ABSTRACT: NOT JUST DOING DIGITAL: BEING DIGITAL
The business
of creative
agencies in
the digital age
“Not Just Doing Digital: Being
Digital” includes a thorough and
comprehensive analysis of the
current situation of creative
agencies in Latin America and
include some useful ideas to recover
competitiveness and profitability.
AS SEEN in different articles published during 2017
and 2018 (AdAge, The Wall Street Journal, Financial
Times, Bloomberg), the entire advertising industry
keeps struggling. We are in a situation where
making just minor adjustments to survive in the
new digital economy is not enough anymore, and
there is no chance of viability without facing a
deep transformation change.
“Not Just Doing Digital: Being Digital: A
disruptive manifesto for creative agencies”
assesses the reasons why in the past years
advertising agencies were unable to keep the pace
of the multiple shifts demanded from both our
clients and employees, and characterizes the
changes required to flourish in this new era.
Many agencies in Latin America are rooted in
the baby-boomer paradigm of the industrial era,
with vertical organisational models; silo mentality
and legacy processes that are simply not enabled
to deal with the current scenarios where
communications are more diverse, and advertising
is just a portion of the client’s marketing mix.
Today, creative agencies need to be more
dynamic, and technology, agility and innovation
are paramount to keep the business running.
Amazingly, creative agencies refuse to change,
even when everything is radically shifting:
CARLOS
competitors, workforce, consumers, media, clients,
marketing practice and leadership styles.
Since its very inception, Digital as a practice did
not bring change into the outdated structures of
the creative agencies. Although most of them
currently offer Digital services, they lacked
conviction, and struggled to adapt and include it
seamlessly into their portfolio. Mainly because
they have been enforcing Digital into an ATL
(Above The Line) style, which is not suited for it.
The manifesto is intended to show some ideas to
close the gap between doing digital and being
digital in advertising. Agencies must prosper and
not just survive in the new digital era, where
technologies transformed every aspect of the
business and the old industrial model is losing
power to an emerging digital economy at an
astounding rate.
Hence, you will not find techniques to improve
current Digital services in the agency because it is
not enough to optimise this discipline. It is
required to shift the mindset and transform the
full agency instead. In summary: being digital,
not just doing digital.
IDC states that organizations either will adopt
digital transformation and will prosper or will not
be able to embrace the digital disciplines and will
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 ABSTRACT: NOT JUST DOING DIGITAL: BEING DIGITAL
battle for survival. This is widely agreed by Digital
Transformation analysts in every article. Brian
Solis wrote: “Either you’re disrupting or you’re at
risk of getting disrupted.”
The main purpose of this manifesto is to create
awareness about the urgent need to initiate a
process of Digital Transformation in creative
agencies in Latin America as a proactive
investment for adapting to market disruption
before it is too late. Otherwise, we will not be able
to run neither our traditional business nor a digital
one.
I call it ‘The 3D’s of advertising’: Develop
Digital DNA.
In order to explain the Digital Transformation
approach, I designed a proprietary framework
tailored for our advertising industry, considering 5
pillars: business, people, process, technology and
culture. Then, I developed eighteen digital
paradigms that will contribute to Digital
Transformation, along with four traditional
principles. These principles are essential to
recover competitiveness and profitability and are
mandatory for the digitisation process. Finally, a
chapter dedicated to drive necessary changes in
the current management model. Let’s further
explore the five pillars:
I
The
Business
OUR current business and operational model
prevents the development of any initiative of
transformation because creative agencies are an
outdated organisation, with numerous issues in
their internal processes, management and culture.
These factors are all blockers for Digital
Transformation and for the shift to a truly digital
organization.
Therefore, the value proposal must change. In
order to be able to keep the doctrine of creativity
(which also drives additional revenue in media
and production amongst others), it is required to
allow and to foster a culture of innovation
through experimentation.
Innovation plus creativity is needed to develop
new ways to reach people. With such a diversity
CARLOS
of options for consumers, it is not enough to
create an extraordinary message but to develop
the channels as well. That is a highly challenging
endeavor for advertising today.
The main paradigms associated with this pillar
are: innovation, the fragmentation of revenues,
II
B2B development and transparency.
The
People
CAUDRON & Van Peteghem in the book ‘Digital
Transformation’ wrote: “If the management waves
disruption away in ignorance, then employees (who
often do consider it a threat) will lose faith in their
company. If they are helpless or afraid you will get
poor results, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Does the
management see disruptors as an enemy? Then so will
the employees. Instead of being paralysed by fear, they
will start fighting back.”
Therefore, two opposite forces: maintaining the
status-quo or transforming the organization
(doing digital vs. being digital) will each
produce a different impact in the people, and in
the entire company.
Without the collaboration of the employees
there is no chance to drive any change process.
Hence, the human resources role is essential to the
Digital Transformation effort to engage and
conduct people to participate; and to manage the
inevitable clash with millennials.
The millennial generation is rapidly becoming
the predominant workforce in almost every
organisation. They share different styles and
expectations than the ones from the people who
run the agency, mostly baby-boomers and Gen-X
executives who oversee an outdated business.
Whereas millennials are flexible, energetic,
technology-proficient, digitally-savvy,
teamwork-oriented, collaborative and
entrepreneurial workers. Creative agencies offer
silo mentality, basic tooling and zero-orientation
to collaborate in an environment that refuses to
change.
This pillar is represented in the following digital
paradigms: liquid talent, crowdsourcing, customer
centricity and social media engagement.
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III
The
Processes
IT is difficult to understand why creative agencies
are so careless about processes. We have heard
many times that processes kill creativity, but they
are just excuses not to manage as needed.
In order to grow as a business every company
needs to remain competitive. As a result, the goal
for all organisations should be to find and retain
their competitive edge. This requires true
understanding of how work gets done, with focus
on continuous improvement.
Glamour, informality and creativity are not
mutually exclusive with the processes that enable
an organisation and its people to be productive,
efficient, effective, organised, predictable and
profitable.
Competitiveness in the advertising industry is no
longer confined to the creativity realm. Although
of the utmost importance for our business,
creativity loses relevance in the digital age against
a more diverse and professional competence that
are threating creative agencies with a different set
of skills like innovation, agility, flexibility, quality
and lowering costs.
Creative agencies in Latin America can do a lot
to improve their processes without impacting
creative quality nor their value. It is just the
opposite. It is about redefining their operational
excellence and complying with client demands for
IV
faster, better, and value.
The
Technology
TECHNOLOGY is the ultimate enabler for the
process of change and transformation. But Digital
Transformation is not just an upgrade or shift of
the current technologies in use by the
organization; it is a process-changer. Every process
that touches communications, relationships or
transactions is potentially changing due to digital
technology.
CARLOS
The advertising industry is not used to run its
business by means of deep usage of technology,
therefore opportunities to take advantage of the
most recent developments in this field thrive.
Today, investment in new technologies is
essential to keep the pace of the current trends
and to connect brands with consumers. If
agencies do not apply and master the techniques
and tools that facilitate this new engagement rules,
they will run out of business.
The adoption of cutting edge technology is the
path into digital paradigms as B2B, AI,
innovation, new revenue streams, transparency,
control, liquid talent management, crowdsourcing,
V
customer centricity, automation and agility.
The
Culture
“CULTURE is a multi-layered core at the heart of every
successful digital transformation. In our increasingly
digital world, a digital culture cannot thrive if your
company operates in silos with disconnected or
under-connected business functions. With technology
as an enabler, a modern workplace needs to find that
harmony between the hierarchy of a traditional org
structure and the fluidity of a network; just as a
modern smart building needs to find the harmony
between maximizing employee productivity and
environmental sustainability.” (Eswaran, A., 2017.
Starting a digital transformation? What you must
get right from the start).
In such a baby-boomer organisation like creative
agencies in Latin America, with old rigid rules
and largely wedded to traditional working
practices, cultural change might represent the
most difficult barrier to digitisation.
It is essential that agency management
understand that the effort for transformation must
be driven top-down. They must lead, drive and
support a process for deep cultural change that
fosters innovation and agility, and that enables
flexibility and openness to experimentation and
failure.
In the digital age, organisations live in a
permanent beta, which is exactly the opposite
to the current state of stagnation in
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advertising agencies in Latin America.
Collaboration, social media, two-way
communication and every initiative that make the
people feel that the company is listening to them
and reacting accordingly are strong contributors
to cultural change and transformation. HR plays
a major role in this process and creative agencies
must develop engagement plans immediately in
18
order to allure and retain the best talent.
Digital
Paradigms
THE digital paradigms included in the manifesto
are: innovation as a business and value-added
activity, B2B as a New Business development
model, fragmentation as an alternative to
full-service accounts, generation of new revenue
streams for growth, transparency to create value,
liquid talent management to optimize the
workforce, crowdsourcing to take advantage of
scattered talent, customer centricity to improve
employee experience, collaboration and social
media to review agency’s on-line activities, project
management to streamline processes, agility to
improve our competitive edge, Design Thinking to
develop products and services along with our
clients, the concept that everything is digital to
optimize delivery, automation to gain efficiency,
‘big data’ as a revenue stream, deploy flexible and
remote ways of working, and finally, AI to include
4
technology and innovation as a highly
value-added service.
Traditional
Principles
THEY are related to best practices of management
that creative agencies are not applying at all.
They all represent missed opportunities, but they
are also essential to enable transformation efforts.
Control to run the business more efficiently,
human resources to improve talent management,
CARLOS
the concept that everything has its price and to
make visible the deliverables and measure
productivity, and synergy to tear down the silos
that prevent efficiency and agility.
M
The
Management
LEADERSHIP in creative agencies is challenged by
the current business landscape. Top management
must adopt immediately some traditional best
practices and at the same time enable and drive
initiatives for Digital Transformation that pose
deep cultural changes in the organisation.
The new digital era requires leaders to act from
the middle and not from the top, adopting a
different role more focused on enablement and
collaboration, breaking the rigid hierarchical
structures and obtaining constant feedback from
collaborators to make better decisions.
Operations and execution are essential
components of any transformed agency, therefore
appointing a Chief Operating Officer, a C-level
executive with relentless focus in productivity,
efficiency, agility and automatisation is
paramount. This executive will be responsible for
the quality of the delivery and for the overall
margin. Leaving room for CEOs and CFOs to
focus on their main areas of responsibility.
In the age of information, companies must
develop a culture of openness and foster more
diverse relationships, therefore CEOs should
develop strategies to ‘jump the fence’ of the closed
circle of the advertising industry.
Finally, agencies need to shift the focus. For
years, we have been hearing that advertising
agencies are striving for survival. I propose to ban
those words from our vocabulary and use ‘success’
instead – Let’s aim for success. Not just for the
sake of motivation, but to be great places to work.
Advertising today require leaders to be brave
and bold. No one likes to work in an industry that
is in a permanent state of survival, striving,
cost-cutting and moaning.
Let us be sexy and glamorous again, but overall:
let us be Digital. 
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