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WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

A Collection of Thoughts on Creativity & Innovation

2 

CREATIVITY 

AND INNOVATION, 

WE’D ARGUE, ARE 

NOTHING LESS THAN 

THE CORE OF 

OUR BUSINESS AND 

PROGRESSIVELY 

MORE ABOUT ITS 

FUTURE. 

3

4 

INTRO- 

DUCTION 

DAVID SABLE, 

GLOBAL CEO, 

Y&R 

Creativity + Innovation. Two lofty 

words, two ideas, two thoughts 

that are increasingly intertwined, 

interchanged and, in our opinion, 

confused. In fact, so much so that 

at Y&R we have created our own 

specific definitions to help us and 

our clients understand the difference 

between them, as well as the power 

and leveragability they have in 

tandem. 

Creativity and innovation, we’d 

argue, are nothing less than the core 

of our business and progressively 

more about its future. And we believe 

it’s the combination of the two that 

is increasingly taking center stage at 

Cannes. 

Here is how we define them: 

Creativity is storytelling and 

innovation is how we drive the 

stories through channels. It is the 

combination of the two that creates 

rich new experiences for consumers 

that attract them to a brand and 

sustain their loyalty. 

Creativity without innovation is 

increasingly one-dimensional and 

ineffectual. Innovation without 

creativity is ultimately boring. By 

definition, both reflect things that are 

new. And so it follows that the culture 

we create for a brand continually 

needs the power of creativity and 

innovation to keep it moving forward. 

Without question, we have amazing 

technologies and social media that 

we can use today. But let’s be clear. 

Innovation is something larger and 

more powerful than new technology. 

Our industry is already too littered 

with what I call GMOOTs—the 

reflexive give-me-one-of-those—a 

Facebook page, something “viral,” 

or whatever is bandied about as the 

technology du jour, a clear confusion 

of what’s current in technology rather 

than what gives a brand its own 

unique currency. 

Given creativity plus innovation, 

our real emphasis should be on 

hunting for smart new ideas, new 

ways of understanding consumers 

and interpreting data and 

understanding the changing realities 

of the marketplace. And, yes, figuring 

out the enormous potential of 

technology to tell our brand stories. 

Some of the joys of our business 

are challenging old assumptions, 

making new discoveries, thinking 

about what we do differently. In this 

volume, we’ve asked some of our 

people from all over our network to 

share what they’re thinking about 

right now. We’ve also gone outside 

the agency and asked a couple of 

people we deeply respect to share 

some of their ideas. We hope these 

pieces trigger your own thoughts and 

discussions, and we’d be happy to 

hear from you at ideas@yr.com. 

Thousands of years later, Homer’s 

epic stories are still being told. 

They’ve evolved from live storytelling 

to written manuscript. They’ve been 

mounted on the stage, made into 

movies, Internet sites and games, 

and who knows what forms they will 

take in the future. Combining the 

brilliant story with every generation’s 

latest technology has helped keep 

Homer’s stories as alive today as they 

were back then. It’s up to us to do 

the same for our clients…and that will 

take both creativity and innovation. ■ 

5

6 

HOW LUCKY 

FOR US 

THAT WE LIVE IN 

A TIME OF SUCH 

SWEEPING 

TECHNOLOGICAL 

CHANGE, 

WITH SO MANY 

OPPORTUNITIES 

TO REACH PEOPLE, 

LOCALLY & GLOBALLY, 

IN SUCH 

INTERESTING 

WAYS. 

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8 

UNLEASHING 

THE ENDURING 

POWER OF 

GREAT STORIES 

TONY GRANGER, 

GLOBAL CHIEF 

CREATIVE OFFICER, 

Y&R ADVERTISING 

At this past year’s Academy Awards, 

Martin Scorcese’s Hugo won 11 

nominations—more than any other 

film. Extraordinary. And they took 

home five, a great showing. 

For those of you who haven’t seen 

the movie, it’s a classic coming-ofage 

tale of a sad orphan and his 

quest to fulfill his father’s dream, 

along with a parallel archetypal plot 

of redemption for a silent filmmaker 

forgotten in a world that has moved 

on to talking pictures. Oh yes, and it’s 

3D, filled with adventure and chase 

scenes, and you’d better bring your 

tissues, too. 

I pretty much love anything Martin 

Scorcese does, but I particularly 

adored this film because it speaks 

to everything we aspire to in our 

industry—telling great stories that 

connect to their audiences in 

incredibly innovative ways. Add to 

that the particularly timely twist 

that Scorcese, in my opinion, is the 

first director to use 3D in a way that 

advances the story, rather than being 

a distraction to the story. 

Telling a great story is, of course, 

as old as time. But so are innovation 

and technological advances. From 

the earliest oral telling of Gilgamesh 

in ancient Mesopotamia to the 

Gutenberg Bible that rolled off the 

first printing press, the stories, the 

archetypes, the myths have endured, 

and at every stage innovation has 

helped make the stories better and 

relevant to the time and place. 

How lucky for us that we live in a 

time of such sweeping technological 

change, with so many opportunities 

to reach people, locally and globally, 

in such interesting ways. Today’s 

global landscape of websites, blogs, 

tweets and texts is helping us make 

the stories better, the connections to 

consumers stronger. 

Technology is the underpinning 

of innovation—it makes it happen. 

But innovation is not simply about 

bells and whistles. One of my favorite 

and arguably one of the most 

revolutionary marketing innovations 

of the 20th century was actually 

pretty low tech. The invention of the 

paperback created a mass market for 

books by simply shifting from hard 

to soft covers, which reduced cost, 

created access to a much broader 

populace and democratized reading 

once and for all. And its impact 

was felt in so many arenas, from 

publishing to politics. 

Telling stories, and telling them 

through the smartest, most strategic, 

most relevant channels. That’s the 

essence of our business. I don’t buy, 

as some do, that there is a great 

divide between the media we’ve 

been using for years and the ones 

proliferating now. In fact, the traffic 

back and forth between electronic 

and printed books is made up of both 

older and young people who like 

them both. I do believe, however, that 

we have to make them meaningfully 

connect to tablets, smartphones and 

social media. 

As has always been the case, each 

evolution demands that we redefine 

the creative possibilities. When we 

do that, when we make interesting, 

innovative leaps and connections, we 

unleash the enduring power of great 

stories and storytellers. ■ 

9

10 

CREATIVITY 

DOESN’T NEED 

TO MAKE 

SENSE... 

IF IT DRAWS 

YOU IN. 

11

12 

THE 

THINKS 

WE CAN 

THINK 

SANDY THOMPSON, 

GLOBAL DIRECTOR 

OF PLANNING, 


Today, more than ever before, there 

is just so much to read. To learn. To 

absorb. 

So what do I read? 

Every morning I log onto CNN and 

BBC. Quick bits of information, without 

the repetition of broadcast. I can dig 

into what I want and ignore the rest. 

I have my favorite books: Chocolat 

by Joanne Harris left me thinking about 

the power of something so simple as 

chocolate. Good and evil. Love and 

lust. 

And yet, there is one book I go back 

to over and over again. It was read to 

me as a child and I read it repeatedly 

to my own children. Today it has a 

place of honor on the shelf next to art 

references, classics and favorites. It has 

travelled with me from the village of 

Teeswater, where I grew up, to Toronto, 

where my own children were born, then 

overseas to Hong Kong for eight years. 

It lived with us for a while in Brooklyn, 

back to Toronto and now has a home in 

Venice Beach. 

My version was published in 1975 

and had the corner chewed off back in 

the early 1990s by my son’s rather large 

golden Labrador. I think the dog was 

actually jealous of the book, as every 

night my son and I would curl up to 

read it over and over again. 

So, what is it? 

Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! by Dr. 

Seuss. 

As a strategic planner, my job is to 

think of the things that many don’t. 

To get absorbed in the obvious and 

find truth in the every day. 

“You can think up some birds. That’s 

what you can do. You can think about 

yellow or think about blue…” or “You can 

think about gloves. You can think about 

Snuvs. You can think a long time about 

Snuvs and their gloves.” 

Too often in this job we look 

for the unobvious. Something that 

seems different, new or fresh. After 

having been in the business for so 

long, I laugh when asked “How is 

this different?” Different is often 

incremental these days. What sticks…is 

what’s real. 

“Schlopp schlopp. Beautiful schlopp. 

Beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top.” 

Occasionally it might be schlopp 

you are dealing with, but our job is 

to find the positive. To discover what 

inspires. You can’t build a brand on a 

negative…so you put a cherry on top. 

Great planners know how to 

visualize what the truth looks like. What 

it takes to make people connect. 

Great planners think. They think of 

what makes some of the most obvious 

things so beautiful. They find simplicity 

in the truth. And they find ways to bring 

it to life. To inspire. To create. 

Dr. Seuss had the uncanny ability to 

take the simple and make it creatively 

inspiring. 

“And why is it so many things go to 

the Right? You can think about that 

until Saturday night.” 

Oddly enough, I can quote most of 

the book. Frankly, I think I learned more 

from Dr. Seuss than I ever did from 

my years of university education. He 

taught me how to love the simplicity of 

what you see. He inspired me to dream 

big. And he made me realize that 

creativity doesn’t need to make sense. 

If it draws you in. If it makes you 

want to go back to it over and over 

again, sticking in your brain, tickling 

your ear, making you smile for what 

it does and not what it says…then 

you have made a connection that is 

grounded in the truth. 

Dr. Seuss taught me to keep things 

simple. To find stories in the obvious. 

And creativity in the every day. ■ 

13

14 

IS THERE 

STILL A 

MARKET FOR 

SOLUTIONS 

THAT DON’T 

INSPIRE? 

15

16 

INNOVATION AS 

CREATIVITY 

RICK LIEBLING, 

CREATIVE CULTURALIST, 


NEW YORK 

If you think about it at all, you 

probably think of innovation and 

creativity as two distinct things. 

Innovation happens in the lab, 

creativity in the studio. Innovation is 

the domain of the business, creativity 

of the artist. 

Now, perhaps you could argue that 

creativity has been innovative. Think of 

Picasso, or Borges. But it’s not so easy 

to think of innovation as being creative. 

Innovation makes things better (sliced 

bread) or more efficient (the assembly 

line) or better and more efficient (the 

Snuggie), but rarely has innovation 

been creative. 

Or at least it wasn’t. But something 

has changed. Innovation has become 

sexy. Maybe we have Steve Jobs to 

thank for this. Apple makes products 

that not only deliver industry-leading 

innovation, but do so with a design 

aesthetic worthy of a museum. It’s 

no coincidence that innovation has 

undergone a redefinition at the same 

time as the rise of design over the 

last decade or so. The ascendency of 

digital culture, the removal of barriers 

to entry and a networked world mean 

that the traditional roles of innovators 

and creators have blended and 

merged. 

Increasingly we live in a world not 

of innovation and creativity, but rather 

innovation as creativity. Take a look at 

Kickstarter. It’s filled with technological 

wizardry masquerading as art. Or is that 

art, with a hearty engineering DNA? 

Either way, it’s clear that we’ve entered 

a new era. An era where “Creative 

Technologist” is an aspirational job title 

in the ad industry. 

Nowhere is this paradigm shift more 

evident than in the emergence of the 

New Aesthetic, as preached by James 

Bridle: “The New Aesthetic is not a 

movement, it is not a thing which can 

be done. It is a series of artifacts of 

the heterogeneous network, which 

recognizes differences, the gaps in 

our overlapping but distant realities.” 

In short, the New Aesthetic is being 

created by our manipulation of and 

reaction to digital technology as a 

driving force in contemporary culture. 

From BitTorrent to bots, technological 

innovation is informing a new creative 

grammar that is being picked up by 

everyone from youth subcultures to 

Madison Avenue. The brilliant, and 

often beautiful, hacks of the Xbox 

Kinect system eloquently demonstrate 

our headlong rush toward this New 

Aesthetic. Projects like The Listening 

Machine or Cosmic Quilt soon will be 

commonplace rather than aberrations. 

So, who wins in this new world, the 

creative innovators or the innovative 

creators? Is it enough to be creative 

without the capacity to design and 

deliver a tangible product? Is there 

still a market for solutions that don’t 

inspire? How will traditional creative 

thrive in a world where brand and 

product purchasing choices are 

made by artificially intelligent agents 

rather than humans? That will call for 

solutions that rely just as heavily on 

technological innovation as they do on 

creative breakthroughs. 

We’re already seeing that the people, 

agencies and brands that understand 

the intimate relationship between 

innovation and creativity are the ones 

that will thrive in the marketplace. 

Those that can’t adapt and apply the 

new rules will be left on the shore, 

looking on as the vanguard sails off to 

new lands. ■ 

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18 

CUSTOMERS ONLY 

ENJOY THEIR 

OPULENCE FOR 

BRIEF PERIODS, 

AFTER WHICH 

THEY REVERT 

TO RAGS AND 

PUMPKINS. CALL IT 

CINDERELLANOMICS. 

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20 

CINDERELLA- 

NOMICS 

JOHN GERZEMA, 

EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, 

BAV CONSULTING 

Once upon a time, affordable luxury 

bridged the gap between the affluent 

and the aspirational. Mid-income 

earners couldn’t afford Chanel and 

Dom Perignon, but they could manage 

Tommy Hilfiger and a $5 latte every 

morning. Such people knew how 

the rich lived, and many hoped or 

expected to someday live that way 

themselves. Indulging-within-reason 

seemed appropriate for their lifestyles. 

But the great middle is eroding. 

Pundits and marketers, such as P&G 

and Tiffany, talk about an “hourglass 

economy” in which consumers are 

segmented into Swarovski or Spam. 

(Of course “hourglass” is a misnomer, 

suggesting equal distribution at the 

top and bottom.) As fewer people 

dream of owning beach houses and 

more fear they’ll end up sleeping 

on the beach, routine gratification 

is a habit many have been forced 

to break. But they need not give 

up the good life entirely thanks to 

some startups that make real luxury 

available at low cost. The catch: 

customers only enjoy their opulence 

for brief periods, after which they 

revert to rags and pumpkins. 

Call it Cinderellanomics. 

One purveyor of temporary 

fabulousness is Rent the Runway, a New 

York City company founded by two 

Harvard Business School graduates, 

Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter 

Fleiss. On this site, women can rent 

dresses from famous fashion designers 

like Diane Von Furstenberg, Hervé 

Léger and Proenza Schouler for about 

one-tenth the cost of buying them pret 

a porter. Dry cleaning is included in the 

price, and damage insurance is only 

$5. (If a dress comes back irreparably 

covered in cabernet, the customer pays 

full retail.) And since customers can pick 

a different frock for every occasion, the 

desire to shop is satisfied even if the 

desire to own is not. 

For someone anxious to impress 

a date, visiting relative or potential 

client, nothing says success like a 

chauffeured car. 

Uber, founded by serial entrepreneur 

Travis Kalnick, promises to be 

“everyone’s personal driver.” The 

company’s sleek black cars roam highend 

cities like New York, San Francisco 

and Seattle: customers send their 

locations via text or an app, and their 

rides pull up within minutes. Using GPS 

data, Uber charges by distance or time 

depending on traffic conditions. In 

New York, for instance, a typical “Uber 

fare” is $7.00 plus $3.90 a mile and $0.95 

per minute. And with their information 

on file, customers don’t need to pay or 

tip their drivers, reinforcing the illusion 

that this is how they normally roll. 

Even those who despair of ever 

bidding at Sotheby’s can still surround 

themselves with original art. 

Artsicle, co-founded by Alexis Tryon 

(formerly of Philadelphia’s Institute of 

Contemporary Art) and Scott Carleton, 

charges $50 a month to rent paintings, 

sculptures and photographs. Similar 

to the Internet radio station Pandora, 

Artsicle is helping to showcase a wide 

array of terrific local artists, whose 

work might otherwise not get the 

exposure it deserves. The company’s 

mission is to put original art on every 

wall in the world, and to get those dogs 

playing poker off yours. 

Birchbox members keep the 

products for which they pay $10 a 

month. After all, high-end make-up, 

shampoo and lotions don’t lend 

themselves to rental. But customers 

receive only very tiny quantities: boxes 

of trial-sized samples customized for 

their beauty profiles. Former beauty 

editors Katie Beauchamp and Hayley 

Barna also offer discounted full-sized 

versions of the products on their 

site. Members can save more money 

through frequent purchases or newmember 

referrals. 

According to our customer survey 

data in BrandAsset® Valuator, 63% 

of people today want products and 

services that are both a “good value” 

and “worth more.” Ultimately this desire 

cannot be satiated by fast fashion or 

cheap chic. Instead, having the best 

means borrowing it instead. After 

all, a Broadway play, dinner at a fine 

restaurant, a spontaneous weekend in 

Paris—such indulgences are situational 

and finite. 

Practitioners of Cinderellanomics 

transform what would once have 

been possessions into experiences. 

They understand that while the 

trappings of affluence remain visible, 

even struggling strivers won’t wholly 

relinquish the dream. When a life of 

affordable luxury is beyond one’s 

means, occasional luxury seems like a 

reasonable alternative. ■ 

21

22 

IF YOU BUILD IT, 

INNOVATION WILL COME. 

IT WILL ATTRACT 

PEOPLE AND PROCESSES, 

AND GENERATE IDEAS 

AND AN ECOSYSTEM 

AROUND THEM. 

ENTREPRENEURIAL 

SPIRIT 

MATTHEW GODFREY, 

PRESIDENT, 

Y&R ADVERTISING ASIA 

From airlines to hotels, and from fast 

food to phones, a new generation of 

enterprising managers is inspiring 

a shift away from the conservative 

incrementalism that has typified 

Asian business toward more creative 

solutions. 

Some are famous for their exploits, 

some are unsung heroes, but all 

are contributing to a new wave of 

innovation. Perhaps a decade ago, 

these people may have chosen to seek 

their fortunes in the West, but now they 

often choose to reinvent their countries 

of birth. 

There are examples of 

entrepreneurial innovation all over 

Asia. One small example is Edgar 

Sia II from the Philippines. Edgar 

recently made over P3 billion (US$69 

million) from scratch, and in the 

process outwitted some of the 

smartest marketers in the world. In 

the Philippines, the fast food market 

is dominated by Jollibee—hundreds 

of outlets, over a billion dollars in 

revenue, and the market leaders 

since 1974. The country also has its 

fair share of McDonalds, so for years 

23

the US megabrand has been sending 

its best people to Manila to work 

out how to beat Jollibee—spending 

millions in research, testing, focus 

groups, McKinsey studies, the works. 

Agencies have been hired and fired 

and still they haven’t cracked it. Yet 

Edgar Sia, in just a few years, opened 

over 380 barbecue chicken stores 

across the country and recently 

sold to Jollibee for P3 billion. How 

did he do this? How did he capture 

consumer attention in such a way 

that the McMBAs and McExperts 

couldn’t? “All you can eat rice” was 

the answer. When you buy a barbecue 

chicken meal from his Mang Inasal 

outlets, you get a scoop of rice and 

then if you like, a second and a third, no 

problem—all you can eat. And that was 

the innovation. Combining love of fast 

food with the Asian love of buffet rice. 

Genius. 

The lesson here is one of insight. 

Insight into the needs of the local 

consumer is essential to innovation. 

And as the opportunities in Asia 

grow due to the economic boom and 

are boosted by government policy, 

entrepreneurs in Asia will have the 

local insight to create new products 

and services to match the needs of 

emerging consumers. Businesses 

may start in Asia by being “clones” 

of McDonald’s or Nike or Twitter, 

but they will now quickly morph into 

new innovations that will be driven 

by market dynamics. And there are 

entrepreneurs across Asia with the 

hunger to take on these challenges. 

In India, there are now more honors 

students than America has students. A 

generation of educated, hungry, tech- 

24 

savvy entrepreneurs who all want to 

make their mark in their home market. 

This entrepreneurial spirit will also 

become fused into corporations that 

hire and train these people into their 

organizations. 

Brands like Singapore Airlines show 

how this is possible. It’s one of Asia’s 

most admired brands and has based 

its reputation on a legendary quality 

of service. Yet it’s one of the industry’s 

most cost-effective carriers. This 

seeming contradiction—continuous 

innovation versus cost leadership—is, 

according to management luminaries 

like Michael Porter, impossible. 

But Asian brands like Banyan Tree, 

Samsung and of course Singapore 

Airlines think differently. They don’t see 

contradictions; rather dualities that tell 

the whole story. 

Singapore Airlines has no debt. 

Growth has been funded from 

revenues. It has a young fleet of 

aircraft—at 74 months, half the industry 

average. Expensive, you’d think. But 

balancing innovation in service, like 

being the first to fly the Airbus A380 

superjumbo, with cost, takes more 

open Asian thinking. Newer planes 

mean fewer mechanical problems, 

fewer delays and cancellations, and 

better fuel efficiency. Singapore Airlines 

planes are in the air almost two hours a 

day more than the average airliner. New 

can cost less. 

Singapore Airlines spends twice 

as much on people. Basic training 

is double the norm at four months. 

Existing staff get over 100 hours of 

retraining annually. Asian sensibilities 

demand cultural sensitivity, so crews 

are trained to interact differently with 

Japanese, Chinese, European and 

American passengers. They learn to talk 

at eye level, not above their guests. SIA 

is able to brand according to different 

cultural tastes. Expensive you’d think. 

But balancing service with cost takes 

more holistic thinking. Who better 

to deliver training than former flight 

crews, rather than costly consultants. 

What better way of reducing marketing 

costs than innovating in-service to 

generate loyalty? Singapore Airlines 

can boast numerous in-air firsts. Book 

the Cook. On Demand Video. Dolby 

Sound. Superwide Business Class 

seats. All market-leading innovations 

that required heavy investment. And 

they are all customer facing. Internally 

it is a pragmatic innovator, particularly 

in cost management. Many of its backoffice 

functions are powered by off-theshelf 

software or outsourced altogether 

to suppliers in India. For SIA, truly an 

innovation trailblazer, breaking western 

management and branding rules comes 

naturally. 

Many global companies are now 

building “innovation” headquarters in 

Asia, including Unilever, Pepsi, Coca- 

Cola, GE, P&G and Estee Lauder. This 

is now a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you 

build it, innovation will come. It will 

attract people and processes, and 

generate ideas and an ecosystem 

around them. Innovation development 

in Asia, for Asia markets, by talent in 

Asia. 

For example, Clinique believes 

considerable advantages can be 

derived from using Asia Pacific as 

a testing ground for new mobile 

marketing strategies. In Seoul earlier 

this year it created a mobile app, the 

Clinique Forecast, providing updates 

about weather conditions such as 

pollution and humidity, while offering 

related skincare advice. “We believed 

it would be the ultimate litmus test 

to launch it with some of the most 

digitally-savvy consumers,” explained 

Emily Culp, Clinique’s VP. 

Huge Asian brands are also riding 

the innovation wave, with some notable 

examples: 

In 2010, Huawei was second only 

to Panasonic in terms of patents, filing 

almost 2,000 annually. The company 

is now making superaffordable 

smartphones under their own label and 

recently launched a $100 smartphone in 

London. Huawei is also responsible for 

much of the technological development 

in Africa, producing mobile base 

stations as a “kit” for microcredited 

local entrepreneurs. 

Li-Ning, China’s own Nike, may 

be an emerging player in the West, 

but it dominates Asian-biased sports 

like badminton and table tennis. 

That success has made it confident. 

Confident enough to plunge into the 

US market with several high-profile 

basketball sponsorships and an 

audaciously located flagship store only 

a short distance from Nike Global HQ in 

Portland, Oregon. Li-Ning has audacity, 

but the next few years will be a test to 

see if it can now apply innovation to 

regain momentum and become a true 

leader, not a Chinese copy of Nike. The 

time for clones is over. ■ 

Extract from The Asian Innovation Wave: 

Why it’s coming and how advertising agencies 

can ride it. By Matthew Godfrey 

25

26 

CREATIVITY IS... 

THE CAPACITY 

TO DREAM. 

INNOVATION IS… 

THE CAPACITY 

FOR ACTION. 

27

28 

THE POWER 

OF THE 

SMALL IDEA 

HARI RAMANATHAN, 

REGIONAL STRATEGY 

DIRECTOR, 

Y&R ADVERTISING ASIA 

From our very first day in marketing 

we are taught only one thing—that the 

Holy Grail we seek is the Big Idea. It’s 

how we spend our days and nights: 

dreaming up things that are game 

changers, that might require changing 

everything that’s been done before, 

or might even create whole new 

products and services worth millions 

of dollars. 

How innovation is changing, or 

should be changing the creative 

industry is by shifting the focus from 

the Big Idea as the ultimate output 

to the Big Impact. And while this may 

sound blasphemous, in truth it’s a 

really old concept. And Otto Frederick 

Rohwedder, from Davenport, Iowa, 

was among the first to realize this. He 

came up with a really small idea that 

has now become the benchmark for 

measuring the impact of innovation 

itself. He took a fresh loaf of bread 

and cut it up and…that’s it. That was 

the idea, “cut the bread.” A seemingly 

innocuous thought and maybe 

something we’d even refuse to call 

an idea amid today’s obsession with 

the Big Idea. Otto had invented a 

new benchmark and till today there’s 

been nothing better since…well, sliced 

bread. 

As marketers and ad agency 

professionals, we need to recalibrate 

by teaching ourselves to realize the 

importance of looking to make small 

changes that can have a Big Impact. 

Things that can be done quickly, 

cheaply and efficiently. This is when 

we will move from creativity to 

Creativity + Innovation. 

Big ideas are wonderful things 

and this isn’t stating a case against 

them. But we need to appreciate 

and cultivate a culture where size of 

impact is the focus instead of the 

breadth and scale of ideas. 

A simple way to start is by 

reexamining one of the all-time 

favorite corporate pastimes— 

brainstorming. Everyone knows the 

“rules” of these sessions: “No idea 

is a bad idea,” “Don’t be limited by 

practicality or budget,” et cetera—but 

more often than not this produces a 

lot of ideas that aren’t practical and 

too hard to execute and therefore 

have little or no impact. But by far 

the worst thing this does is increase 

the disconnect between “ideas” and 

“impact” to an average stakeholder; 

ideas generated here are more often 

than not never going to find their 

way into the system, so they walk 

away thinking “Big Ideas” are just a 

euphemism for fantasy. 

What if you had a brainstorming 

session focused on finding Small 

Ideas? 

Imagine a room full of people 

trying to think of small things they 

can do to change a product, service 

or an experience. You would get 

lots of ideas that could be done or 

changes that could be introduced the 

very next day, and since they require 

low effort, they can be implemented 

by the very people who come up with 

them instead of being passed on to 

someone somewhere “above” in the 

hope the ideas might trickle down 

again someday. 

The empowerment is tremendous, 

a sense of action is palpable and the 

dynamism of the organization and/or 

brand dramatically improves as each 

small idea is implemented. 

Creativity is all about imagination, 

the capacity to dream. Innovation is 

all about things that can be done, the 

capacity for action. And when the two 

come together, even on a small scale, 

the impact is Big. ■ 

29

30 

THE TRUE STRATEGY 

BEHIND SEO HAS 

OFTEN BEEN 

LOST BEHIND THE 

ILLUSION OF ITS 

MAGICAL POWERS 

AND IMPOSSIBLE 

FORMULAS. 

31

32 

THE FUTURE OF 

SEARCH ENGINE 

OPTIMIZATION 

BLAKE CADWELL, 

CHANNEL STRATEGIST, 

VML 

For the past decade, search engine 

optimization (SEO) has been one of the 

fastest-changing and most rewarding 

activities on the Internet. Companies 

have designed and redesigned 

complex strategies to meet a growing 

list of search algorithm updates. 

With every update, spammers have 

targeted new weaknesses and Google 

has sent Matt Cutts (head of spam 

fighting at Google) to the rescue. At 

the same time, legitimate brands with 

valuable products have found new 

and innovative ways to stay on top. 

This cycle has kept Internet marketers 

fascinated and has rewarded true 

creativity. At some point though, 

every company finds itself looking 

for a future-proof search optimization 

strategy. 

Thanks to partnerships with various 

clients, VML has strived to remain on 

the cutting edge of SEO innovation for 

years, always working toward the goal 

of reinventing the fundamental ways of 

approaching search marketing. 

The true strategy behind SEO has 

often been lost behind the illusion of 

its magical powers and impossible 

formulas. As search engines have 

improved, however, hidden tactics and 

“magical” formulas have become less 

and less effective. The brands that 

are winning today’s search battles are 

succeeding through brilliantly engaging 

content and earned consumer trust. 

So what defines the future of search 

strategy? When you brush away the 

pixie dust and cut through the formulas, 

we think it comes down to a few simple 

things that only true innovators seem to 

get right. 

Provide Useful Information 

Inbound links and social shares are 

two of the most important factors in 

search visibility. Many SEO-conscious 

brands buy links on popular pages 

and others build them through forced 

means, but very few brands truly earn 

them through dynamic shareable 

content. 

Earning natural links and social 

shares is simply the by-product of 

content that readers, bloggers and 

social users want their friends to see. 

Asking yourself and your team the 

question, “Would I share this content 

with my personal social network?” 

may seem a little simplistic, but if the 

answer is no, maybe it’s time to revisit 

your SEO approach. 

Useless or shallow pages diminish 

consumer trust and can even result in 

search engine penalties that hurt search 

rankings. Consumer expectation and 

search engine insight are demanding 

a different level of creativity, and the 

rewards are outstanding. Brands with 

true creativity are attracting thousands 

of inbound links and social shares and 

claiming their spot at the top of the 

results page. 

Meet Your Customer 

Online searchers come to the 

Internet for countless reasons, but 

almost always they are looking for 

something—maybe a good laugh, a 

question answered, some deep-dish 

pizza or a plumber for their clogged 

drain. 

Search marketers call these 

inquiries “search volume.” The leading 

brands in search marketing remember 

that each query represents a real 

customer question, and their goal 

is to provide a timely and reliable 

answer. True SEO is the process of 

understanding your customers’ “search 

language” and providing them results 

that meet them there. 

Innovators continue to learn that 

stuffing high-volume keywords into 

a page without giving the consumer 

something truly useful is simply poor 

branding. Instead, they are going the 

extra mile to answer a full spectrum of 

questions. The resulting content, like 

funny videos, infographics and wellcrafted 

“how to” articles, are shared 

thousands and even millions of times, 

resulting in huge SEO impact. 

That said, keyword data will remain 

a vital part of SEO for years to come, 

and innovators will continue to use it 

to meet their customers’ queries. 

Stay Up to Date 

Search engines continually improve 

the ways that brands can meet 

potential customers. Local results, rich 

snippets and Google+ results are just 

a few of the recent opportunities that 

search engines have deployed to make 

it easier to reach the consumer. 

Innovative brands are breaking 

out of the cycles that spam and 

low-quality content create. Instead 

of reacting to the latest algorithm 

updates, they are designing strategies 

to meet their customers’ demands 

utilizing the newest search features 

available and by providing compelling 

content. 

While some clients will remain 

fixated with mystery formulas, 

purchased links and low-quality 

content, the next chapter of SEO will 

be defined by innovation, creativity 

and our ability to answer the questions 

being sought by searchers. ■ 

33

34 

ONE OF MY 

RELATIVES IS A 

FUNDAMENTALIST 

CHRISTIAN WHO 

ALSO FAVORS 

SAME-SEX 

MARRIAGE AND 

LEGALIZING 

MARIJUANA. 

BUYING 

FROM THE 

INSIDE OUT 

35

CHIP WALKER, 

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, 

DIRECTOR OF 

BRAND PLANNING, 


NEW YORK 

Let’s face it, it’s becoming harder 

and harder to tell consumers apart 

just by looking at them. Their surface 

differences are magnified as more and 

more people “drop in” on and migrate 

between different lifestyles and 

subcultures. People with nose rings 

and tattoos can also be conservative 

Republicans; people regularly combine 

professional jobs with rural living; and 

those who like highbrow art may also 

like lowbrow television. One of my 

relatives is a fundamentalist Christian 

who also favors same sex marriage 

and legalizing marijuana. 

When the outside stops making 

sense, we have to look within. We 

have to understand peoples’ deepest 

beliefs and priorities—their values. And 

today is a particularly auspicious time 

to do so. That’s because a new global 

values orientation is on the rise that is 

making the labels and stereotypes that 

defined our grandparents’ generation 

obsolete. 

Within marketing, thinking about 

values has been shaped for years 

by the ideas of Abraham Maslow. 

His theory assumes a hierarchy of 

values ranging from Survival to 

Self-Actualization. 

According to Maslow, once we 

36 

have our physical needs met, we 

are on a path toward fulfillment, 

and pass through phases including 

safety, belonging and esteem along 

the way. You’ve probably heard of 

research tools based on this thinking 

(e.g., VALS, Y&R’s 4Cs) which place 

people into segments along Maslow’s 

hierarchy (e.g., Survivors, Belongers, 

Achievers). 

Today, global research shows that 

the biggest values change on the 

rise is a rejection of authorities and 

institutions. More and more of us 

are feeling empowered to exercise 

personal choice in ways never before 

possible, even in cultures where 

individuality has been frowned upon. 

Digital technologies are fueling this in 

part, but it’s more fundamentally driven 

by a rising power to understand, 

express (and even sometimes place 

limits on) our own individuality—all 

toward the goal of authoring the story 

of our own lives. 

I call this new era “The Values 

Economy,” and its hallmark is the 

emergence of a new consumer who 

is multifaceted, self-empowered and 

almost impossible to characterize by 

putting into a single segment. 

This new consumer actually 

chooses differently. Whereas years 

ago, forces beyond our control—mainly 

social norms and availability — 

determined our consumer choices, 

today we have the power to determine 

them ourselves. When this happens, 

we choose “inside out.” It’s less about 

deliberating among a small pre-set 

number of alternatives, and more 

particular type of transportation (e.g., 

hybrid). We don’t just want to buy food 

— we want a particular way of eating 

(e.g., organic). Not just software, but an 

approach to intellectual property (e.g., 

open source). 

Thus, the gist of The Values 

Economy boils down to one simple 

point: When you have access to 

virtually anything, you have to think 

harder about what you really want. 

To illustrate this point, let’s take the 

example of a working mom—let’s call 

her Gail—from the 1970s. She planned 

clothes shopping for herself and her 

family around what was available at her 

local Sears. It was nearby, carried what 

seemed then to be a lot of options 

and was “one-stop shopping.” More 

importantly, it fit Gail’s sense of who 

she and her family were—the clothes 

she bought there would be acceptable 

in her social circle. 

Thirty years later, Gail’s daughter 

does most of her clothes shopping 

online. She uses Zappos for shoes, 

eBay for vintage finds, Gap.com and 

Landsend.com for her kid’s clothing — 

and other retailers she hears about 

all the time. In one online shopping 

session her consumer identity can 

morph from Status Diva to Soccer 

Mom to Karma Queen. And they are all, 

in fact, her. 

Gail’s fashion worldview was 

created by Sears and the nationally 

advertised brands they stocked. Her 

daughter’s has been constructed from 

understanding her own priorities and 

shopping accordingly. Gail liked but 

didn’t love Sears. Her daughter is 

passionate about Zappos and several 

other online retailers and regularly 

recommends them to her friends. 

Inside-out choosing results in a new 

class of brands that have what I call 

“Iconicity.” They are broadly viewed to 

symbolize a particular set of values in 

society. Think of Apple and creativity 

or Dove and authenticity. These brands 

serve as external billboards (and 

internal bulletin boards) for what we 

care about. Brands with Iconicity are 

lightning rods for values such as status 

(Abercrombie & Fitch), conservatism 

(Fox News) or altruism (Whole Foods). 

This unfortunately poses a problem 

for the world of marketing, which has 

traditionally been values-neutral. In the 

mass market of the late 20th century, 

companies and brands wanted to 

avoid controversy and usually shied 

away from belief-based points of view. 

The plain truth is that most corporate 

marketers aren’t prepared to operate 

in a world where ideology is what sets 

their brands apart. 

Critics of marketing often portray 

the typical consumer as a vapid 

materialist on a dangerous search for 

gratification. That is simply not what I 

observe today. Everything I’ve learned 

from talking to thousands of people 

and doing hundreds of surveys tells 

me one thing over and over: for the 

new consumer, stuff isn’t about stuff. 

The act of freely choosing millions of 

times from abundance makes us not 

more materialistic, but more in touch 

with our own inner priorities. Today a 

new group of consumers is not just 

buying things, but buying into what 

things represent and mean. 

A true sea change in consumer 

culture is a rare event. The rise of The 

Values Economy promises to affect 

society in critical ways, including 

how consumers shop, choose 

and consume. It presages a more 

demanding consumer who expects 

more and gets more from the business 

world. Perhaps most importantly for 

us in advertising, it raises the idea 

that maybe—just maybe—what we do 

isn’t just about selling people stuff, 

but rather helping them figure out 

who they are. That might be a stretch 

for some, I know, but to me, at least, 

it offers up the hope that what we do 

every day actually matters. ■ 

37

38 

DESPITE EFFORTS 

TO REFORM METHODS 

OF INSTRUCTION 

AND LEARNING, 

SCHOOLS DIDN’T 

PREPARE MILLENNIALS 

TO REALIZE THEIR 

CREATIVE IMPULSE. 

39

40 

CREATIVITY 

IS THE 

NEW RELEVANCE 

KAIYU LI, 

HEAD OF PLANNING, 

Y&R ADVERTISING CHINA 

Many brands in China are failing 

the relevance test for the country’s 

Millennials. As Y&R’s BrandAsset® 

Valuator discovered, this generation 

is looking for empowerment in 

brands, much more so than their 

American counterparts. What kind of 

empowerment do they want? 

This is a generation with a strong 

creative desire. We may not know for 

sure what innovations they are going 

to come up with, but that is exactly 

why this generation is so fascinating. 

All we know is that they are “onto 

something.” 

For them, creativity is not a niceto-have. 

Rather, it’s a prerequisite 

to their success. And ambitious 

they are, doubly so than American 

Millennials. But they face mounting 

competition all around, for college 

placement, for jobs, for spouses, 

and for the admiration they desire 

from others for their success. To get 

ahead, they’ll need to be creative. 

They are confident in expressing 

themselves. They grew up in 

single-child households, and the 

attention they received from parents 

and grandparents fostered strong 

confidence that they are each 

special in their own way. They are 

ready to put themselves forward. 

And increasingly, this means showing 

their creativity and their ability to do 

things innovatively. As a 46-year-old 

published his corporate success 

story selling his experience on its 

replicability, a Millennial social 

commentator pronounced that his 

experience cannot possibly be 

copied! 

However, what they lack is knowhow. 

Despite efforts to reform 

methods of instruction and learning, 

schools didn’t prepare them to 

realize their creative impulse. Their 

parents’ experience is no help, either. 

The Millennials were born into rapid 

social and cultural changes. And 

these changes have rendered their 

parents’ wisdom of little relevance. 

They inherited no useful road maps. 

“The direction you gave me often 

gets me lost,” announces an ad for a 

youth brand. The only way is to find 

their own ways—“crossing the river 

by feeling the rocks.” 

Brands wanting to stay relevant 

need to help them resolve this 

tension between desire, skill and 

opportunity. Brands will be “onto 

something” by building platforms 

that empower them to realize their 

creative dreams. ■ 

41

CREATIVE PROCESS CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION 

42 

Cartoon: Anibal Quinones 

Senior Copywriter, Bravo Miami 

Artwork by Henry Aponte, 

Colombian illustrator 

43

44 

BAD RESEARCH 

ISN’T BETTER 

THAN NOTHING— 

IT’S JUST BAD. 

WHY WE 

DO BAD 

RESEARCH 

BELLE FRANK, 

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT 

GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF 

STRATEGY & RESEARCH, 


Yesterday there was an interview 

on National Public Radio with Lewis 

Jacobson, who decided to check on 

a statistic being used in a political ad 

for Politifact.com. (See http://www. 

onthemedia.org/2012/may/11/phonystatistic-about-college-graduates/.) 

The statistic, which had been quoted 

on Time magazine’s website and on 

CNNmoney.com, was that 85% of 

college graduates, “the Boomerang 

Generation,” had moved back in 

with their parents. The 85% was 

being used as the basis of all sorts 

of observations, though, about how 

the current economic environment is 

affecting today’s emerging workforce. 

45

Boy, is that number seductive. It is just a 

bad number. It is false. 

In fact, the reporter described it as “too 

good to check.” When he tried to locate the 

source of the statistic and information about 

the study, none was available. The company 

allegedly responsible for it hadn’t been in 

business for several years—there was no 

way to understand how good a number it 

actually was. And just to punctuate, what 

he was able to find was a statistic that said 

the true number varies but is definitely less 

than 40% (depending on what age group 

you look at.) A far cry from 85% but arguably, 

at least to me, more believable if also much 

less inflammatory. 

I think it is a symptom. Many have said 

American culture is obsessed with surveys 

and I would argue that if our culture is 

obsessed, our marketing communications 

industry is addicted! Lately I find people in 

our business want to research EVERYTHING. 

And unfortunately, the research tools we 

have available to us are just not able to 

answer many of the things we would like 

to know. I especially see a lot of bizarre 

46 

behavior when it comes to research on 

creative ideas. We do bad research because 

we want to do something. But bad research 

isn’t better than nothing, it’s just bad. 

The basis of quantitative market research 

is sampling theory. Research among a 

sample to predict what the population 

you really care about is expected to do. It 

seems like a good idea. It seems like it could 

minimize risk. But the kind of research we 

often do doesn’t minimize risk. In fact, we 

make all sorts of decisions based on all sorts 

of research that can’t possibly be predictive. 

Qualitative research isn’t the same thing. 

Qualitative research is supposed to help us 

understand. It is designed to be exploratory 

and open. It can be enormously valuable 

when we are developing creative work. 

It is not just quantitative research among 

a smaller sample. But we don’t use it the 

right way. We use it as fake quantitative. We 

decide we can’t do really good research so 

we do a focus group, and we have people 

count and we add them up. We know it isn’t 

predictive, but we think if we do something 

that seems research-y, then it is okay. 

What we should do is figure out whether 

we need to understand or we need to 

count, and do the right kind of research for 

the job we have. Instead, we sometimes do 

something just so we can say we did it. It is 

just a bad idea. It doesn’t make sense to do 

some sort of convenient project because 

we don’t have time or money or maybe 

enough commitment to do things the right 

way. 

I’m the Research Director who often 

recommends against research because I 

hate when we use the wrong tool for a job. 

When we are doing creative development, 

we need to do exploratory research. When 

we are trying to select among alternatives, 

we should try to do quantitative research. 

I recently sat through a research debrief 

where 20 people who were supposed to 

represent our target prospects were asked 

to look at four different rough advertising 

campaign ideas, and to score each of 

them. The supplier presented mean scores 

across the four, selecting two that scored 

better. Not only that, the researcher divided 

the group into two, and we looked at the 

scores and compared them one group to 

the other. There is so much wrong with this, 

it is hard to know where to begin. Were 

the people actually chosen randomly to be 

representative of the population? No. They 

were prerecruited to agree to answer our 

questions. Furthermore, mean scores were 

collected after in-depth interviews about 

each idea. This is not an objective way to 

measure them. I am not sure we should have 

done the research at all if we were going to 

do it that way. For close to the same cost, 

we could have done some developmental 

qualitative and then quantitative research to 

help pick the strongest campaign. 

A client asked me recently about what 

happened to judgment. “Aren’t we paid, you 

and me,” he asked, “for our strategic insight?” 

I think he is right. We don’t have the time 

or money to do a very robust research 

program. So we have to compromise. 

The plan he wants to see includes some 

quantitative concept work to land on a 

creative brief, and he wants us to pick 

the campaign direction based on our 

collective judgment. I’m looking forward to 

the experience. It’s better than doing bad 

research. ■ 

47

48 

WE HAVE BECOME 

A SKIMMING 

CULTURE, 

ABSORBING 

JUST ENOUGH 

INFORMATION TO 

FEEL INFORMED. 

WE ARE THE 

CONNECTED 

GENERATION 

DAVID SHING, 

AOL DIGITAL PROPHET 

The rise of social networks is not a 

new phenomenon. If you look at the 

time line and the amount of sites 

considered social networks, they 

have existed for many years now. 

Fast-forward to today, and 

content is everywhere: blogs, feeds, 

aggregators and social networks. 

These services exist to allow people 

to have creative expression, and each 

service is distinctly separate from the 

other. 

The social graph has all these 

themes: connectedness, openness, 

community, conversation, identity, 

self-expression and participation. 

ATTENTION IS THE NEW ECONOMY 

The popularity of Google, lightningfast 

Internet connections and instant 

access to everything online make it 

feel a lot like our brains have become 

mushy. Meaning, we no longer focus 

our time going deep into a subject 

unless it is a topic we are really 

impassioned by. 

49

We have become a skimming 

culture, absorbing just enough 

information to feel informed. The 

recent rise of the social graph 

has meant people have become 

comfortable with the company of 

strangers and dwell time in these 

experiences has become the new 

norm. Attention, not CTR (clickthrough 

rates), has fast become the 

new economy, the metric we strive 

for to gauge our engagement for 

visitors. 

SOCIAL MOBILITY 

People are treating their location 

as part of their social identity. They 

broadcast it as an extension of their 

social behavior, showing friends and 

acquaintances what they’re doing, as 

well as when and where. 

Naturally, a number of services 

have grown up around this practice, 

including Google Latitude, Loopt, 

Facebook Places, Gowalla and the 

category leader, Foursquare. 

Sometimes, though, users may 

only want a few people to know 

where they are and what they’re 

doing. That’s why apps that allow 

users to share location updates 

with specific groups of people—like 

Grouped{in}—are becoming popular. 

However, the real power of social 

mobility is the ability to respond, 

engage and contribute in real time 

because of the power of the threeinch 

screen. Many people refer 

to mobile as the second screen. I 

believe we should refer to it as the 

first screen as it is our constant 

companion and the screen we are 

increasingly spending more time on. 

50 

LOCATION-BASED CAMPAIGNS 

Location-based services present 

marketers with a number of 

opportunities to interact with on-thego 

customers, like sending them a 

brand message, encouraging them 

to update their status, or rewarding 

them for checking in with a site or 

completing a task. 

Such rewards range from virtual 

recognition, like Foursquare’s 

Super Swarm badges, to product 

redemptions like SCVNGR’s point 

system, which offers real-world 

goods in exchange for actual store 

visits. 

The latter—more physical rewards, 

which put a value on a customer 

being present in a store or other 

location, interacting with your brand 

or service—will be a trend to watch. 

FROM “LEAN BACK” TO “LEAN IN” TO 

“LEAN BACK” 

The development of immersive 

entertainment technology is 

encouraging us to go from passively 

consuming content to actively 

participating in its shape and 

direction. Put more simply, we’ve 

stopped leaning back and started 

leaning in. As a result, every screen 

we face—TV, laptop, tablet and 

smartphone—will offer marketers 

a chance to provide a unique 

experience for each and every 

viewer. 

For example, you can be watching 

a TV show on your big screen, 

researching the actors on your tablet 

while checking your smartphone to 

see which of your friends is tuned 

in as well. Or you may pause the 

game you’re playing on your gaming 

console, only to resume playing it 

hours later on your tablet while flying 

cross-country. 

FOCUS ON EXPLORERS 

In the traditional bell or “dinosaur” 

curve of adoption, you have the 

“early adopters, innovators or 

explorers” at the head, followed by 

the “vast majority” who make up the 

bulk of the body, and the “laggards” 

or “luddites” who slide off the tail. 

Innovative tech companies need 

to continue to put their focus on the 

explorers, as they are the ones who 

created the groundswell at the early 

stage of the business. They become 

the evangelists, the amplifiers for 

your services, brands and ideas. We 

need to refocus on these people. 

Give them love, because they love 

you. They listen to you and happily 

tell others about you. 

SOCIAL BRIDGE 

It is clear that online there are 

multiple points of social contact. 

Whether it is a personal profile on 

Facebook, a professional profile on 

LinkedIn, photo time line through 

Instagram, personal publishing with 

Tumblr, photos featured on Flickr, 

videos hosted on YouTube and 

Vimeo, 140-character shout-outs 

through Twitter or location-based 

updates through Foursquare—your 

digital footprint is wide and vast. 

And the truth is each one of these 

services serves a unique purpose. 

Enter the social bridge. Think 

of it as a personal billboard on the 

Web, a service that brings all your 

services into one place, with a design 

you control. AOL’s About.me is a 

perfect example of a solution for 

social bridging. It makes it easier 

for you to influence the social graph 

information you wish to share with 

others. 

LAST THOUGHTS 

Encourage a remix culture, both in 

your marketing plans and in how 

consumers interact with your brand. 

Find the right people by seeding 

and connecting, and aim for people 

with real influence. 

Harness the power and resources 

of pre-existing communities 

and strive to be authentic in this 

environment. Explore unbranded ads 

and new metrics for engagement. 

People with influence really matter. 

The social graph has reinforced this. 

People talk, people share and people 

want to brag—it is part of our human 

behavior. So ensure your products 

have a social life by giving all your 

communications social features and 

bragging rights. 

Talk to the individual, but aim to 

change the whole community by 

being compelling and ambitious. 

Be transparent and run an open 

house. Take down the walls between 

producer and consumer. They should 

both cocreate. ■ 

51

52 

“REMEMBER 

THIS DAY. 

551-DAY-OLD 

INSTAGRAM IS 

WORTH $1 BILLION. 

116-YEAR-OLD 

NEW YORK TIMES CO.: 

$967 MILLION.” 

@dkberman, 

THE WALL STREET 

JOURNAL 

53

54 

IS A PICTURE 

WORTH 

$1B WORDS? 

BRIAN YAMADA, 

VML EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CHANNEL ACTIVATION 

There’s been lots of chatter about 

Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram 

and whether it was worth the price. 

There are plenty of mind-numbing 

stats about Facebook. Here’s another: 

More than 250 million photos are 

uploaded daily. That’s 7.5 billion a 

month and 90 billion a year. 

Recent counts had Instagram at 

about 27 million installs in iOS. Its 

recent Android app launch (1 million 

downloads in the first 24 hours) 

clearly spiked its value, so this is 

a platform poised to skyrocket in 

downloads and active users. But still, 

it’s amazing that a company with no 

current revenues could generate 

such a price tag. 

Why so much? Look at another 

statistic: About half of Facebook’s 

800 million-plus users access the 

site via a mobile device. Look at the 

explosion of smartphone and tablets, 

and you can assume that number will 

continue to rise. Fast. 

One guess is Facebook 

understands that mobile is where 

things are headed. And the company 

believes that grabbing, sharing (and 

of course tagging) photos with 

friends has been a key driver of its 

growth and a very important part of 

its future. 

What should you expect in the 

short term? The deal will take at least 

a couple of months to close. Then it 

will be interesting to watch how the 

two organizations/cultures/features 

collide. At a minimum, expect 

deep integration between the two 

platforms—heavy social sharing. But 

watch for the potential reaction from 

the current Instagram faithful—not 

everyone who loves the small startup 

loves the social giant. Just look at 

the Twitter reactions (with sarcasm 

and jabs) at the deal. 

And speaking of Twitter, one of 

the most interesting (and clean) 

quick takes comes from @dkberman 

at The Wall Street Journal. His 

tweet: “Remember this day. 551-dayold 

Instagram is worth $1 billion. 

116-year-old New York Times Co.: 

$967 million.” 

It’s $1 billion worth of proof that 

digital is a profound disruptor of old 

business models. Don’t believe it? 

Ask Kodak. ■ 

Originally published on VML.com 

55

56 

WE FORESEE 

A WORLD 

WHERE 

ALMOST ANY 

SURFACE CAN 

BECOME AN 

INTERACTIVE 

DISPLAY. 

A MORE 

NATURAL 

FUTURE 

WITH 

TECHNOLOGY 

57

STEVE CLAYTON, 

MICROSOFT ADVERTISING 

CHIEF STORYTELLER 

If you’re a fan of PSFK like me, 

you’re keen to read about the latest 

trends in technology. Everyone 

loves to share stories of how life 

will be made better or cooler by 

something being developed in a 

garage, university lab, or maybe a 

campus setting like where I work 

at Microsoft. It’s there in Redmond 

that I spend a good deal of my time 

writing about trends in technology 

and observing a number of key 

directions that are a focus for 

Microsoft. Individual trends such as 

big data, the Internet of Things and 

cloud computing are fascinating on 

their own—but over the last year it’s 

become clear to me that a number 

of great ideas in technology are 

maturing and colliding at the same 

time and helping to fuel a singular 

trend we’re focused on—Natural User 

Interfaces, or NUI. 

For the unfamiliar, NUI is 

58 

concerned with making technology 

much more, well, natural. Those 

interactions may be through voice 

control of a TV (rather than fumbling 

with remotes and on-screen menus), 

it may be through playing a video 

game just using your body without 

the need to master a controller, or 

it may be logging in to a system 

by simply having it recognize you. 

It’s no coincidence that all of these 

examples are features of Kinect for 

Xbox 360, which has taken NUI into 

18 million homes in a little more 

than a year. NUI is best exemplified 

through Kinect—taking advantage of 

advanced computing capabilities to 

remove the barriers for interaction. In 

addition to Kinect, the touch-screen 

interfaces that we have become 

familiar with on our smartphones 

are also excellent examples of NUI. 

Behind Kinect and smartphones 

there are a set of underlying trends 

that are enabling natural interaction. 

Let’s take a brief look at two—the 

proliferation of sensors and big data. 

Kinect contains a number of 

“sensors”—a series of depthmeasuring 

cameras that enable a 

device to recognize you, as well as a 

sophisticated array of microphones 

that can pinpoint your voice, even 

in a noisy room. When you stop and 

think about the number of sensors 

(or computers of some kind) in your 

life, you begin to notice there are 

far more than the traditional devices 

you often associate with computing. 

Increasingly, our homes are filled with 

electronics in the form of household 

appliances, lighting systems, heating 

systems, alarm systems, even smart 

vacuum cleaners. Each system has a 

degree of intelligence, and over time, 

more and more of them will become 

connected to the Internet and, 

therefore, connected to each other. 

Our cars already have hundreds of 

computers and sensors, and they’re 

only going to get smarter. Soon cars 

will be connecting to and “talking 

with” smart streets and cities to help 

us find a parking space more quickly 

and pay for it automatically. (If we 

could only figure out how to avoid 

paying those parking tickets!) 

Our smartphones are already filled 

with sensors—GPS, accelerometers, 

compasses, light meters and more. 

Some phones already increase the 

ringer volume when the light sensors 

detect it’s dark (and assume your 

phone is in your pocket or bag). As 

we allow them to, smartphones are 

set to get smarter. The GPS knows 

where we are and the calendar 

knows where we’re going, so perhaps 

it will connect to our car and preprogram 

the route. All of these 

scenarios, big or small, are examples 

of our interaction with technology 

becoming more natural. And all of 

them generate data—every click, 

every nonclick, every movement, 

every gesture. Each one is data and 

the more there is, the more natural 

technology can become; we can 

teach it by example using techniques 

known as machine learning. 

Devices generate data and data 

enable smarter devices. All of this 

will lead to more natural ways of 

interacting with technology. Take, 

for example, displays—another trend 

we’re very focused on at Microsoft. 

We foresee a world where almost any 

surface can become an interactive 

display and we’re busy pushing the 

boundaries with transparent displays, 

displays that can both see and 

project, as well as technology that 

turns the palm of your hand into a 

display. It’s a fascinating area that I’ve 

written about a lot recently. 

As this mixture of hardware and 

software blends together, design 

becomes ever more important. We 

need to remain focused on designing 

the appropriate interaction mode. A 

touch-screen TV is of no use when 

you’re sitting ten feet away—but 

voice control is great. Voice control 

will become more than a little 

frustrating if everyone on the subway 

decides to use it at the same time 

and gesture-controlled gaming isn’t 

going to work when you’re sitting in 

seat 27D on an airplane. 

I’m excited about the future as 

sensors, displays and data start to 

make technology invisible. It’s an 

entirely new canvas for designing 

amazing experiences. ■ 

For more on the future of natural user interfaces 

head to http://aka.ms/psfknui 

59

60 

INTERACTING 

WITH TANGIBLE 

EXPERIENCES 

SEEMS TO BRING 

OUT OUR INNER 

CHILD. THAT 

INSTINCT TO JUST 

GET INVOLVED. 

CONVERGENCE 

IS CREATING A 

TANGIBLE, PHYSICAL, 

DIGITAL FUTURE 

ADEN HEPBURN, 

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND 

DCD AT VML AUSTRALIA, 

FOUNDER OF DIGITAL BUZZ 

For years now, brands and agencies 

have been pushing to create digital 

experiences with the idea of finding 

new, more engaging ways to connect 

with customers in a world gone 

digital. And the race to dominate the 

social landscape has only intensified 

the battle, which at times has seen 

creativity succumb to a numbers 

game. 

Now let’s face it—with media 

fragmentation expanding faster than 

Moore’s law, if you step back for just 

a moment, you’ll suddenly find digital 

at every touchpoint of a consumer’s 

life, meaning more and more ways to 

connect with them virtually. 

But humans are, of course, 

physical beings. We love to touch, 

hold, feel, share, discuss and enjoy 

things with other humans—that’s 

what makes things real among the 

virtual world we now live in. And 

61

astechnology further infiltrates 

our lives through our insatiable 

desire to connect with what’s new, 

our physical and digital worlds are 

converging. 

This convergence is changing the 

future of digital, to be physical. 

When you think about it, 

storytelling hasn’t been linear for 

some time, but it’s now almost 

completely unconstrained thanks to 

the convergence happening around 

us, and that is creating a move 

toward these physical, tangible, 

digital experiences in the real world, 

where we are invited to touch, 

explore and play with a brand. 

We can finally tell stories and 

build experiences that are limited 

only by our imagination, rather 

than a medium. Take ChalkBot for 

example. This work was perhaps the 

very catalyst for some of the most 

innovative campaigns over the last 

24 months, a piece of work rooted 

inside the Tour de France event itself, 

starring technology in the form of 

a robot that could translate virtual 

messages sourced from an array 

of touchpoints into physical words, 

inspiring and supportive, printed 

live in yellow chalk across every 

inch of the Tour de France course. It 

gave people a new way to physically 

connect and participate with the 

event in real time, all while watching 

62 

TV from their lounge room, on the 

other side of the world. 

The interplay between digital and 

physical isn’t just exciting brands 

and agencies, it’s generating huge 

hype among users who seek it out. 

Suddenly, groups of people are 

interacting with these tangible digital 

experiences together, tweeting about 

them, posting photos to Facebook 

and becoming the engines that drive 

our campaigns. These experiences 

are socializing our campaigns 

because the experience is now part 

of the participants’ physical world. 

When was the last time you told a 

friend about a website or Facebook 

page you visited? And yet these 

experiences demand discourse. 

Since Chalkbot, it feels like we’ve 

seen just about everything: 

Smart Car “pong” gaming 

installations, where the car physically 

becomes the controller as players 

drive forward and backward to hit the 

virtual, on-screen ball. 

The Coca-Cola Valentine’s Day 

happiness machine, releasing free 

Cokes for couples that hug and kiss 

in front of the vending machine. 

A Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race, 

with cars literally being powered 

across a desert by the number of 

tweets received in real time from 

people across the world. 

Perhaps Nike’s Film Room, a 

traveling green-screen half-court 

basketball exhibition that compiles 

an instant, printed, artistic view 

of your game aimed at helping to 

improve your style. 

Even the Chevy Sonic interactive 

projection mapping installation, 

where a physical, oversized gaming 

controller helps contestants guide 

a virtual claw 10 stories tall on a 

Hollywood building. 

Ariel’s Fashion Shoot, a livestreaming 

Facebook-controlled 

stain gun, giving you the ability to 

shoot chocolate sauce at revolving 

clothing in Stockholm’s main train 

station. Stain an item and they’ll wash 

the garment and send it to you to 

showcase the result. 

Or our very own ASICS “Run With 

Me” campaign, a multi-touchpoint 

physical event installation that 

allowed marathon runners to connect 

their runs to Facebook via RFID 

chips, automatically updating friends 

and family of their progress in real 

time from inside the race. 

Interacting with tangible 

experiences seems to bring out 

our inner child. That instinct to just 

get involved. To see what happens 

when we press the button. Touch the 

screen. Flick the switch. Control the 

action. We’ll talk about it. Share it. 

Record it. Publish it. 

These experiences are far more 

powerful than ads. 

And yet, with all this, in reality, it’s 

only just the very beginning of what 

is fast becoming a highly physical, 

digital world. Tomorrow’s going to be 

exciting. Create it. There’s nothing 

stopping you. ■ 

63

64 

WE USED TO 

TALK ABOUT 

LIVING ONLINE 

AND OFFLINE. 

BUT MORE 

AND MORE, WE 

ARE CREATING 

SEAMLESS 

PATHS BETWEEN 

THE TWO. 

A “POST- 

DIGITAL 

WORLD” 

WORLD, 

REALLY? 

DAVID SABLE, 

GLOBAL CEO, Y&R 

65

The phrase “post-digital” is being 

bandied about an awful lot these 

days. The Guardian writes, “Welcome 

to the post-digital world, an 

exhilarating return to civility…” Ad 

Age talks about how the “Post- 

Digital Era Brings Traits of Web 

to Real World.” Deloitte asks: “The 

Post-Digital Age: Is Your Enterprise 

Ready?” And Jefferies declares: “… 

we have certainly entered the postdigital 

era.” 

Marketers. Financial analysts. 

Pundits. They’re all immersed in 

post-digital rhetoric. As if, because 

digital is everything, everything is 

already digital. The truth is we are 

only at the very beginning of what’s 

digital. We wake up every morning 

to new technology and stunning new 

applications. Fresh ideas abound. 

A bigger truth is that while 

digital is everything, everything is 

not digital. And, in fact, it never 

has been, nor will be—despite dire 

predictions that our love of things 

digital would inevitably trap us in 

socially-isolated cybercaves, bereft 

of real human interaction. Needless 

to say, community—the primal, 

human urge to commune, share, and 

connect—is alive and well. Facebook, 

Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Pinterest, 

LinkedIn, all have the power to 

connect to the real world, and they 

all do connect. 

66 

Facebook, for example, hosts 140 

billion photos, a library 10,000 times 

the size of the Library of Congress. 

That’s an astonishing number. But 

what’s truly interesting is how we are 

beginning to take everything we’ve 

learned from the digital world and 

bridge it back to the physical world. 

Because lo and behold, that’s where 

people live. 

I call this phenomenon “Digital 

Exponential”—because we are finding 

the exponential value of digital in the 

real world. Digital exponential is the 

Arab Spring— 

aided and abetted by social 

media but with very real-world 

consequences. Digital exponential 

is found in Apple Stores, which 

are, to my mind, nothing more than 

real-world, physical manifestations 

of the best, most interactive online 

user experience. Digital exponential 

can also be brick-and-mortar stores 

for some of the most vibrant digital 

brands. Witness the recent rumors 

that Amazon may open a physical 

store in Ireland, and that Google was 

helping pave the way. eBay stores 

are cropping up everywhere, helping 

sellers deal with the physical realities 

of shopping online. 

We used to talk about living online 

and offline. But more and more, we 

are creating seamless paths between 

the two, creating a complete lifestyle, 

enriched and enabled by technology 

rather than engulfed by it. This is 

something qualitatively different from 

having both a distinct online and a 

distinct offline presence. The Super 

Bowl, for example, has long been a 

marketer’s mecca—one of the last 

good, mass audiences for broadcast 

advertising. Just look at how the 

Super Bowl has become more digital 

and more social at the same time. 

There’s more content online, more 

user participation, and at the same 

time, advertisers’ actively seeking to 

create opportunities for real-world 

consumer interaction as a critical and 

integral part of the “experience.” 

Simply giving content away ahead 

of time—getting people to like your 

brand on Facebook, slapping on a 

hashtag—may have the patina of 

engagement, but not the results. 

Some marketers have forgotten that 

the Super Bowl is a great excuse 

for people to get together, to build 

lavish, food-filled parties around 

the event, and to enjoy the surprise 

of some great new ads together. 

They discounted that watching the 

advertising was as much a communal 

as a commercial event. And so they 

lost the opportunity to leverage 

the full value of digital. One thing 

is for certain, though, in the Digital 

Exponential world: Any technology 

must be inextricably linked with 

human purpose—with a great 

story that uplifts the entire user 

experience—or it will be doomed to 

fast obsolescence. The digital 

graveyard is littered with thousands 

of such apps and other digital 

failures. 

Done right, Digital Exponential 

is far more compelling than “postdigital.” 

Who wants to live in a world 

where, as one pundit put it, “digital is 

becoming like air: the only time you’ll 

notice it, is when it’s not there?” 

Not me. I look at some of the really 

interesting things happening today, 

many of which are happening on 

mobile, and I see how they bridge 

the digital and the real world. And 

that’s what I want to see more 

of when I look forward to future 

technologies. 

Think Google wallet, an example I 

love that’s already here. All on your 

phone, you can find a movie and 

the closest theater, cash in rewards 

points, and buy your tickets. All of 

which carries you to the physical 

event of sitting in a movie theater 

with friends, eating popcorn and 

sharing the experience. That’s 

something actually amazing, and it’s 

the Digital Exponential in a nutshell. ■ 

Originally published on Google’s Think 

Insights Blog 

67

68 

ON A CONTINENT 

OF A BILLION PEOPLE, 

60% OF WHOM 

HAVE NOT YET 

REACHED MAJORITY, 

THE FIGURES ARE 

CLEAR ENOUGH 

FOR THE MEANEST 

STATISTICIAN 

TO GRASP. 

AFRICAN YOUTH 

THE TOUGHEST 

JOB FOR 

MARKETERS 

CHRIS HARRISON, 

CHAIRMAN, 

YOUNG & RUBICAM 

GROUP AFRICA 

69

How many times have you heard 

the words: “We must address the 

Youth”? 

In nearly twenty years in Africa 

I must have heard it at least 

monthly. From politicians, NGOs, 

educationalists and yes, even 

marketing professionals. And of 

course they are right. On a Continent 

of a billion people, 60% of whom 

have not yet reached majority, the 

figures are clear enough for the 

meanest statistician to grasp. But 

where average life expectancy is 

40-50 years, we just may need to 

redefine the descriptor – early 

middle aged? 

The Youth are early adopters. They 

love to try new things. To pursue 

careers that were not open to their 

parents. To adopt new technology. 

They enter the cash economy 

earlier, and in larger numbers than 

in previous generations. This means 

that they are becoming consumers 

in their own right faster than ever 

before. We know lots of facts about 

young people in Africa. 

But surprisingly, we have made 

little progress in understanding their 

mindset. For it is psychographics, 

rather than measures of demography 

or spending power that will turn 

us into a continent of proficient 

youth marketers. Let’s start with 

70 

the commonplace name we ascribe 

to them. The Youth. Whenever I 

hear that definite article, I picture 

an individual harassed teenager, 

in Kumasi or Kibimba, who is the 

sole and unwitting target of all this 

attention. “There he is! The Youth. 

Quick, let us target him!” 

Young people, like everyone else in 

the world, are of course individuals. 

But if you want to align yourself with 

them, you need to understand that 

INDIVIDUALITY is absolutely central 

to their self-image. This presents 

marketers with a problem of focus. 

If a brand manager has difficulty 

dividing her budget between urban 

and rural, or between East and West, 

how on earth is she going to resource 

individual marketing activities? Well 

of course, the answer is, she can’t. 

So she must look for commonalities. 

And what we have learned from 

cross-border marketing in Africa 

and the wider world is this: Look for 

commonality of values, before you 

consider anything else. 

At Y&R we call the most common 

youth value set the EXPLORER. We 

like to use nomenclature that makes 

marketing easier to understand. 

(Apologies therefore, that I let 

“nomenclature” slip out.) 

In our view, the EXPLORER sees 

individuality as follows. Taking risks. 

Experimenting with life—leaving 

the safety of the familiar to find 

out who you really are. Avoiding 

obligation, except where the routines 

of home, school or work demand it. 

Expressing confidence and optimism 

about the world. 

EXPLORERS act on impulse. They 

look to create impact among their 

friends—to be the first to “diss” a 

boring mobile network. Or the first 

to “promote” a new crunchy snack 

sensation. They are more selfish than 

communal. They are materialistic, 

because much of what defines them 

has to be bought. But it’s a curious 

materialism—they acquire and 

discard rapidly. 

All of which fills marketers with 

excitement and dread at the same 

time. On the one hand, EXPLORERS 

might be easy to acquire, on the 

other, loyalty is hard to build. 

But come on guys, do you want 

everything on a plate? 

When we consider how to talk 

to EXPLORERS, we have to create a 

point of view that they will respect. 

This is unlikely to be “At Mkubwa 

Bank we believe that The Youth 

should save for the future.” 

EXPLORERS ridicule the normal, 

conventional and stereotyped 

ways of communication. In their 

view, rules must be broken so that 

communication is real. They seek 

color clash, not complimentary 

shades. 

Present them with nothing in 

boxes—visually or otherwise. Don’t 

dumb down for them. Clever puzzles 

that others can’t solve make ads 

narrow-band and relevant. Young 

people are adept at handling 

messages, and adapting them. That’s 

how viral marketing started. 

EXPLORERS are tribal, but not in a 

traditional sense. They create groups 

of individuals, each with a real and 

different character. Badged with 

clothing, behavior and brands that 

mark them out. 

Outside Africa, EXPLORER brands 

are daring. They are brands with 

attitude, that don’t compromise. Here 

in Africa, we don’t dare enough, so 

we don’t reap the rich rewards of 

aligning with young people. Not yet. ■ 

71

72 

“IF A YOUNG GUY 

SHOULD ASK ME 

HOW TO BECOME A 

DESIGNER, I WOULD 

SUGGEST TO HIM HE 

SHOULDN’T, AS TODAY 

THE WORLD DOESN’T 

NEED PLASTIC OR 

METAL PIECES.” 

PHILIPPE STARCK 

AN INTERESTING 

PROVOCATION 

VICKY GITTO, 

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, 

GROUP EXECUTIVE 

CREATIVE DIRECTOR, 

YOUNG & RUBICAM GROUP 

ITALY 

Some days ago, I saw an interview 

with Philippe Starck and he said, “If 

a young guy should ask me how to 

become a designer, I would suggest 

to him he shouldn’t, as today the 

world doesn’t need plastic or metal 

pieces.” 

I think this is one of the most 

interesting provocations I’ve 

recently heard, as it gives the idea 

of how nowadays, more than ever, 

it doesn’t matter if you are a clever 

architect, a capable designer or a 

good advertising man, because the 

real important thing is how much 

your thoughts and your projects are 

relevant to people you are talking to 

and to the world we live in. 

Today, the most difficult brief is no 

longer on our desks but it’s around 

us. It’s in the streets closest to us 

and in those very far away. We have 

different ways to try to settle it. It’s a 

must to try at any time. ■ 

73

74 

CHINA IS 

AMBITIOUS, AND 

IF THERE IS A 

CHALLENGE, 

THIS COUNTRY 

TAKES IT ON, AND 

THEN SOME. 

75

76 

CANNES 

FEVER 

NILS ANDERSSON, 

CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, 

Y&R ADVERTISING CHINA 

It’s that time of year. When a global 

pandemic returns affecting many 

thousands. It’s an annual occurrence 

and best described as “Cannes Fever.” 

Hibernating for much of the year 

in the bottom drawers of creative 

departments, but reawakening as 

the end of April approaches. At its 

height, late-night frenzy takes over 

many. “It’s good, but is it a lion?” A 

frequent and telltale symptom of the 

fever at its height. “Make the logo a 

little smaller,” another, as is,”but did it 

run?” Secretaries can often be found 

after midnight hunched over piles 

of mounting boards straining their 

mascara-streaked eyes over entry 

details and wondering how they 

ever got so affected by it in the first 

place. 

Cannes is, in fact, a huge success 

story. Born of its famous parent, the 

Cannes Film Festival, the Advertising 

sibling is alive and doing very well, 

having carved out a place as the 

world’s premier advertising show. It 

is to advertising what the Oscars are 

to film, and to that end has surpassed 

its parent’s achievements, as the 

film festival no longer has the dazzle 

that it once had when Grace Kelly 

frequented the Croisette, though you 

still have to be as rich as a film star, 

to afford the astronomical prices for 

a beer. 

Reputations can be made or 

broken. Careers transformed. Even 

the share price of holding companies 

can be affected by the shows’ final 

points tally. 

It wasn’t until I left London and 

came to this part of the world that I 

realized just how far Cannes’ reach 

had spread. 

In China, winning a “Gold Lion” 

really matters, as it does in Japan, 

or anywhere else across the region. 

No other show has the same allure. 

Not even D&AD, which, if you ask 

me, is even harder to win, yet is seen 

as not international enough. And I 

guess that is the reality—Cannes is 

a truly international show. Judges 

are welcomed from every continent, 

and as the middle of June arrives, 

flights to this rather kitschy, pricey 

fishing village in the south of France, 

burgeons with advertising luminaries, 

en route to spend a fortune in the 

bars, restaurants and hotels, to live 

as if they were 1950s film stars for a 

week. 

So what has this all got to do with 

China? Well, other than a very slow 

emergence of Chinese work that 

has collected metal at Cannes since 

2005, its effect on China is twofold. 

In truth, Chinese work, or should I 

say, work written in Chinese, has less 

of a chance of winning. Something 

which in itself needs addressing, 

if you ask me. However, it has 

also helped the emergence of the 

advertising industry in this country. 

Why? Because China is ambitious, 

and if there is a challenge, this 

77

country takes it on, and then some. 

Cannes sets the bar very high 

when it comes to a great idea, then 

beautifully executes it. Therefore, 

the agencies in this country have to 

create work that is genuinely good 

enough on the world stage. That 

means making “world-class” work, 

rather than “China-class” work, which 

is the norm. That means pairing a 

great idea with great execution. 

That means spending money on 

production and making sure the job 

is totally brilliant. All of which with 

very few exceptions are not generally 

applied in China. Therefore, it has 

been the smaller projects that have 

won, rather than the more important, 

industry changing campaigns. 

Cast your mind over the “great” 

Chinese work from the last 5 years, 

and you will find the list is very 

short. The Moto campaigns had 

their moment in time. The Adidas 

Olympics work was truly up there 

with the best, yet after that, things 

started to get scarce. Yes, there have 

been some very nice pieces of pro 

bono WWF, Greenpeace and UNICF 

work awarded. And more recently 

the Nokia Bruce Lee viral film, Land 

Rover outdoor and the recent GAP 

launch campaign were of high 

quality. But really, there should be far 

more, on a big scale. Much more, as 

the talent is there. But clients need 

to want to do great, too. Or it just 

won’t happen. 

I have heard the arguments for 

the work being what it is. “It’s a 

young industry, and the consumer is 

78 

not sophisticated enough yet,” is a 

common one. Or “the consumer here 

needs information, not emotional 

engagement.” Frankly, I feel a 

naïve and lazy opinion. “China is 

still investing in distribution,” not 

branding, is another, which I do feel 

has some credibility. 

However, the opportunity is there 

to be a world leader in advertising. 

After all, within just a few years, 

China will be the largest advertising 

market in the world. I guess the 

dynamic is that if it really isn’t 

needed, why create it. After all, 

advertising really does work in China, 

unlike other developed markets 

where creativity “has” to be the tool 

to make a difference, China hasn’t 

had to resort to the unusual yet. But 

it will happen, and those brands that 

invest there now, those brands that 

build empathy and an inherent quality 

now, will be the winners in the long 

term. 

So can I suggest one thing if 

nothing else? Send your creatives 

and account people to Cannes. 

Encourage your clients to get on 

the plane to France, and trust me, 

they will all return to China feeling 

inspired as they will return with the 

Cannes’ bug. ■ 

79

80 

THE MOMENT COMES 

TOGETHER WHEN ALL THE 

PIECES FIT TOGETHER 

AND TRANSLATE INTO A 

COMPELLING EXPERIENCE 

THAT WORKS. 

THE MOMENT 

BETH BADER, 

DIRECTOR OF USER 

EXPERIENCE, VML 

If you ask me what my job is, it’s not 

a title or a role. My job is about The 

Moment. It’s always been about that, 

from growing up as the slightly odd 

child who drew for hours at a time, lost 

in pencil strokes, to late nights at the— 

yes—typewriter, cup of coffee growing 

cold, dancing on the high wire of too 

much caffeine, the stale cigarette I 

tried to like, and the knowledge that 

any mistake, any meandering in the 

prose, meant an hour of retyping. 

The Moment was in my 

photojournalism degree and the tiny 

3:4 ratio window that became my 

world, where all I see is the light and 

the fleeting subject as I work angles 

and controls to show not a snapshot, 

but a story. When it works, I can feel it 

like a humming in my whole nervous 

system. Nothing else exists but The 

Moment. Now. I breathe out slowly, 

steady my hand and squeeze the 

shutter like a trigger. Yes. That’s it. 

Click. Miss that moment in time, and 

you see the image you missed in your 

dreams years after. 

Some creative types would see the 

81

work I do in UX as rather dull work 

that lacks the same elusive, addictive 

pursuit of The Moment. They would be 

wrong. 

The Moment, for me, comes when 

I see all the pieces fit together—user 

goals and needs, business cases, the 

labyrinth of ever-shifting technology, 

the vision of creative that sometimes 

defies all the other elements, and logic, 

always that damned logic we UX types 

have—all translated into a compelling 

experience that works. There it is. It 

fits. I see the answer. 

But sometimes, you don’t. No 

matter how hard you rub those sticks 

together, no spark. And no amount of 

whiteboarding, desk-riding or screenstaring 

is going to ignite a thing. It’s 

tempting, too often, to just go online 

and see how someone else solved 

it. It’s the easy way. Give into that 

temptation and you won’t get your fix. 

You’ll just get the work done. 

It’s also tempting to pound my head 

onto the desk as warm sun beckons 

over my shoulder. The cool breeze of 

spring from windows on the fourth 

floor we are not supposed to open. 

In a practiced, simultaneous move, 

I check my calendar for a gap big 

enough, and reach for a drawstring bag 

82 

I keep shoved way under the desk. 

Ten minutes later, I’m laced up and 

out the door. The first half-mile is less 

about mental blocks than excuses from 

my knee. My brain is still cluttered 

and frustrated. Thoughts tumble over 

themselves. Noise. By the end of the 

first mile, my respective joints are 

awake and my pace has evened out. 

My breathing is steady. Here, at the 

top of the first small hill, I do that thing 

I fear most. I let go. I stop thinking. I 

stop trying to make it come. I run. 

If I’m lucky, and often I am, by mile 

three the pieces begin to fit. I see 

them out of the context of my laptop 

screen, of what’s already been said 

and planned and drafted. Of what’s 

already been done. Instead, I see what 

should be done. What can be done. 

What works. And the crazy rush of 

The Moment and endorphins hit. The 

knee stops hurting. The frustrated 

wound-up spring of my mind uncoils. 

And I breathe into it, and see it all fits 

together. And it works. 

Or, it doesn’t. Eight miles later, it still 

won’t. I limp back to the shower and 

the desk and I keep trying. I always 

keep trying. ■ 

83

84 

OUR CLIENTS DON’T 

BUY ADS AND 

THEY DON’T BUY 

CREATIVITY, THEY 

BUY CHANGE. 

85

86 

CREATIVITY AND 

INNOVATION 

TO BE HANDLED 

WITH CARE 

THOMAS DING, 

STRATEGIC PLANNER, 

Y&R MELBOURNE 

“Creativity” and “innovation” are 

delicate and important words, which 

we misuse at our peril. 

Let’s take “creativity” first. 

Too often we use the word 

“creativity” without qualifying it. 

We fetishize it. We distribute shiny 

trophies in its name, and we forget 

what it means to ordinary people. 

If you ask the proverbial man in 

the street for examples of creativity, 

he will tell you about authors and 

screenwriters and comedians and 

musicians and pastry chefs before 

he gets to us ad men. And rightly 

so. We are not artists. We are not 

rock stars. Yet at festivals and award 

shows like Cannes, it is easy to 

forget that. 

It is no wonder that when people 

like Hamilton Nolan (author of the 

recent Gawker polemic “Creative 

Destruction: How Advertising Is 

Swallowing the Creative Class”) 

wander into our industry events, 

they leave surer than ever that we 

are all a bunch of arseholes. At 

these events, as Nolan correctly 

notes, “creativity exists in a bubble, 

allowing it to be admired and 

marveled at by peers without making 

the dreary connection to its actual 

societal function.” 

It is the politest quote in the 

article, but I recommend you read 

the rest. There is no better place 

than Cannes to be reminded of your 

true place in the world. 

After all, there are fewer 

better examples of our own selfimportance 

than the name we have 

given to our annual, champagnesoaked 

love-in. The moviemakers 

have a stronger claim to the title 

“Cannes Festival of Creativity” than 

we do; ours should be renamed the 

“Festival of Commercial Creativity” as 

a matter of urgency. Not only would 

it be more honest that way, it would 

also give us more interesting things 

to talk about. 

What do I mean by that? 

Well, in our business we try to find 

things for our clients to say that are 

unique and engaging, and we would 

do well to apply the same rule to 

ourselves. 

We are fortunate that the tension 

and conflict inherent in what we 

do is interesting and relevant to 

every single person alive today. In 

Mad Men, it has inspired one of the 

most successful television dramas 

of all time, and here in Australia, the 

thoughtful analysis of advertising 

is also the subject of one of the 

country’s most popular panel shows, 

The Gruen Transfer. 

Yet when we reduce it all to the 

word “creativity,” we do ourselves a 

disservice. We lose the tension and 

the interest, and we end up with the 

kind of banal propaganda and mutual 

masturbation that distances us from 

people in the real world. The very 

people we purport to understand. The 

very people we want to work for us. 

Likewise, the word “innovation” is 

a delicate one that is often handled 

clumsily. You will likely hear it a lot at 

this festival, so let’s take a second to 

think about what innovation is and isn’t. 

Contrary to popular belief in the 

field of marketing, reducing the level 

of sugar in your products by 5% isn’t 

innovation, adding a customizable 

cover to a mobile phone isn’t 

innovation, and, striking closer to the 

bone, finding a novelty use for a QR 

code isn’t innovation. 

In fact, many organizations have 

entire Departments of Innovation that 

should be renamed Departments of 

Slight, But Ultimately Insignificant 

Improvement. True innovation comes 

from radical rather than marginal 

thinking. And true innovation makes 

or breaks companies. 

Why does this stuff matter? 

It matters because our clients 

don’t buy ads and they don’t buy 

creativity, they buy change. 

In our business, creativity and 

innovation must always remain the 

means rather than the end. They are 

the tools we use to solve the puzzles 

we are given, and a proven driver of 

business success (thanks to the hard 

work of James Hurman and others, 

that conversation is closed), but they 

are nothing in and of themselves. 

It is important that when you 

are reviewing all the “creative” and 

“innovative” work at Cannes this year, 

that you do so with a critical eye. 

If it didn’t change anything, it 

doesn’t count. ■ 

87

88 

THEREIN LIES THE PARADOX. 

HOW CAN BRAND 

MANAGERS MAINTAIN AND 

GROW MARKET SHARE IN 

AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE 

VALUE IS ESSENTIAL, 

WITHOUT DENIGRATING 

THEIR BRANDS’ EQUITY AND 

LONG-TERM WORTH? 

89

90 

THE VALUE 

OF VALUE 

MICHAEL K. SUSSMAN, 

PH.D., 

GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF 

ANALYTIC INSIGHTS, 


The past few years have been tough 

for both businesses and consumers. 

An unstable housing market, the 

collapse of financial institutions, 

rising oil prices, a volatile Wall Street 

and high unemployment have all 

contributed to a more cautious and 

frugal consumer. 

As a result, brands have had to 

rethink how they market themselves 

in order to address changing 

customer attitudes and behaviors. 

After many years and billions 

of dollars spent on marketing 

efforts to build brand equity, 

brand managers across categories 

have been forced to refocus 

their efforts on emphasizing the 

value of their brands. Brands are 

aggressively competing for share of 

tighter wallets, using discounting, 

couponing, rebates and promotions 

to help drive short-term sales. While 

this can clearly hurt businesses’ 

margins, it may also have a 

dangerous long-term consequence… 

the erosion of brand equity. 

We know from Y&R’s BrandAsset® 

Valuator (BAV®) model that healthy 

brand equity starts with Brand 

Strength, which is comprised of 

Differentiation and Relevance. 

Brands that are able to stand out in 

meaningful ways are able to generate 

deeper loyalty, pricing power and 

market share and, ultimately, drive 

stock prices. 

The problem arises when we 

look at the relationship between 

perceptions of Value and Brand 

Strength. Looking at our BAV 

brandscape data comprised of 

thousands of brands, we saw that 

perceptions of Good Value were 

highly related to brand Relevance. 

But offsetting this, we found a 

negative relationship between 

Value and Differentiation. The more 

value-centric a brand becomes, the 

less it is able to Differentiate itself. 

Two decades of brand equity data 

demonstrate that Differentiation is 

the component of Brand that is the 

most difficult to build and the most 

challenging to maintain. It is also 

the dimension of brand that has the 

greatest influence on consumers’ 

emotional commitment and 

advocacy. As marketers focus more 

and more on the Value component 

in their brand equations, they may in 

fact be eroding the overall equity of 

their brands. 

Therein lies the paradox. How 

can Brand Managers maintain and 

grow market share in an environment 

where Value is essential, without 

denigrating their brands’ equity and 

long-term worth? 

“It takes 20 years to build a 

reputation and five minutes to ruin 

it. If you think about that, you’ll do 

things differently.” – Warren Buffett 

Digging into a wealth of BAV brand 

data across over 200 categories, we 

91

set out to better understand the dynamics of Value and how consumers respond 

to it. The objective was to provide insights into the best brand strategies to 

build Value perceptions without eroding equity. While we knew that perceptions 

of Good Value were negatively correlated to Differentiation, when we looked at 

the topmost value-oriented brands in our culture, we found that some of these 

brands were able to maintain and even build Differentiation. 

After isolating the top 10% most “Good Value” brands in our culture, we 

evaluated their perceptions. An analysis of the imagery of these brands revealed 

that not every value-centric brand was conveying its brand meaning in the same 

way. In fact, we found that while Value remained core to each of these brands, 

there were actually seven perceptual territories in which these brands clustered. 

Seven Dimensions of Value 

Further analysis revealed the varying impact these paths to Value had on a 

brand’s overall equity, some driving Differentiation, others impacting Relevance 

and/or Esteem. 

92 

DRIVERS OF DIFFERENTIATION 

DRIVERS OF RELEVANCE/ESTEEM 

The most obvious and perhaps overutilized path to drive Value, Everyday 

Budget Buys, focused on reducing price. This dimension was seen as highly 

Relevant to consumers. But competing on price, e.g. $1 menu items, coupons, 

discounting, etc., may contribute to Relevance and revenue in the short-term, but 

it actually had the most negative impact on a brand’s Differentiation. 

We found that Cheap Chic was the most Differentiating form of Value 

communications. Bridging the tension between style and price, brands like 

Target and H&M have disrupted the retail world, stealing share from both 

discount and higher-end fashion retailers, bringing design to the masses. 

93

Resourceful Solutions-driven Value was found to positively influence both 

Differentiation and Relevance/Esteem. Online shopping has made comparing 

prices easy, but competing on price alone will only further commoditize brands 

in this space. Faced with this challenge, Hotels.com added perceptual tension 

beyond price. The brand created a value proposition around “Smart,” acting as 

a Resourceful Solution for both business and leisure travelers. Amazon.com’s 

brand experience enabled consumers to find the best prices. However, by 

leveraging its massive consumer database, Amazon provides relevant product 

recommendations, consumer-driven vendor ratings and a sense of security not 

felt when buying directly from smaller online retailers. This simplified online 

shopping experience elevated Amazon.com to a Resourceful Solution for online 

shoppers, while also propelling the Amazon brand to one of the strongest in our 

cultural brandscape. 

While we know that we cannot ignore the importance of building perceptions 

of Good Value for our brands, we need to be mindful of how we do this moving 

forward. As marketers, we must do our best to protect our greatest assets, 

our brands. With an understanding of our brands’ DNA, the category dynamics 

and the competitive spaces, we can not only strengthen our brands’ Value 

propositions, but also protect and build their equity, driving both short- and long- 

term success. 

“If the businesses were split up, I would take the brands, trademarks, and goodwill, and you could 

have all the bricks and mortar—and I would fare better than you.” – John Stuart, former chairman 

of Quaker Oats ■ 

94 

95

96 

ONE QUESTION 

STILL REMAINS. 

IS PINTEREST 

RIGHT FOR BRAND 

ADVERTISERS? 

THE ANSWER IS A 

DEFINITE MAYBE. 

PINTEREST: 

PINNING IS 

WINNING 

97

BY KAREN RENNER, 

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 

CHANNEL ACTIVATION, 

VML 

What’s the super-hot social sharing 

network that everyone is talking 

about lately? It is clearly Pinterest. 

Creative minds, bloggers, moms and 

hipsters alike are spending countless 

hours on the platform, causing its 

traffic and popularity to skyrocket. 

So what is Pinterest exactly? 

Pinterest is a virtual “pinboard,” or 

repository, used to curate, organize 

and share photo content. Users 

create these pinboards to plan their 

weddings, decorate their homes, 

inspire home projects and keep their 

favorite recipes handy. 

Love a picture of a tangerine 

coffee table you found on a DIY 

website? Want to save that Elmo 

cupcake recipe for your son’s 

birthday party? In the past, users 

had to bookmark the Web page or 

send the link to themselves via email. 

This was hardly efficient. Pinterest is 

the cure to this madness because it 

serves as a virtual filing system via 

the Web, bookmarklet and mobile 

application. 

Pinterest also connects people 

with similar interests and tastes. If 

98 

you like a photo someone else pins 

on the network, you can officially 

“like” it or “repin” it on your own 

board. Pinterest’s appeal can also 

be attributed to good, old-fashioned 

vanity. Let’s face it, when someone 

repins a photo you found first, it is 

very validating. 

Bloggers are all over Pinterest, 

too. One of a blogger’s hardest tasks 

is coming up with new, interesting 

content for his or her readers. 

Pinterest is the mother lode of 

content, making it incredibly easy 

for influencers to grab innovative 

designs, projects and recipes and 

present them as their own unique 

vision. 

One question still remains. Is 

Pinterest right for brand advertisers? 

The answer is a definite maybe. In 

January 2012, Pinterest was reported 

as the fastest-growing site for referral 

traffic. The site drove more referral 

traffic than Google+, YouTube and 

LinkedIn combined. In addition, 

traffic is definitely on the rise (40 

million unique visitors in December 

2011), and average time spent on 

the site is notably high (15 minutes 

per user login). However, Pinterest’s 

reach is still limited. Only about 5 

percent of audiences age 21–34 are 

active on the network. This could be 

because Pinterest is still by invitation 

only. Therefore, if a brand does not 

have a strong presence on other 

high-reaching social networks (e.g., 

Facebook), it may be best to start 

there and evolve into a Pinterest 

page. 

Pinterest is, however, a great 

platform for brands that are social 

pioneers, have a creative flair and 

have a lot of valuable content to 

share. Whole Foods Market is just 

such a brand. With more than 11,500 

followers and 19 pinboards, Whole 

Foods shares relevant content 

and pinboards including “Eat Your 

Veggies,” “Who Wants Dinner?!” 

and “Edible Celebrations.” Other 

noticeable brands on Pinterest 

include Real Simple, Martha Stewart, 

HGTV and The Gap. 

If a brand wants to expand its 

social footprint onto Pinterest, it 

is key to start with an activation 

strategy. Just as with having a 

presence on any social network, 

there is no point to having a page 

if no one goes there. A brand must 

be open to engaging with the end 

consumer and influencers alike, 

liking their content and repining 

good ideas. There can also be 

rewards for followers of a brand 

page, such as pinning contest and 

parties. A brand must not forget to 

regularly pin new content to stay 

fresh and give followers a reason to 

come back and share further. After 

all, sharing is what organically grows 

the awareness of the page and brand 

itself. 

The possibilities for a brand 

on Pinterest are plentiful. With 

enough dedication, resource time 

and creative backbone, a brand 

can make a true impact on a very 

savvy social audience. If that is not 

reason enough to hop on the site 

immediately, perhaps the recipe for 

“ready-made mason jar cocktails” on 

my Pinterest page will be? Feel free 

to repin it, too. (Find my page here: 

http://pinterest.com/karenner7/.) 

Cheers! ■ 

Originally published on VML.com 

99

100 

“WE ARE IN THE MIDST 

OF TOTAL COLLAPSE 

OF THE MEDIA 

INFRASTRUCTURE WE 

HAVE TAKEN 

FOR GRANTED FOR 

400 YEARS.” 

BOB GARFIELD 

THE CHAOS 

SCENARIO: 

NOW LESS 

CHAOTIC 

101

FRANK H. JURDEN, 

PH.D., 

GROUP DIRECTOR 

OF PLANNING, VML 

“The digital world has so disrupted 

the business models of newspapers, 

radio, television, music and even 

Hollywood that the yin and yang of 

mass media and mass marketing 

are flying apart. We are in the midst 

of total collapse of the media 

infrastructure we have taken for 

granted for 400 years.” 

So begins Bob Garfield’s 2009 

book The Chaos Scenario. In 

characteristically rococo prose, 

Garfield predicted a looming 

dystopia in which broadband access 

and consumers’ insatiable desire for 

content would conspire to upend the 

business models of broadcast, print 

and news media. And as old-media 

businesses go, so go the businesses 

of brand marketers, media buyers 

and advertising agencies. 

A cautionary tale, The Chaos 

Scenario was just one title in the 

then-burgeoning genre on the 

subject of old-media meltdown and 

its impact on the advertising industry. 

Harry Blodget (publisher of Silicon 

Alley Insider) and Michael Arrington 

(founder and former Editor in Chief 

of TechCrunch) and numerous other 

industry observers all outlined 

equally disquieting predictions 

about the future of media. 

102 

The question is: Were the 

doomsayers right? Here on the 

verge of 2012, just how did these 

predictions turn out? 

Go back to the period leading up 

to 2009. The dramatic tension at the 

center of The Chaos Scenario is the 

incestuous relationship between the 

traditional media industry and the 

traditional marketing industry. 

For decades prior, consumers 

enjoyed content in all its forms 

because the costs of production and 

distribution were largely subsidized 

by advertisers. This historic quid 

pro quo had been in place since the 

dawn of broadcast all the way to the 

present day. Content drew audiences, 

advertisers subsidized content, and 

audiences tolerated advertising in 

exchange for free (or nearly free) 

entertainment. 

At least that’s how it worked in 

the past. Fast-forward to the digital 

age, when Garfield and others find 

evidence for shrinking audiences, 

taking with it the entire mediaadvertising 

complex. Garfield (2009) 

finds “rivers of blood” (pg. 25) in 

the magazine business for example, 

citing the title closures, layoffs and 

circulation downturns at Condé 

Nast, Ziff Davis, Meredith and Hearst 

Publishing. Gross advertising pages, 

a broad measure of magazineindustry 

health, fell 22 percent 

in 2009 on top of a double-digit 

drop in 2008. Titles like Playgirl, PC 

Magazine, CosmoGirl and dozens of 

others are now gone; weeklies like 

U.S. News & World Report are now 

monthly; Life magazine ditched its iconic 

oversized format in favor of a more 

economical standard magazine size. 

Over in newspapers, sadly, the 

story is worse. McClatchy, The 

Tribune Company and dozens of 

smaller entities have been driven to 

bankruptcy. Paid circulation, a broad 

measure of industry vitality, fell from 

55 million to 45 million in the decade 

between 1999 and 2009. News 

Corporation took an $8.4 billion write 

down of assets after its acquisition 

of the The Wall Street Journal. Even 

lowly classified ads—the industry’s 

cash cow—dried up, largely 

eviscerated by Craigslist.org, eBay. 

com, Monster.com, Autotrader.com 

and others. Rivers of blood, indeed. 

What about television? Surely 

Netflix, Hulu and YouTube have had 

equally destructive effects on the TV 

value chain. 

In fact, the opposite appears to 

be the case. The situation might 

even be described as “pretty good.” 

Nielsen recently reported that TV 

viewership in the first part of 2011 

actually increased over the previous 

year, contrary to what pessimists 

predicted. Across all TV homes, and 

including time-shifted viewership, 

the number of TV watchers grew 

from 380 million to 395 million per 

month. Forrester found a similar 

trend: Americans reported spending 

more time in front of TV in 2010 

compared to 2005 levels (a growth 

of 5 percent). 

And where there are consumers, 

you’ll find advertisers and ad dollars. 

In 2010, local, cable and network 

TV all turned in positive numbers, 

handily beating newspapers and 

magazines in ad-dollar growth. 

The 2012 TV upfront market—that 

speculative marketplace in which 

advertisers buy national airtime 

in advance of the coming year—is 

expecting healthy price increases 

due to high demand. 

It’s clear that for the vast majority 

of Americans, TV remains the 

dominant force, especially for local 

TV programming. 

Did the digital revolution miss TV? 

Of course not. Digital’s effect on TV 

consumption simply differs from its 

effect on other media. 

With print particularly, the 

expansion of digital media displaced 

the older forms, luring consumers 

to the new channel and leaving 

the older form to wilt. Think of it 

as a kind of “either/or” effect: I will 

read national news either in print 

or online, but not both. Digital has 

clearly dethroned print media just as 

The Chaos Scenario predicted. 

But in terms of TV, the role of 

digital media appears supplemental. 

Rather than “either/or” it might be 

described as a “both/and” effect: 

Consumers are running multiple 

screens simultaneously, dividing their 

attention between the TV screen 

and other screens big and small, all 

without any appreciable decline in 

TV consumption. Forrester vividly 

documents this trend. Whereas 

Internet usage in its sample grew 

steadily over the past five years to 

103

ecome comparable to TV viewing in 

time spent, this growth came about 

without displacing TV viewing. The 

Forrester results paint a scene in which 

consumers are checking box scores 

on their mobile and moving Remember 

the Titans to the top of their Netflix 

queue on the laptop, all while taking 

in the big game on the biggest 

screen in the household—the TV. 

And so it’s clear that the 

predictions of widespread chaos 

in the media-advertising complex 

have missed the mark, at least in 

the context of how we consume 

video. Yesterday’s vision of tomorrow 

assumed a destructive dialectic in 

which the new would extinguish the 

old in the same way automobiles 

turned buggy whips into charming 

anachronisms. 

On the eve of 2012, TV has proven 

to be anything but an anachronism. 

One might say we live in a golden 

age with TV enduring the onslaught 

of digital media largely undiminished. 

Content creators now have the 

unprecedented opportunity to reach 

a growing audience with more content 

on more screens than ever before. 

In this post-“Chaos” world, brand 

managers and agencies must go 

back and re-examine simplistic 

assumptions about consumers’ 

abandonment of old media; reality 

has proven to be more eclectic and 

complicated. 

The question now becomes: How 

might agencies’ creative approach 

evolve in this eclectic media space? 

The notion of integrated creative now 

104 

has to be redefined to be less about 

a monolithic idea existing in a single 

channel with “matching luggage” 

versions online. In a multiscreen 

world, the standard now must 

embrace a notion of complementary 

creative—experiences that combine 

in such a way across channels as to 

enhance or emphasize the others’ 

qualities. Complementarity doesn’t 

duplicate message points from 

one medium in another. Rather, it 

provides completeness or perfection 

of the experiences from one channel 

in another. 

The publication of The Chaos 

Scenario and the seemingly 

inevitable death of old media might 

have tempted some digital purists 

to take a victory lap back in 2009. 

The media reality of 2012 should 

attenuate that desire. Storytelling has 

always been important in advertising. 

The next generation of agency 

storytellers will be masters of the 

uncomplicated narrative arc across 

several channels, each chapter with 

its own value, and each chapter 

enhanced by connection to the 

larger brand narrative. ■ 

SO WHAT DOES 

IT TAKE TO BE 

TRULY INNOVATIVE AS 

AN ORGANIZATION? 

105

106 

WHAT’S NEXT 

AND HOW DO WE 

GET THERE ? 

BEN KAY 

JOINT CEO RKCR/Y&R 

ADVERTISING LONDON 

At some unspecified and largely 

unremarkable point in the last decade, 

innovation overtook integration as the 

industry’s chosen “mot du jour.” Since 

that point there has been endless 

workshopping, soul searching and no 

small amount of wool pulling to ensure 

that agencies can present themselves 

as having genuine innovation coursing 

through their corridors (alongside 

unfettered creativity, commercial 

acumen, procedural genius and 

financial probity of course). 

But the rush to embrace innovation 

is far from limited to agencies; it’s hard 

to find a serious business these days 

that doesn’t have innovation written 

into their vision, mission, purpose, 

value, principles, behaviors or…well, you 

get the point. 

So what does it take to be truly 

innovative as an organization? Four 

years ago when we set up Saint, we 

had the opportunity to build an 

organization from scratch and it was 

critical that in doing so, we end up with 

a business that truly walked the walk 

when it came to innovation. After all, if 

every business needs to innovate if it 

is going to survive, surely a digital 

business needs to innovate simply to 

justify its existence. 

Perhaps counter-intuitively, we 

started this process by looking at what 

already existed, at those businesses 

that had for a long time displayed a real 

track record of both embracing and 

displaying innovation. 

First, we looked at ourselves, RKCR/Y&R, 

and drew from our strengths on the 

basis that much of what is required to 

nurture a top-quality creative environment 

holds true for an innovative one. We also 

looked to our founding client, Virgin 

Atlantic, an airline which has been 

consistently innovating since its 

inception: the lounge, the limos and the 

private security are all evidence of 

innovation as a means to create a more 

special flying experience. Beyond that, 

we looked outside our own immediate 

partners to companies like Google, with 

their famous 20 percent rule, responsible 

for such innovations as Gmail and 

Google Maps. Finally, we looked at the 

new breed of tech start-ups with their 

flexible structures and rapid growth. 

The immediate and most significant 

conclusion we came to was perhaps as 

important as it was predictable: that 

innovation is as difficult to hardwire into 

a business as it is easy to pay lip service to. 

It would involve a long-term financial 

and a cultural commitment if it was to 

truly work. It also became clear that 

innovation is not an objective or a 

strategy, but a belief—a belief shared by a 

group of people who are both empowered 

and incentivized to act on it. 

More specifically, through the process 

of listening, questioning and sifting 

through the most valuable lessons from 

this smorgasbord of different companies, 

we came across some common themes 

that we went on to condense into three 

golden rules that define how we have 

built our agency. 

INCENTIVIZE GROUP PERFORMANCE. 

This means having an open source 

mentality that is collaborative and takes 

pride in the success of the whole. It is 

often acknowledged that innovation is 

not the creation of something entirely 

new but rather involves taking a 

107

commonly held practice and applying 

it to a new context, otherwise known 

as transfer innovation. If the right 

environment is created, transfer will 

be a continuous, effortless process. 

In a creative agency, this leads to the 

democratization and critically, the 

growth of ideas. It was vital to create 

a culture where ideas are co-created 

and co-owned—not jealously protected. 

But this isn’t just about knocking 

down walls internally; by working 

collaboratively with external teams, 

it’s possible to accelerate the transfer 

process. An example of this would be 

our project with Internet Week Europe 

“Can you draw the internet,” where we 

pitted the creative industry against a 

group of school children, effectively 

democratizing the notion that creativity 

and imagination are the sole preserve 

of the creative industries. It then ran 

in Internet Week New York and has 

facilitated even more collaboration 

from around the world. 

REWARD DIVERSITY. 

Counter to establishing multiple set 

processes, which all too often reward 

similar behavior and therefore 

incentivize non-innovation, this 

principle involves embracing chaos and 

uncertainty within a framework. The 

very nature of Saint’s inception, as a 

largely autonomous unit within RKCR/ 

Y&R, is an example of this, which gave it 

the space to grow into what it needed 

to be. Beyond this, there are other 

examples of this desire to embrace 

and reward diversity: RKCR/Y&R, for 

example, have consciously chosen not 

108 

to adopt a planning process so that 

every problem can be approached 

and solved based on its own unique 

circumstances. If one buys into the 

notion that there is one right way of 

answering problems, you are by definition 

restricting the possible outputs. 

But for every piece of process you 

do not create, you have to improve 

the quality of your talent pool 

commensurately. Your planners, for 

example, must have the talent to look 

at a blank piece of paper and feel 

confident that they will still come up 

with a right answer. Culturally, it 

requires people who don’t feel shackled 

by their own job titles and are not 

afraid to share their opinions as 

creatives, strategists and consumers. 

At our agency, the only given on a 

project is that it will start with a “big 

bang” session where all the relevant 

people gather together to try to work 

out what kind of a problem we’re 

dealing with and what resources we 

need to effectively answer it; it is a 

collaborative process that continues 

throughout the project, something we 

(rather tritely) call “rugby not relay,” but 

it ensures that the process is never 

linear, always collaborative and 

consistently constructive. This enables 

us to react quickly to any brief and still 

turn out great work. 

LEARN THROUGH PLAY. 

It was clear that the pursuit of 

innovation would mean embracing 

failure, or to put it another way, the 

only way to become really good 

at something is to give yourself 

permission to be really bad at it first. 

Rather than being scared to try new 

things, we decided to make a game 

of it and remove the pressure. Rapid 

prototyping is a big part of what we 

do and we have formalized this by 

the creation of something called 

“The Nursery,” which was seeded at 

Saint and exists to try new things 

and work on non-client briefs. The 

Nursery’s purpose is to see firstly 

whether something can be done 

and then whether it can be made 

useful. Whereas some could see The 

Nursery as a creative indulgence, the 

impact on the agency has been huge, 

resulting in a group of people whose 

default thought process is “what if?,” 

who aren’t afraid to not only try new 

things but to then see them through 

to production, and that, we believe, is 

one of the most valuable assets we can 

give our clients. 

The Nursery has had a prodigious and 

varied output since its inception. All 

projects have been undertaken based 

solely on the imagination of our people, 

but it isn’t too hard to see how an 

organization that creates work like that 

listed below might offer something fresh 

to clients bored with the same old banner 

advertising and social media strategies: 

•Gestural Dictionary. A universal 

gesture language for use with Xbox 

Kinect, etc. Something that will no 

doubt become more of a hot topic in 

the coming months. 

•Twitter Knitter. A Christmas project 

that took tweets on a hash tag and turned 

them into scarves, which we then 

distributed in a drive to warm up Camden. 

•Good Day / Bad Day Button. Very 

simply a big red and green button placed 

by the exit to the office which 

anonymously records people’s votes. 

We then take this information and overlay 

it with various other data sets, such as 

weather, tube strikes, pitches, etc., 

bringing the results to life through 

data visualization. 

•Boris Bikes Artwork. An interactive 

picture that hangs on the wall and is 

hooked up to the Boris Bikes API, letting 

everyone know how many bikes are 

available at each of the nearest racks. 

Saint went from an idea to 

Revolution’s “Agency of the Year” in 

four short years. Not only have we won 

numerous creative awards for some of 

Britain’s best-loved brands, we have 

also grown revenue aggressively and 

consistently turned a profit, proving 

perhaps that our obsession with creating 

a culture of continuous innovation is a 

viable route to commercial success. 

With all that said, we are of course 

only just beginning. And our recent 

merger of Saint under the RKCR/Y&R 

brand gives us a unique and powerful 

proposition. The great thing about a 

core belief in innovation is that, by 

definition, we can never stand still. 

We have to constantly question what 

is and imagine what is next. We know 

that we will have some successes and 

some failures, and that the failures will 

be just as valuable as the successes, 

but most importantly, we know that 

with a committed group of people who 

share a common belief in exploring the 

unimagined and the untried, it’s going 

to be a hell of a ride. ■ 

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What do you think? 

We’d love to hear from you at ideas@yr.com 

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