28/9/2020 Amp spotlight: What innovation means to agencies now | Ad Age

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AMP SPOTLIGHT: WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO

AGENCIES NOW
Some of the community’s leading innovators reveal how they’re staying ahead of the game
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By Ad Age Studio 30 . Published on November 19, 2019.

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"Billy's Lemonade," Zulu Alpha Kilo's not-so-subtle dig at the holding companies' takeover of indie agencies Credit: Zulu Alpha Kilo

The word “innovation” has been in the English language since the 16th century: Humans are hard-wired to hone and
create. So what does that mean for agencies in 2020? The rate at which we innovate—and expect innovation as
consumers—has sped up in recent years, whether it's big brands like P&G embracing "lean innovation" or packaged
goods giants like Mars Wrigley creating a veritable Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. We checked in with some of the
Amp community’s leaders to see how they’re staying ahead of the game by optimizing their work, their processes and
their output to better serve their clients.

Josh Rosenberg, Co-Founder and CEO, Day One Agency

A recent study from Gartner of CMOs found just $1 out of every $6 in marketing and
communications budget is spent on innovation. We know Gen Z is keen to avoid any form of
advertising at all costs. From ad blockers to ad-free platforms like Netflix, this group won’t
tolerate it. We need to keep up to find ways to break through. Relying on just one tactic or
channel won’t work anymore—we’re in a constant need to adapt. Carol Dweck’s theory of
“growth mindset” is a continual inspiration for us and how we engage with our clients. We’re
also big fans of Courier magazine and its weekly newsletter. It’s full of great inspiration from emerging brands
engaging the public in new ways.

David Burfeind, Chief Strategy Of icer, The Via Agency

At Via, innovation is anything that pushes creativity over conformity. Creativity that spans many dimensions, from
how we think to the way we work to what we make. More often than not, the spark comes from beyond the bounds of
advertising, from places like Brain Pickings, NextDraft and Hidden Brain that offer eye-opening takes from the worlds
of psychology, art, science, news headlines, children's books and more. We look at operating models from other
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business models as we reshape our own, leading to our flatter POD structure with shared
accountability, and Vialocity, a program that breaks the traditional freelance model and opens
our door to a more diverse talent pool. We also have a tech scout that gives us a first look at
emerging technologies from an array of start-ups vetted specifically for our clients.

Carolyn Walker, CEO and Managing Partner, Response

Many equate innovation with technology. For us, innovation may or may not include the use or
application of technology. We think innovation is about coming up with new ideas that
positively effect change as it relates to people, processes and products. It's important to
remember that innovative ideas must have a purpose and be grounded in strategy to be
effective. For some clients, AR and VR are innovative technologies that we've been working
into concepts that we are pitching. For other clients, innovation takes the form of how we help
them go to market, using media and creative that hasn't been considered before, like branded podcasts or OTT.

Colin Nagy, Head of Strategy, FF New York

“Innovation” is probably the most overused word in the industry. The most important thing is
to not fall into a habit or pre-set doctrine. Try new things, blow things up and don't retain any
sentimental feelings for past glories. From this, new ideas and approaches can blossom. In
terms of inspiration, I love the email newsletter renaissance going on now. Platforms like
Substack are getting people writing again on the topics that matter to them and building up
their own one-to-one true fan bases. Conversely, I also love the Financial Times for putting out
an incredibly rigorous, quality product that doesn't kowtow to the desire to editorialize.

In terms of books, Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” is making its way around the office. Also, Noma founder René
Redzepi’s book with Jeff Gordinier, which is part memoir, part culinary adventure and a must-read for anyone
concerned with execution. In terms of people, we are inspired by Luke Bailes, the founder of Singita, a hospitality
company with a 100-year mission of conservation and a deep-rooted purpose. Great conferences are few and far
between and often seem like blog posts read out loud, but I think The Conference in Malmo and Monocle's Quality of
Life conferences stand out.

Chris Ne , Executive Director of Creative Technology and Innovation, The Community

We stress the importance of landing innovation in an applied way. We have used innovation to
build products within our community and applied research to prototype foundational tech that
can be applied to our brands. We’re also developing new areas of business born out of this
division to evolve beyond service. Six years ago, post production shifted to accommodate a VR
workflow and four years ago, data moved from systems thinking to science and learning. It is
out of necessity that our industry evolves to meet the spectacle of technology even if it is
short-lived. We’re working to ingrain a hunger to innovate in our people and demanding it in our practices, just as it is
for our clients.

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We send Communitarians to a mixture of brand events and experience-driven conferences, headlined by SXSW, F8,
MWC, CES, and Google I/O. From a tech perspective, we’re always tinkering with everything from bio monitoring
technology to WebAR to generative AI. We find R&D to be an essential part of our ideation process as our connected
world moves faster. Two other topics stick out right now: bridging the diversity gap in AI, and climate practices—
specifically, how we can help combat the expected rise in sea levels, because we’re a coastal agency. We’re inspired by
the unknowns, fueled by tech and committed to create work that is for good but also happens to be quite good.

Kenny Nguyen, CEO and Co-Founder, ThreeSixtyEight

To be indispensable, today's agencies can't just be focused on working in a client's business,
but also on their business. This means vendors need to constantly observe and gut-check their
clients' effectiveness in solving their customers’ problems—the various external and internal
consumer experiences being executed, the issues within it, and the formula on how decisions
are made around priorities, resource allocations and processes. Agencies need to constantly
challenge their clients to figure out the questions they should be asking but aren't. It's
imperative to build trust by coming in with a solution-agnostic mindset and moving the ego aside with the
understanding that your agency can't do everything, getting in the habit of connecting the client with vetted partners
that can better help answer those questions. This is exactly why we developed our Free Folk network, where we can
call in outside talent to consult on issues our in-house talent rarely faces. We recommend reading Clayton
Christensen's “The Innovator's Dilemma” about his theory of jobs or taking his course on Disruptive Strategy at
Harvard Business School Online.

Steve Parker Jr., CEO and Co-Founder, Levelwing

I feel strongly that innovation only comes from having invested in creating a strong foundation
for a client above all else. Many brands and agencies tend to skip the hard work of building
these fundamentals, like standardization of data, analytics tracking and tagging architecture,
research and customer analysis. When that’s in a controllable place, then and only then can
you truly innovate and shoot for big changes and ideas. I’d define innovation as doing those
little things better than others, because it's so rare. That said, in 2020 I see a need for brands to
evolve in three core areas: controlled and structured data process; thoughtful, mission-driven storytelling; and
changing privacy and data ownership laws. The one book I recommend to everyone is “Turning Pro” by Steven
Pressfield.

Mike Woods, Director of Immersive Content and ECD, m ss ng p eces

We are all actively predisposed to look for either concepts or new ways of improving existing methodology, be it in
production, technology, ideation or creating entirely new concepts. For us, the perfect innovative mix is taking a really
difficult or new piece of software, hardware or methodology and marrying it to something relevant. Whether we're
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helping launch a product for Facebook or using outdoor AR for brands, it's the magic of
bringing exciting new methods to huge audiences that really drives us.

We isolate all technical and cultural shifts as we see them happening. When we present to
clients, we don't tend to show them much existing work. We tend to show them the work we
will be doing in the future, and we challenge them to join us.

John Limotte, CEO and Executive Creative Director, Mustache (part of Cognizant
Interactive)
The most fundamental innovation I've seen of late, particularly in the direct-to-consumer
landscape, is about balancing creativity with efficiency. CMOs today have to deliver more with
less, tasked with near-term ad performance while still needing to build brand recognition and
loyalty through engaging storytelling. This calls for content that both entertains and prompts
a desired action or business result. All the while, viewing habits are becoming more
fragmented, with an almost infinite number of places for consumers to spend their time. To deliver on all of this, we
need to stay nimble, constantly adapting our production styles and creative approaches while at the same time
strengthening those critical platform partnerships that give us a data-driven performance edge.

Gary Stein, Chief Integration Of icer, Duncan Channon

We try to have a really rigorous definition of innovation to filter out the noise. We define it as
tech that solves real problems in a new and better way. We force the technology and
ourselves to do a bigger job, which is usually creating something killer for the consumer. We
look at the standard tech conferences and blogs, but I think it’s important not to get swept up
in tech for tech’s sake. The sources I like the best are the ones who are thinking strategically
about consumer experiences—people like Mark Pollard of Mighty Jungle, who doesn’t
necessarily talk about innovation, but focuses on the consumer and strategy. Thinking about consumers’ lives first
keeps you grounded.

Bruce Gray, Co-CCO, Admirable Devil

Our business is about freeing creativity to make change that creates growth. But the classic
agency-relationship business model is essentially set up as a power struggle. They tell us the
assignment, we come back with ideas, then try to sell them on falling in love with our favorite
one at first sight. It's no wonder most relationships only last a year or two. Distrust and fear
erode creativity. We’re flipping the model to make it about empowering our partners—rather
than consolidating power. Great ideas are born out of collaboration, and as a bonus, everyone
is a lot happier, which of course helps the work, too. For inspiration, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about creativity
through a lens of spirituality. “Soul Purpose” from Kirk Souder of Enso is slightly further afield, but relevant to
bringing more humanity to business.

Petra Tomekova, Art Director, ArtVersion

Inspiring change-makers and corporate thinkers is our forte. We often work with innovative
departments to enact change. An aesthetically effective design that creates value for the client
is key. This idea doesn’t have to be a brand new discovery that the world has never seen. It can
simply be how the design is executed for a particular company or organization that makes it
unique.

The biggest potential adaptation for organizations and companies concerns data-driven design. Gathering any
information (stats and data) from the platform about what works and what doesn’t is very important at the beginning
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of the design process. At our agency, we rely on that fusion of data and design daily. Motivation to create a meaningful
design starts with a good understanding and knowledge of the subject matter. Knowing current trends and having an
artistic vision leads to exceptional design.

Tim Leake, SVP Chief Marketing & Innovation Director, RPA

We talk about innovation as evolving to become everything our clients need us to be, before
they know that’s what they need. It’s a never-ending process. We want to stay just far enough
ahead of the curve to be able to confidently capitalize on new opportunities, but not so far
ahead that we’re operating in a reality that doesn’t exist yet. It’s not about shiny objects or
flashy toys. It’s about understanding how tech is changing human behavior—and how human
behavior is changing tech. It’s about finding ways to be more efficient and effective, to
connect with people and proactively create solutions. To constantly stay a few steps ahead requires a team.
Inspiration comes from many places, people and disciplines. We might find inspiration at CES, talking with our clients’
customers, reading MIT Technology Review, going to the ANA Masters of Marketing conference, meeting with ad-tech
companies or observing how our 8-year-old kids watch videos.

Peter V. Cook, Director of Interactive Production, Cornett

Credit: John Buckman
To innovate you have to have makers on your team—people who are using tools or technology
in new ways for their own personal curiosity. Once you learn the inner workings of a
technology, you start to learn what it can do, even if it is not necessarily designed to do it. And
I’m using the term “technology” loosely here; it could be anything from AI to printmaking.
Make it part of everyone’s job to innovate. Look for great briefs, but even if you’re not getting
them, keep pitching new ideas to existing clients. You have to have clients who are comfortable
lettings you do things you’ve never done before.

Je Danley, Director, Innovation and Partnerships, VMLY&R

Brands are often looking for ways to engage their audiences in new and powerful ways. As a
team, we seek to inspire and enable breakthrough work that unlocks new value for our clients
and their audiences. We are constantly evolving our innovation process and ecosystem to meet
their dynamic needs. We leverage our relationships with technology partners—Amazon,
Microsoft, Adobe and others—to keep our internal teams and our clients ahead of the
curve. We are even changing our office space to embrace a more open and fluid
environment. We seek inspiration at a variety of conferences, including Mobile World Congress and CES, where many
new devices and experiences make their debut. We also attend Google I/O, Apple’s WWDC and other technology events
where we learn about new capabilities that shape the future of innovative experiences. Relationships with both large
technology partners and startup founders are key. We’re always on the lookout for any opportunity to gain early
access to a new technology or way of thinking that can give our client partners an advantage.

Eric Fowles, CEO, Voltage

We’ve been defining innovation through workshops—creative, brand and product. Our
collaborative process helps to identify opportunities for clients. As part of these workshops,
we also leverage our network of private equity and venture partners to provide business
insights and, at times, capital. It’s still early in the process, but we have two projects we’ll be
launching: The revenue model is completely different than fee-for-service. Part of this is
steering clients to think like DTC brands and develop direct relationships with their
customers.

Sean Bell, Group Strategy Director, Content & Innovation, Zulu Alpha Kilo
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For us, innovation is about finding new ways to create value for our clients. It takes the form of
new creative formats and also new business models and ways of thinking about marketing.
Grappling with the pace of change today requires us to combine more disciplines than ever
before, from analytics to customer experience to design and more. With analytics specifically,
knowing when data can be a catalyst for ideas and when it should play a supporting role is of
particular importance. We’ve invested in data science over the past few years and will
continue to do so as long as it helps our clients grow.

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About Ad Age Studio 30

Ad Age Studio 30 is the creative content arm of Ad Age. Built on the same bedrock of journalistic integrity, Ad Age Studio 30
specializes in multichannel membership content for Ad Age subscribers, as well as custom and sponsored content that resonates
with our audience. To partner with Ad Age Studio 30, email James Palma at jpalma@adage.com.
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Ad Age Studio 30
Ad Age Studio 30 is the creative content arm of Ad Age. Built on the same bedrock of journalistic integrity, Ad Age Studio
30 specializes in multichannel membership content for Ad Age subscribers, as well as custom and sponsored content that
resonates with our audience. To partner with Ad Age Studio 30, email James Palma at jpalma@adage.com.

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