Can Wunderman Thompson forge a new industry model?
Can a newborn Wunderman Thompson evolve towards personalisation – or, at least, enhanced personal relevance – through digital technology, and do so without losing sight of the timeless principles underpinning long-term brand building and loyalty generation? asks former JWT staffer Tom Doctoroff
Let us quickly shed a tear for the demise of one of Madison Avenue’s most storied brand names: J. Walter Thompson.
Although the agency’s end was abruptly announced, WPP chief executive officer Mark Read deserves kudos for a tough, clear-eyed decision. Clients are demanding elimination of silos between agencies that offer creative and strategic ideas, and digital services of all stripes.
Could this sad turn of events have been avoided? Yes. Unfortunately, JWT – a noble company I worked with for almost half my life – could have harnessed management savvy and principles to evolve with the times.
But then allegations against the conduct of its former CEO Gustavo Martinez brought a lot of negative publicity in its wake for J. Walter Thompson. L’affaire Martinez was unnecessarily protracted – transaction trumped principle – until Sir Martin Sorrell left the scene. The brand, after two years of innuendo and factionalism, was tarnished, frozen in amber.
So kudos to WPP for launching an effort to provide ‘total solutions’ – a term coined by JWT, by the way – to clients demanding that it bulldoze the walls between ideas and science.
We must first find out what clients are truly asking for, even if they themselves are often unable to articulate their desires. Clients are driven by growth. And this is fuelled by the fusion of brand purpose expressed with breakthrough creative, plus the power of data-fuelled technology which personalises — and deepens — relationships with brand.
Technology and belief in the power of brands were not, are not and never will be incompatible. In fact, in today’s world, one cannot exist without the other. Now the hard part begins: enlightened integration. What will this look like?
First, the executive committee must consist of a united team of warriors, albeit one boasting different skill sets. JWT must contribute leaders who truly believe in the timeless power of brands and their ability to make a difference in the lives of consumers and the world at large.
A new era of consumer empowerment, unleashed by the connectivity of the internet and the ubiquity of mobile phones, has forced agencies to abandon their traditional ‘tell and sell’ model. Today, there are opportunities across an exploding range of touch points. But our goal has always been to broaden the meaning of brands in people’s lives. It is a timeless goal.
Given its data-centricity, Wunderman’s position as captain of this new ship must not militate against this imperative. Consistency of brand purpose must become a mantra at the highest level of the organisation, shared and proselytised by all members.
Second, Wunderman Thompson must avoid a corporate mash-up and unnecessary power plays. All account teams – not just ones serving huge clients such as Johnson & Johnson or HSBC — should be integrated in a way that reflects a clear Wunderman Thompson mission of deepening brand value across time and place.
Each team should be led by genuine brand stewards as well as copywriters, art directors, user experience designers, ‘conventional’ strategic planners who uncover fundamental motivations of behaviour and preference, data scientists, digital ‘makers’ of experiences that expand the role of the brand across touch points, business strategists who know how to extract growth from personalisation. And, yes, media planners – experts in mapping out user journeys.
Third, the term ‘data and analytics’ should be relegated to the ash heap of history. Why? Because it means everything and nothing.
Clients are as confused as agency folk when it comes to harnessing the power of data. There are two approaches to optimisation of ever-expanding data sources. The first is big data mining. In my experience, this helps media buyers optimise targeting and generate bargain-basement e-commerce transactions. Big data uncovers observations, not genuine insights. This data is usually derived from third parties, sometimes unreliable.
The second is hypothesis-led data generation in which a company designs and owns its data platforms. For example, Starbucks’ loyalty card or KFC in China – with artificial intelligence-generated information that provides incremental revenue through insight into individual meal preferences. The goal: Personalising offers to consumers that deepen loyalty.
Fourth, Wunderman Thompson has an opportunity to guide companies to digital maturity. The company must recruit digital transformation experts, who recognise the peril of boiling the corporate ocean. Digital transformation is gradual.
The companies must:
- Think ‘digital first’ with primary products and services digitally delivered, as opposed to clinging to obsolete analogue models.
- Cordon off the traditional businesses if they represents long-term risk of revenue erosion.
- Incentivise people who are preparing for the future by expanding their skill sets, both on- and offline.
- Flatten structures to facilitate cross-functional collaboration. Radical transparency, not hierarchical regimentation, is required for a truly customer-centric approach to long-term relationship building.
- Accept the inevitability of an iterative – that is, test and learn – pathway to digital maturity and reward risk-taking to eliminate fear of failure as a career hindrance.
In conclusion, Read has taken a bold first step in deconstructing silos. Proof, however, will be in the pudding. Can a newborn Wunderman Thompson evolve towards personalisation – or, at least, enhanced personal relevance – through digital technology?
And do so without losing sight of the timeless principles underpinning long-term brand building and loyalty generation? Time will tell. Best of luck to both organisations as they strive to forge a united, purpose-driven entity. They will certainly need it.
Tom Doctoroff is chief cultural insights officer at marketing consultancy Prophet, and has many years of experience working in Asian markets
so you spent half your life [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] while you were there, and now you have the magic solution?
ReplyOne day we will see all WPP agencies consolidate into one. GLOBAL ULTIMATE TOTAL INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS don’t u think?
Replyisn’t that happening at Publicis already?
Reply“Digital First”
What does this [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] mean…I hope senior practitioners will be more responsible instead of slinging this kind of populist talk around to seem relevant.
Digital is nothing but an ecosystem with different rules of execution.
Nobody gives a flying fuck about ads on Facebook.
A well mad film maybe, but that takes time and money.
Ideas will and should always come first.
ReplyMumbrella where are your guidelines? How come flying fuck in. Fully agree with the sentiment though. Esp. ads on Facebook. Detestful crap that we all are suckers to.
ReplyHere you go: https://www.mumbrella.asia/community-guidelines
ReplyIt’d be helpful if the author defined ‘brand purpose’. The inference, based on the generally accepted meaning of this generic term, seems to be that every brand needs to ‘better the world it lives in’ in order to drive preference, which is complete rubbish and very 2017.
ReplyA wise adman who founded a couple of agencies and sold it to different networks once said: All agencies are dustbins with a different names.
ReplyIt’s not the name on the door but the people you are dealing with that matter.
He should know, he was a former ECD of JWT.
The same shop can reach the heights of excellence or the pits under different leaders.
Anyone shedding a tear or chuckling smugly do so in the context of their experience at JWT, Y&R, Burson etc.
History is history. And the future is unwritten.
And anything ‘should’ve, would’ve and could’ve’ is pure speculation.
To be clear…brand purpose is defined as the long-term relationship, meticulously articulated, between consumer and brands over time. It is a brand’s north star. So, of course, “ideas” come first. However, in today’s world, idea’s that don’t instigate behavior change, usually enabled digitally, aren’t effective anymore. The consumer is empowered. As for “digital first,” this is merely a reference to the fact that goods and services are now available anytime and where. Access is no longer a barrier to entry.
Reply“Clients are driven by growth. And this is fuelled by the fusion of brand purpose expressed with breakthrough creative, plus the power of data-fuelled technology which personalises — and deepens — relationships with brand.”
I don’t disagree, but I think there are a couple of vital ingredients missing. It’s not just about brand purpose, creative, and data-fueled technology.
Those are important for sure, but what keeps me up at night are also issues around product strategy and operational efficiency – how do we execute those ideas quickly in a highly complex and matrixed internal organization.
We don’t expect our creative / digital agencies to solve those problems, but having an appreciation and understanding of such commercial painpoints might help frame the agencies’ solutions better, and establish a stronger relationship with clients.
Reply“…Those are important for sure, but what keeps me up at night are also issues around product strategy and operational efficiency ”
Listen to the client above. The number one culprit of such strategy mismanagement are agency planners, the more senior the more culpable they are.
First of all, they are too full of intellectual product nonsense….they make the most convoluted assumptions about a product and no one challenges them. Its like they went up mt sinai and returned with their rubbish carved on a tablet.
They waste 10 days of a 2 week deadline lovingly crafting their fragile theories…and saddle the creatives with a first review 2 days after the brief. Then they use the hurriedly thought up ideas to refine and inform their own feeble thinking.
If you want to start with examining the rot, look at what the planners do first. Make them more efficient and accountable.
Replywhat’s new. most planners wank off to their self-perceived brilliance
ReplyToon has raised a very valid point.
ReplyWhat exactly do agency planners do?
Do they ever solve any client problem?
Has any agency planner ever created anything or won any business on their own?
Can clients see let let alone appreciate the function of agency planners?
Do clients value the contribution of agency planners?
Or do they just overcomplicate the process by getting into arguments with clients and misdirect creative teams with a contrarian creative direction?
What exactly is their net contribution and do they really have any revenue generating KPI?
While creatives are credited and penalised for their ideas, suits celebrated and villanised for their ability or inability to mange clients and projects, I’ve seen agency planners walk away from train-wrecks they create with no consequence.
If auditors conducted a work/time study on what agency planners do and expressed them as a percentage of the payroll, you’ll find a correlation between the decline of network agencies with the rise of agency planners.
Agency planners are high-ticket low-contribution parasites of networks.
“I’ve seen agency planners walk away from train-wrecks they create with no consequence.”
Tell me if you’ve observed this behaviour from planners…I see it all the time, across the board, in every agency.
When the campaign is being created, they strut around splitting hairs on every single word that is part of the idea, castigating anyone who dares to offer even a slightly alternate viewpoint. Most creatives can clearly see that even their CCO is a bit intimidated by the planning head and will never take their side. So they just bite their lip and get on with making work the planner likes.
Then comes the presentation….and the client hates everything.
After this point, you will never hear a planner defend the work or speak up as passionately as when they browbeat everyone in the agency to do their bidding. They simply STFU and pretend nothing happened. And behave exactly the same way during Round #2….3…..and so on.
Shameless buggers.
This is easily the most cowardly, lazy and egregious behaviour and they need to be confronted about it. We cant have them make mistakes that everyone else has to pay for, once the business is lost. This shit has gone on for long enough.
ReplyReally quick reply, as life is short and most of this is BS.
Firstly 100% agree with Tom. Having said that, I suspect everyone did 10 or 20 years ago already. DM had switched from Direct Mail to Digital Marketing. Or one -one marketing hence TTB in JWT, Whole Egg in Y&R and the better known 360 at Ogilvy. Across the road McCann launched MRM and who didn’t do something similar … Ziegler at DDB etc etc. Didn’t take long for the $ to follow the philosophy and most training and acquisitions to be in digital rather than elsewhere.
Client comment, he or she agrees with Tom BUT rightly says, communications ain’t everything. We have product and supply issues too. No wonder folks like Accenture, PWC, EY etc will have more credibility at the board table while we scramble to talk to digital, social and crm managers.
Toon ( hope it’s not my old buddy Toon) thinks the problem lies with planners. Well it’s true there are lots of shit ones but probably no more than shit MDs, or creatives, account folk and “ real agencies” like BMP/adam&eveddb, BDDO, BBH, Client Day/TBWA, W+K have a history of sweeping up both creative and effectiveness awards, plus coming up with products and service ideas … so the suggestion that planners are idealess is simply not true, at least in general …. whether a given agency wants them to have ideas or thinks that is the exclusive terrain of creatives is more a question of company culture.
Overall, of course, clients get the agencies they deserve, which is probably why folk like Volvo and VW, IKEA, California Milk, Nike, to name a few are phenomenally successful, do fantastic famous work and don’t waste reams of paper talking about who is shit vs getting on with producing great work.
Tom, still think you are a great guy.
Toon, even if you are the Toon I know I live, I still do.
Be well, happy and produce good shit.
ReplyReally quick reply, as life is short and most of this is BS.
Firstly 100% agree with Tom. Having said that, I suspect everyone did 10 or 20 years ago already. DM had switched from Direct Mail to Digital Marketing. Or one -one marketing hence TTB in JWT, Whole Egg in Y&R and the better known 360 at Ogilvy. Across the road McCann launched MRM and who didn’t do something similar … Ziegler at DDB etc etc. Didn’t take long for the $ to follow the philosophy and most training and acquisitions to be in digital rather than elsewhere.
Client comment, he or she agrees with Tom BUT rightly says, communications ain’t everything. We have product and supply issues too. No wonder folks like Accenture, PWC, EY etc will have more credibility at the board table while we scramble to talk to digital, social and crm managers.
Toon ( hope it’s not my old buddy Toon) thinks the problem lies with planners. Well it’s true there are lots of shit ones but probably no more than shit MDs, or creatives, account folk and “ real agencies” like BMP/adam&eveddb, BDDO, BBH, Client Day/TBWA, W+K have a history of sweeping up both creative and effectiveness awards, plus coming up with products and service ideas … so the suggestion that planners are idealess is simply not true, at least in general …. whether a given agency wants them to have ideas or thinks that is the exclusive terrain of creatives is morde a question of company culture.
Overall, of course, clients get the agencies they deserve, which is probably why folk like Volvo and VW, IKEA, California Milk, Nike, to name a few are phenomenally successful, do fantastic famous work and don’t waste reams of paper talking about who is shit vs getting on with producing great work.
Tom, still think you are a great guy.
Toon, even if you are the Toon I know I live, I still do.
Be well, happy and produce good shit.
ReplyFunny…typical liberal/progressive type who likes to twist words and make out like every planner is crap. Maybe not in the Droga 5 agency cluster…..but in singapore and the asian region, they all suck.
ReplyOne More Comments: The branding of the new entity is a disappointment. Given the legacy of J. Walter Thomspon, leading with Wunderman tends to throw away intangible assets very unnecessarily.
ReplyStrongly disagree….but to compromise…can we name it Thunderman?
ReplyI would join Thunderman, just for the name.
ReplyLeading with Wunderman makes sense, by far the most future oriented of the two agencies.
However, how will they manage this merger. Two distinct cultures and completely different skill sets.
Not convinced this is positive for Wunderman and not surprised if 50% of JWT’s staff will be gone in 12-18 months. On the flip side the potential is huge.
Reply“….not surprised if 50% of JWT’s staff will be gone in 12-18 months”
well, that’s one way to accelerate progress.
As to wunderman being a “future oriented” company, give me a break:
Replythey are just a direct marketing firm that used to dabble in brochures and now like to use big words like data analytics.
what’s the number of casualties so far?
ReplyHave your say