-house" buying "exists along a continuum, with a range of responsibilities divided
up between marketer and agency", and agencies’ role could increase.
"Overall, the impact of this trend is possibly slightly negative for holding companies because it
leads some marketers to drive more decision making than might have otherwise occurred," he
concluded.
5. Three Ways Your Agency Can Thrive In The Tsunami Hitting The Ad Industry
By John Winsor
As is always the case in marketing and advertising, our industry is changing. But this time, a few
trends are coming to a head and guaranteeing that agencies must change their ways in order to
find success in a turbulent landscape. And, a brand’s partnership can help agencies by
encouraging them to innovate in the new realities of the ad industry.
First, brands are demanding better transparency from their partners. Regrounding in the need to
be an ‘agent’ in service of a brand’s best interest. The new ANA Chairman, Marc Pritchard,
threw down a challenge at the IAB annual meeting in January. He ​outlined​ P&G’s new rules for
agencies and ad-tech companies to get paid, which included meeting transparency standards
and ensuring that everyone use industry-standard viewability metrics, fraud protection and
third-party verification. Marc even put a deadline on compliance by the end of the year. When
P&G talks, the market changes.
Second, brands are taking more control over their relationship with consumers by bringing more
work in-house. Many top advertisers — Apple, Target, Verizon — are focusing their agency
partners on high-level projects and taking on other creative work internally. It not only makes
financial sense but also allows for better control of their brand’s connection with consumers.
This trend will only continue over the next few years.
Third, the sleeping giants of the consulting business have finally arrived. In 2016 Adage named
Accenture Interactive the largest digital agency in the world. And, a ​recent article​ in Digiday
shone a light on how Accenture is building a full agency offering. Deloitte, IBM and other
consultancies are not far behind. As the cover of this week’s AdWeek ​describes​, they’re not only
acquiring agencies to gain the skills but already have the C-suite relationships to drive growth
and deeper brand trust.
These trends can be scary. However, there’s an opportunity in each of them. Our industry has
always been about navigating and evolving the game. Today’s landscape demands agencies
change the game we’re playing.
So, take a deep breath. Here are three things to focus on when aligning your agency to our new
industry realities.
1. Find Your Industry Focus - An agency that works with all industries on brand campaigns is
positioning itself as a generalist. Today’s competitive landscape demands focus. It’s time to pick
one or two verticals and dive deep. Become the world’s leader in a specific category.
Mering-Carson​ has become a go-to for travel, ​Backbone Media​ owns PR in the outdoor industry
and ​Klick​ is bringing a new tech-driven perspective to the health industry. All three have focused
deeply in a category and exploited their expertise. Many agencies think they can’t work with
more than one brand in a category. Working with two competitors in a category is a conflict,
working with three or more shows expertise.
2. Focus on what you do best and collaborate on the rest - Once you’ve figured out the industry
you can best serve, do an honest assessment of your work. What channels are you best at?
What are a bit of a struggle? Once you find the essence of what you’re great at, focus on that. If
you look at the numbers, it’s likely where you’re most profitable, as well. That is where your
talent pool turns into the well-oiled machine it should be. Then, create an ecosystem of partners
to help get the adjacent work done to accomplish the whole picture of what your clients need.
For us at ​Speakeasy​, it’s about leveraging the abundance of open tools, from ​Wonder​ to
Indiegogo​ and ​MoFilm​ to ​Topcoder​. These tools give you access to new forms of creativity that
our digital world has provided. They will help you curate and make sense of the growing creative
abundance we now have access to.
3. Focus on higher level work - It’s no mystery that the rise of procurement has been hard on
our business. However, it doesn’t mean we should overcharge and make up lost revenue in
other ways. That very premise is why procurement has been hardest on us and diminishes the
value agencies should be adding. Brands want to pay you for thought leadership, fresh
perspective and new insights. Focus on the higher level work. Know the brand, its competitors
and its market better than anyone, including the brand itself. That means investing in the right
talent. A small team of talented people will do more to grow your agency than legions of
mid-level people. This type of focus will allow you to be true partners with your clients.
The ad industry is in the midst of its biggest evolution to date. However, it doesn’t need to be an
end of world scenario. There’s never been more opportunity to create ownership of an industry,
a category, a discipline and focus on what you do best.
6. Platform Companies Are Becoming More Powerful - But What Exactly Do They
Want?
By John Herrman
During a February ride in San Francisco, Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, was
recorded arguing with and eventually berating an Uber driver from the back seat of his car. The
driver, who had been working with the company since 2011, accused Kalanick of undercutting
drivers of high-end cars like his, plunging him into bankruptcy. Kalanick responded with a
lecture about the basic economic logic of his company: Soon, the supply of luxury cars on the
app would be reduced, causing demand to increase. Besides, he went on, if the company hadn’t
added a lower-priced tier, it would have been beaten by competitors. This did not satisfy the
driver, which seemed to enrage Kalanick, who erupted into a moralizing tirade. “Some people
don’t like to take responsibility for their own [expletive],” he said, before leaving the car.
The scene in the clip, ​obtained and published by Bloomberg​, was striking. This wasn’t a
manufacturing magnate visiting the factory floor or a retail executive paying a surprise visit to a
struggling location. Indeed, Kalanick’s ambiguous relationship to the driver was, in a sense, the
source of the disagreement between them — a dispute that sailed straight past self-examination
into outright hostility.
Uber has spent the beginning of 2017 mired in controversy. There were allegations of sexual
harassment and intellectual-property theft; ​The Times uncovered​ a brazen effort to thwart local
authorities. These scandals drew scrutiny to Uber’s corporate culture. But the recording of
Kalanick shed light on something else: the model around which the company is built.
Uber, like so many other successful tech companies in 2017, is a “platform business,” one built
around matchmaking between vendors and customers. If successful, a platform creates its own
marketplace; if extremely successful, it ends up controlling something closer to an entire
economy. This is intuitive in a case like eBay, which connects buyers and sellers. Airbnb, too,
resembles an age-old form of commerce, connecting property owners with short-term lodgers.
TaskRabbit and Fiverr connect contractors with people looking to hire them. Some of the largest
platforms are less obviously transactional: Facebook and Google connect advertisers with
users, users with one another, software developers with users. But while the transactions that
happen on their platforms largely take a different form — taps, shares, ads served and scrolled
past — the principles are essentially the same, as are the benefits. These businesses are assetand employee-light, low on liability and high on upside. They aspire to monopoly, often
unapologetically, and have been instrumental in rehabilitating the concept. (The logic is
seductive and often self-evident: Facebook is more useful if everyone is on it, therefore
everyone should be on Facebook.)
Predictably, platforms have long been intoxicating to investors. They’ve also been the subject of
rapturous popular business writing. In their 2016 book “Matchmakers: The New Economics of
Multisided Platforms,” the economists David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee cast the
subject in revolutionary terms, calling for a “new economics” to account for businesses that are
“transforming economies” around the world, “making life easier and better for billions of people”
— the sort of broad and ideological claim previously reserved by economists for capitalism as a
whole.
Amid the cheerleading, a comprehensive criticism of the platform model has been slow to
emerge. Nick Srnicek’s “Platform Capitalism,” published in December, tries to situate the rise of
platforms in a broader history of capitalism and to project those lessons forward. Srnicek recasts
a few features of platform businesses as potentially problematic. Among them is their tendency
to metastasize from transaction enablers to, with sufficient success, participation gatekeepers. A
food-delivery app like Seamless begins its life with promises of liberation, connecting customers
with nearby restaurants, taking care of payments and eliminating phone calls. But in the cities
where it has been most successful, its customer base becomes too big to ignore, even for
restaurants that struggle to afford its steep commissions. In other industries, the stakes are
much higher. An insurgent Airbnb feels as if it’s enabling new types of transactions between
previously unconnected people. A dominant Airbnb might come to resemble something between
a superintendent and a landlord for millions, not to mention a force reshaping cities in its image.
Platform companies have themselves hired economists to help conceptualize and manage the
economies they’ve created. Google, Airbnb, Uber and Amazon have aggressively recruited
professors and researchers to help understand what, exactly, they have on their hands, and
how to expand, regulate and exploit it. Within a rigidly structured platform like Uber, for which
the company sets prices, the economic problems are somewhat akin to those of a command
economy: How low can we push the cost of a ride before drivers stop participating? (Quite low,
for now.) How do we deal with sudden increases in demand? (Surge pricing, controversially.)
How might new drivers be both induced to join the platform and more deeply compelled to stay?
(Through the introduction of vehicle-financing programs and short-term loan services.)
Platforms are, in a sense, capitalism distilled to its essence. They are proudly experimental and
maximally consequential, prone to creating externalities and especially disinclined to address or
even acknowledge what happens beyond their rising walls. And accordingly, platforms are the
underlying trend that ties together popular narratives about technology and the economy in
general. Platforms provide the substructure for the “gig economy” and the “sharing economy”;
they’re the economic engine of social media; they’re the architecture of the “attention economy”
and the inspiration for claims about the “end of ownership.”
But the tensions that platforms like Uber create with their customers, their workers and the world
that surrounds them will soon become harder to ignore as these companies foment economic
and social change, the consequences of which will increasingly be thrust into spectacular
display. The Kalanick video was a P.R. nightmare not just for Uber but also for the platform
economy in general, posing grand questions about the world it promises, or threatens, to create.
The zeal for platforms, combined with the technology industry’s internalization of their merits
and inevitability, will push them into areas where the tensions they create become starker and
the ideologies they carry become more apparent.
Nowhere is that ideological dimension more clear than in the Kalanick video from February.
Driver and founder sat inches apart, alienated from each other by the system over which one
presides and within which the other toils: the founder explaining to the driver how the platform
works and must work; the driver appealing to this person for better pay. It resembles nothing
more than one man remarking on the rain while the other thinks, “Don’t you control the
weather?” Platforms seek total control even as they abdicate responsibility. In other words,
they’re perfect.
For now, the tensions that platforms can breed have been obscured — or at least ignored — in
large part because platformized labor has arrived first in sectors where employment was already
widely precarious and contract-based, like taxi driving. As the model expands, these tensions
may become more visible as workers with more political and social capital are subjected to
them. The recent history of platforms, however, has been defined by the failure of all but a few
smart or lucky people to imagine just how successful and powerful they can be.
7. Why Platform, Not Pipeline, Will Save Your Business
By Tim Clark
Rapidly pacing the front of the room, voice bellowing, arms gesticulating, you’d think Erich
Joachimsthaler, Founder of ​Vivaldi​, was doing his best drill sergeant impersonation from
Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.
Alas, Mr. Joachimsthaler was nowhere near marine barracks; he kicked off a pretty great “Jam
Session” called “Disrupt or Be Disrupted: Embracing Digital in B2B.” Hosted by the ​Institute for
the Study of Business Markets​ and ​SAP Hybris​, the day-long event served as a stark wake-up
call to attendees that digital disruption is here and they need to act now to re-invent their
business models if they want to remain competitive.
And the primary driver to remain competitive, according to Joachimsthaler?
Evolve from the pipeline, to the platform.
“Digital connectivity has been a slow uptick and right now, thanks to technologies like IoT and
Artificial Intelligence, we have reached a very unique spot where everything goes haywire and
connects,” said Joachimsthaler. “You have to evolve from the pipeline to the platform.”
Certainly, the adoption of technology has fundamentally changed the productivity of companies
and created better products. But evolving from this traditional “pipeline” business of making
widgets to one where complimentary services huddle around a platform-like community is
actually the way to go.
Apple​, for example, has become one of most important companies not because of the iPhone
but because it has an app store, a platform where 40,000 developers make apps. “We get value
from the platform because we can download apps and connect with others,” said
Joachimsthaler. “The platform is where the value is created.”
On the other hand, Nokia collapsed because they didn’t have a platform — not because their
phone was inferior.
Other companies, like ​Uber​, create value for very little cost.
“They match drivers with riders on their platform,” said Joachimsthaler. “That’s connectivity.”
Uber Radio can now integrate with rider’s Spotify playlists. Clearly, Uber isn’t thinking about
building better cars, it’s creating value, an interchange, according to Joachimsthaler.
John Deere​ produces amazing products, yet even for a business model dependent on the
pipeline, Deere is also making a run for the platform, ​thanks to IoT technology​ and ​SAP’s HANA
Cloud Platform​. It’s newfangled planter machines, for example, have 77 processors, 6 million
lines of code and connects operators with remote farm managers and other machines.
As a result, Deere has brought together seed companies and machine companies. Researchers
are also connected to the John Deere platform. Value is now created no longer by the tractor
but all these different parties.
“The more people and different parts of ecosystems on the platform the better the value
creation,” said Joachimsthaler, who believes you need the following ingredients to make a great
platform:
● Facilitates interactions between parties
● Open, third party developers or ecosystem
● Creates value on top of technology
● Creates value for all parties involved (social currency)
● Network effects
Turns out ​GoPro​ has created the perfect platform and their story is perhaps the most striking of
all ever since they decided to enter the dwindling digital camera market. Yet in 10 years,
GoPro’s founder and CEO, Nick Goodman became youngest American billionaire and his
company retains a 45% market share.
How did he do it if he didn’t have better product? Platform!
Not only does GoPro capture shots well, it’s also a perfect way of sharing those shots. GoPro
automatically processes the best shots and at the press of a button, it goes to the cloud and
pretty much any social platform you want. Friends around the world see the GoPro branding
and then guess what? They want a GoPro too.
“The value of the product is not the pipeline or better product,” said Joachimsthaler. “The value
is in creating the network. That network creates your marketing.”
8. Transform Or Die: Navigating The Future Of Marketing
By On Marketing
This article is by Greg Paull, Principal of ​R3​ — a global consulting firm focused on improving the
efficiency and effectiveness of marketers and their agencies.
I was fortunate recently to attend the recent ​Brite Conference​ at Columbia Business School in
New York. For ten years, some of the world’s best CMO’s and industry leaders have
generously given their time to share best practice and help cascade some learning.
What struck me in the end, is that too many marketers are looking at latest Uber, Airbnb or Snap
Inc as inspirational high points — when the reality is, they collectively represent the only logical
way forward. Marketing has gone through such a fundamental change in the last five years.
Transform — or die. The Hunger Games is on.
90 Of The Top 100 CPG Brands Declined In Shared Last Year
If you take nothing more away from this little piece, ​take away this​. I had to re-read and re-check
this data several times. It is the one signboard of marketing insight that current business models
are not just under pressure, they are under threat of death. It’s why Unilever bought a ​$200
million revenue shaving business for $1 billion​. It’s why Amazon is predicted by some to
become the ​world’s first trillion dollar company​ — even though it trails Apple and Google in
market cap, and has years and years of losses. Dave Knox wrote about this eloquently in his
recent book ​Predicting the Turn​. A domino can knock over another one in front of it that is 1.5
times its size. Based on this, you can walk to Fifth Avenue in New York and line up 29 dominoes
— and ​knock over the Empire State Building​. As you read the 100 brand CPG Report, this is the
clearest year yet the dominoes are falling.
Innovation Needs The Right Investment
One of the main drivers for this decline is the lack of investment in real R&D. Most CPG firms
have used SKU proliferation as the core driver for incremental growth. I personally have never
tried a ​Salt Watermelon Kit Kat​, but I am sure it is delicious. ​Mark Ritson made a great analogy
with Hollywood movies and the sequel trend. When 2% of your SKU’s represent 50% of your
revenue, you need to more carefully rethink your marketing strategy. We’re working with a large
global CPG leader right now, who literally has no investment in brand driven marketing (that’s
about to change), despite having truly iconic brands. Knox identified four key areas for the future
1. Invest in Change — see what ​Caterpillar did with YardClub
2. Innovation Driven Acquisition — as ​Under Armour​ and Unilever have done
3. Find Partners in Innovation — as Nestle is now doing with ​Henri
4. Disrupt the Disruptors — see what ​Shane Smith and Vice​ have done to media
The Digital Transformation Playbook
David Rogers​, the founder of the Brite Conference and the final speaker of the two day event,
gave the clearest insights possible for marketers as they move forward on this journey. Every
CMO needs to stop what they are doing and take a day out of their lives with their team to see if
they are delivering
1. Digital Transformation Is A Strategy, Not A Technology — It might sound like a ​Black Mirror
episode​, but when Alibaba decided to issue 400 million credit scores for all of their customers,
the wonder wasn’t just in the technology, but in the financial leadership.
2. An Enterprise Is Not A Big Start Up — While we can all quote Mark Zuckerberg from his
youth of “Running Fast and Breaking Things”, a large consumer marketer needs to ​“fail smart”​ .
Few companies have been through as tough a set of challenges as Samsung recently — yet
market shares are up and the stock has almost doubled in the last twelve months.
3. Reimagine Your Competition — Dollar Shave Club’s launch mission was not to sell razors,
but to “the world’s best online CPG company”. Many companies will tell you they want to gain X
percent market share of a Y million dollar market. Only the great companies change the Y, not
the X.
4. Disruption Is Coming — even for disruptive companies. A shock statistic from 2016 was that
Google and Facebook represented ​103% of digital advertising growth​. That means that the
thousands of other Adtech firms collectively declined by 3% — many of them failing faster than
any brick and mortar firm. Go beyond the glass and look for a sustainable advantage.
5. Every Business Must Be A Digital Business — iterate and innovate more rapidly. If you were
to answer the question of which stock grew more in the last ten years — Google — or Domino’s
Pizza — you might be surprised. They have achieved this through honest and innovative
marketing — ​even offering stock now to their customers.
Around the same time as Brite, we held a private ​R3 CMO Roundtable​ for a number of our
clients and other marketing leaders. In the room was both a sense of nervousness, combined
with braggadocio. For those with the right spirit, this is a special time to be building brands.
For CMO’s the Digital Transformation Journey is no longer about investing more in Facebook
and Google Advertising. It’s not about the next app or the next mobile promotion. It requires
some big discussions on the whole consumer journey and business opportunity. It needs fresh
eyes, fresh thinking and fresh legs. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.