moving fast and slow

IPA Excellence Diploma 2012 Candidate# 7003

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Moving, Fast and Slow: I Believe in a New Agency Operating System

IPA Excellence Diploma Dissertation

July 2012

Tom Darlington


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Abstract

The current rhetoric around the future of advertising agencies promotes

adoption of the working practices of software and technology companies,

Agile planning, as it has become known. I believe the doctrine of Agility

should be treated with care, not only because ‘Agile’ methodologies are

largely incompatible with current agency structures, but also because the

current agency model has many valuable attributes that must be protected. I

believe in a new agency operating system that lies in understanding how to

marry the old and the new, balancing existing practices with new working

methods. The new system will move both fast, and slow.


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Moving, Fast and Slow: I Believe in a New Agency Operating System

Part 1: Where we find ourselves today

“Intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still function” – F Scott Fitzgerald

The question over the future models, or operating systems, of advertising agencies is

as old as the agency system itself. Advertising, as a means for companies and

brands to communicate with their customers, is inextricably linked to change – as the

attitudes and behaviour of society change and progress, so to must the means by

which companies communicate.

Digital technology is accelerating the rate of change and subsequently the level of

uncertainty is enormous. Media, message and product design are converging, and

as a result, the question of how the advertising agency of the future will look has

never been more important.

The rise of technology and software firms as the supposed dominant creative and

innovative forces of the day has led commentators involved in Marketing and

Advertising to suggest that the future of our industry lies in copying the behaviours of

Silicon Valley. We’re all technology companies now, they say. In order for the agency

model to survive the assertion is that we must change and adopt the “mantra of agile

creativity…. learning from the processes and models that relate to what advertising is

becoming, an industry much more about technology” (Google, 2012).

The number of blogs and articles espousing the benefits of ‘Agile’ or ‘Lean’ planning

systems is vast – but I believe that this wisdom should be treated with care, both

because the systems and processes they promote are far from being a panacea to


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the industry’s woes, but also because we risk undervaluing our industry’s existing

and unique skillset in the process.

The literature on the subject covers mainly the ‘what’ – what systems, tools and

processes are involved in this new framework – but there is little written on the ‘why’,

and indeed the ‘how’, of ‘Agile Planning’. The reality of implementing agile working

practices is, in my opinion, beyond the majority of agencies and client organisations.

As the thinking around the subject gains traction we run the risk of becoming

members of a “cargo cult” (Malbon, 2010) – worshipping the ideals of a system that

we have no proper idea of how to actually use.

The central message of this paper is one of realism, of pragmatism – a repost to the

sensational and often impractical rallying calls of journalists and bloggers. The

agency of the future will be different to the ones we work in today, that is a given, but

all too often we seek to kill off the old in adopting the new – we’re capable of holding

only one idea in our head it would seem, rather than a combination of many

competing themes. This paper preaches a moderate yet progressive approach to

change. I believe that the agency of the future will span old and new, digital and

analogue. It will move fast and slow.

“Strategy is dead…Management is dead….The Big Idea is

dead….Marketing is dead” – Kevin Roberts (Draycott, 2012)

Gustav Von Sydow, founder of software design agency Burt, said at the Cannes

Advertising Festival in 2010 that there are two ways to “Market a Marketer - Win a

bunch of awards and/or announce the end of the world” (Von Sydow, 2010, p. 38).

Whilst this is a pithy, and amusing statement, there is more than a little truth in it.


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Those in the advertising and communications industry are a morbid bunch, not in the

classic sense, but in terms of their relationship with technology.

A close examination of trade press reveals some startling headlines (Fig.1), and

accordingly a phrase we’ve become fond of is Paradigm Shift. Scientist Thomas

Kuhn coined the phrase, as he outlined that scientific progression was not so much a

smooth evolutionary process, but instead a “series of peaceful interludes punctuated

by intellectually violent revolutions" whereby "one conceptual world view is replaced

by another" (Kuhn, 1996). This is how we treat our industry and the technology that

we use. As a new tool arrives, we publicly sacrifice the old paradigm, loudly

proclaiming the benefits of the new school of thought.

Fig. 1 It would appear TV has more lives than the average cat. Thinkbox's 2011 Annual Report report suggests both commercial impacts are up, and that viewing has remained stable since the all time high recorded in 2010

largely unaffected by competing media. (Source: BBC/ Thinkbox)

An important distinction made by Kuhn though, was that ‘Paradigm Shifts’ are the

preserve of scientists only – “a student in the humanities has constantly before him a

number of competing and incommensurable solutions” (Kuhn). Communications,

Advertising and Marketing, as subjects which deal firmly with the human condition


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can easily be argued to sit within the realm of humanities. We have the “tendency to

argue that the arrival of X will cause the total eradication of Y. The Internet will

destroy television. Phones will destroy MP3 players…. and forget that the likely

scenario will be that everything will be a blurry munge like it was before, with this new

element added in” (Davies, 2007).

So, what next for advertising and communications agencies?

The current rhetoric around the future of advertising agencies is rooted firmly in

technology, as we continue our constant hunt for ‘innovation’ and the ‘next big thing’

in our field. The rise of the Internet and digital media has fascinated the advertising

industry. The Internet has radically changed consumer behaviour and the business

landscape. Facebook, in 6 years, has gone from being a cottage industry for ivy

leaguers to a business worth $57bn at time of writing, with 800 million users

worldwide. We’re led to believe that the Don Draper of today doesn’t work on

Madison Avenue or eat lunch on Charlotte Street. He is a Prius driving nerd living in

California, and if the ad industry wants to survive we should be more like him, and

less like the Mad Men we used to be.

The current wisdom is that advertising agencies should embrace agility as a means

of operating, that we should start being more like software and technology

companies, that we should “act and think like tech startups” (Inamoto, 2012) because

many of our tools and methods are now defunct. These changes would have severe

implications for our business. Should we be so quick to emulate these companies

and adopt their systems and discard our current ways?


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The origins of Agile Planning

Agile Planning and Lean Planning for advertising are a mutation of the Lean Startup

movement, which has been popularised by Eric Reis’ book of the same name. The

book describes the “new trends in the start-up landscape…a combination of the use

of open-source software, agile development methodologies and ferocious, customer-

centric, rapid iteration” (Eccles, 2010). Ries frames these methods in the context of

modern software entrepreneurs, but in fact the methods are quite a lot older. The

idea of ‘lean production’ began not in Silicon valley, but in Japan – as the central

methodology of car manufacturer Toyota – the company business built on two key

ideological pillars – “Continuous improvement and respect for people” (Liker, 2004, p.

xi). Another precursor to Reis’ work was the Agile Manifesto For Software

Development, published by a group of software developers in 2001. This manifesto

called for a system which worked much more quickly than traditional ‘waterfall’

production methods, with the ambition of “help(ing) to drive waste out of product

development” (Ries, 2011, p. 47) – just as Toyota’s system was intended to.

It is out of this movement that buzzwords such as Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

and mantras such as “Fail Fast” have originated. The crux of this method is to arrive

at a piece of software that works as quickly as possible, to present this to customers,

and through a data driven schema of “validated learning” (Ries, p. 9) understand

quickly what is working, what is not, and then iteratively create the next version of the

product. This system has been key to the survival of start-ups since the financial

crash in 2008. Seqouia Capital, a leading investor in tech start-ups, published a

document to the companies it was working with, entitled “RIP Good Times”. This

document encouraged companies to “decrease headcount…question what features


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are absolutely necessary…measure, cut what isn’t working” (Sequoia Capital, 2008).

This mandate is an excellent summary of agile and lean methodologies.

Fig. 2 The Agile Manifesto for Software Development - a lighter, more fleet of foot method of development and production, which has found favour amongst start-ups (Eccles, 2011)

This way of working requires small, flat team structures with everyone involved

present at all stages of development. Unlike Waterfall (Fig.3), process is run in

parallel rather than sequentially. These methods are about focussing a team on

getting a product to market as soon as possible, in whatever state. Functionality

takes precedence over form. Once the product comes to market, based on data, the

team can decide whether to “Pivot or persevere” (Ries, p. 164). A pivot is defined in

this context as a “structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental

hypothesis about the product or strategy” (Ries, p. 149). Pivots have in some very

well-known instances, resulted in a wholesale change of the product. Flickr, the

photo-sharing site, started out as a Massive Multiplayer Online Game called Game

Neverending (Ha, 2008). Groupon, the social commerce site, began life as


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The Point, a site for gathering names on petitions. Herein lies the rub, for

Entrepreneurs, being successful as a businessman is the goal. The means by which

that is achieved is irrelevant.

Here is where the application of agile to advertising begins to fall down.

Fig. 3 An example of a 'Waterfall' system, a sequential method of development and production used in software and industrial manufacturing. There are obvious parallels with how advertising has traditionally been

developed (Source: Wikipedia)

Agencies have clients and brands to be considerate of; we aren’t able to ‘pivot’ as

easily. A brief has a distinct set of objectives that must be met. An advertising

campaign has far less room for manoeuvre. Also traditional advertising doesn’t lend

itself to iteration particularly well; at least no more than current DR optimisation

methods allow.

Agile methods also require constant client presence. This requires a special type of

client, a breed that is increasingly rare – one with both the time and the inclination to

get involved in the creative process from start to finish.


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‘Agile’ systems lend themselves to certain parts of our business, especially in

delivering new and important innovations – essentially non-traditional forms of

advertising, such as the design and creation of digital products (Fig.4.), which are

beginning to become more important.

Fig. 4 "This is the new advertising" says Albion's Chief Executive Jason Goodman (Goodman, 2012). Agency R/GA built Nike’s customisation tool NikeiD, an example of an ad agency creating products as well as

communications for their clients

However, whilst smaller start-up agencies can set themselves up specifically to work

in this way this is not a system that we can base the entire day-to-day running of a

large advertising agency on. These methods do hold value for our industry, but

understanding the balance, when they should be deployed, and how they can be

integrated into a larger agency system, will be crucial.

The tyranny of scale

Agile methods require flat hierarchies and small teams. Whilst size is generally a

feature of organisations that is admired, scale creates a barrier for companies


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looking to truly use Agile methodology. More generally size hinders those trying to

innovate, and that is ultimately the key reason we’re being told that “agile” is our

future, as a means of delivering innovation. As a business gets bigger, it “becomes

more efficient, it also becomes more specialised, and its flexibility in supporting

innovation diminishes” (Govindarajan & Trimble, 2010, p. 30). This is as true of

Facebook and Google as it is of the biggest advertising networks such as Ogilvy or

JWT.

Most big companies deal with this in a similar way – they acquire. They buy smaller

companies who have been proven to disrupt their markets, and try to integrate their

challenger culture into their existing business. Advertising agencies have long

behaved in this way, “buying and merging is what big, un-dynamic agencies do to

reboot” (Beale, 2012, p. 2) – but it is also a trend in tech too. It is often quicker and

easier for cash rich companies to spend money to acquire new products, as

technology companies are just as susceptible to falling foul of technological

advancement as everyone else. Google has a long tradition of acquiring new

companies as it tries to maintain its dominance, buying companies such as Youtube

and Motorola. The problem is that the rate of change is greater than the adaption

rate of large organisations, and the bigger a business, the harder adapting becomes.

Fig. 5 The merger of Adam & Eve with Omnicom’s DDB is the latest in a long line of mergers conducted by the

American network – previous deals include the formation of AMV BBDO and several purchases by TBWA.


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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – Charles Dickens

John Webster, writing a piece for the 40th birthday of D&AD, notes that the 1970s

“were heady times to be in the media, and a fresh generation of talent nurtured in the

sixties started to change the status quo in agencies… in Advertising, London

embarked on what is now considered it’s Golden Age…things were buzzing. The

seventies were confident times” (Webster, 2002, pp. 178-179)

The parallels with today are obvious: technology is disrupting our industry as well as

changing consumer behaviour, the “rulebook of what it means to work in marketing

and advertising” (Graham, 2012) is being re-written. In the 70s, it was advancement

in TV; today it is the digital revolution. If one of my colleagues were asked, in 30

years time, to write a review of the first decade of the new millennium as D&AD turns

80, would their account be as reverent as Webster’s? Would it remember, with

enthusiasm and excitement, the opportunities created by the upheaval currently

being experienced? Whilst Webster had the benefit of hindsight, my instinct suggests

not.

The current mood of the industry is one of fear – fear of disintermediation, fear of

irrelevance. Disheartened by the tightening grip of procurement departments, and a

world that has become cynical of advertising, we are almost apologetic about our

trade. As we wrestle with technology companies for the best talent, it is more

important than ever that we try to recapture the spirit that characterised the 1970s

and 1980s. We can either be scared and afraid of what is happening now, or we can

take the view that “there has never been a more exciting time to be doing, what we

do” (Graham)


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We have “access to well over a hundred years of slowly evolved and priceless

understanding on which to draw” (Bullmore, 2012), an understanding of how

creativity can be leveraged to change our clients businesses, an understanding of

human behaviour, of culture, of commerce, of how communication works. The

canvas may be changing, but the basic rules will remain the same in spite of the fact

we often ignore them – treat people as people; entertain them, educate them,

connect them with each other, or prove useful in their lives (Cotton, 2008). The best

advertising and marketing has always done this, and it will have to continue doing so

even as the definition of what constitutes advertising and marketing changes.

Do we actually need a new agency model?

The advertising industry has a lot to be hopeful about; we have established ourselves

over the last century as a group of companies that can truly add value to advertisers

through “intense brand stewardship” (Bainsfair, 2012, p. 13). The recent ascendancy

of technology companies should give pause for thought, but we should be careful

before abandoning our past for a future of borrowed process.

Whilst we have much to be hopeful about, we still need to adopt a new method of

organising our businesses. The disruption we’re experiencing at the moment is like a

snail, slow, obvious, and relentless. The Internet has been changing things now for

15 years; we’re fighting “a hundred year war, not a skirmish. It’s about continuing,

relentless technological change and how we create organisations that deal with

snails, not panic about trends” (Davies, 2012)

In a world where “a two term Prime Minister would end his term of office with an

iPhone 64 times as powerful as the one he won the election with” (Hammersley,

2011), we need a device which allows large organisations, normally so slow to adapt,


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to evolve and deal with new technological, social, and commercial disruptions whilst

preserving their heritage at the same time.

Any new model must also take into account the limitations our clients face. They too

move and operate at different speeds, and have need for different products and

services from us, (Fig.6) and “it is a company’s customers who effectively control

what it can and can’t do” (Christensen, p. 101).

Fig. 6 UK Media spend in billions of pounds, 2011-2020. Client demand for more traditional, broadcast and mass communication media channels shows no signs of waning, despite decreasing popularity amongst commentators. Advertising is going to change more slowly than perhaps we like to think it will. (Source:

Opera/Omnicom Media Group)

The challenge is to find a way of navigating this inhospitable landscape in a way that

is not only suitable for agencies, but also services the multitude of requirements that

our clients have too. I believe this new system will compliment the old hierarchical

systems we’ve created rather than replace outright. By appending a newer, quicker

division to the old system we can evolve, adapting to the new conditions we face.


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Part 2: Moving, Fast and Slow

Agency Structure

One solution to keeping older, rigid and hierarchical organisations innovative has

been the creation of a separate division of the company, a “Skunkworks”, as

pioneered by Lockheed Martin. Created to work on advanced and often secret

projects, the skunkworks usually operates behind closed doors – in Lockheed

Martin’s case, a separate building.

Whilst secrecy and distance is a necessity for certain industries, communications

agencies derive their strength from their ability to share knowledge amongst a

number of different teams. An analogy I keep coming back to whilst thinking about

this is the way a shipping liner works with a tugboat as it approaches a dock.

The shipping liner is where all the long term value lies, yet it is slow – it is less able to

traverse difficult and unpredictable waters. The tugboat by contrast, is much smaller;

it’s very fast and extremely agile – allowing it to explore potentially hazardous waters

with ease. Crucially, the vessels are linked – the tugboat is valuable only in context of

the larger ship it works with, the shipping liner requires the smaller vessel to protect

itself. This is how I believe agencies should be structured to deal with change,

providing a model for the future proofing of our business. It is a model reliant on

finding the optimum balance between the two vessels.

The ‘Traditional’ agency (Fig.7) is a highly evolved beast, its capabilities perfected

over decades and regulated by carefully established process and infrastructure.

Principally, this body should be responsible for 3 things in this new model. Firstly,

creativity - not in the way we often use this word – as in a piece of creative work such

as a poster or TV execution - but creativity as a constituent part of problem solving,


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the recombination of ideas to create a new solution to a challenge. Agencies have a

proven track record in this area, and strong ideas will continue to be the foundation of

our business no matter what the technological context in which they are executed.

Fig. 7 The 'slow' agency structure, a creative powerhouse is built to deliver perfection, perfection which is

facilitated by its processes and hierarchy. These are the same features which slow it down and hinder its ability to react to change (Source: Author)

Fig. 8 The 'fast' innovation unit augments rather than replaces the traditional agency model. It is designed to be more flexible, faster, and capable of working with the agency to make sense of a changing technological

landscape (Source: Author) (n.b – shape chosen is not significant in this diagram, it is symbolic only)

Secondly, it is responsible for client relationships. The agency model provides the

security and stability which clients require and desire – allowing the creation of long

term alliances, as well as the long term strategic and commercial decision making so


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vital to the effectiveness of advertising, communications and brand planning. Whilst

short term metrics may be easier to measure – it is long term brand health and

metrics which may be the most valuable to companies (Broadbent, 2009), and strong

agency/client relationships are crucial in effecting these metrics over time. Like any

relationship, stability and constant attention are vital. Thirdly, it is responsible for

producing, on an almost industrial scale; the products that it has learnt to craft and

perfect over time – traditional advertising and media campaigns. These products

whilst derided as increasingly ineffective, are still highly demanded. These are often

resource and cash heavy investments, and it is therefore correct that time and effort

is spend ensuring they are created and executed properly. These are tasks which

the slower agency structure has perfected, and it would be foolish to assign these

duties elsewhere.

The ‘faster’, newly created organisation which appends it (Fig.8) is by contrast largely

process free, it is an amorphous body which is fluid enough to adapt to the number of

differing tasks which it must fulfil in its role as an evolutionary engine for our existing

agency structure.

Experimentation, Provocation and Augmentation and Execution: ‘Fast’

working with ‘Slow’

Whilst the relationship between ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ elements of the agency must be

symbiotic and intrinsically linked (Fig.9), it is vital that there is still a distance between

the two. If the new unit becomes too embroiled in the day to day running of the

agency, this effects its ability to move quickly and remain challenging to the status

quo, as it will inevitably become subject to the same bureaucracy and process which

defines the established agency body.


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Fig. 9 The relationship between 'Fast' and ‘Slow’ agency parts. The smaller, faster element must work together with the larger, more institutional organisation to be effective. Both have strengths and limitations that this

arrangement looks to either minimise or take advantage of. (Source: Author).

The tasks that the ‘fast’ section of the business must undertake fall broadly into three

categories: experimentation, provocation and augmentation and execution.

Fig. 10 BBH Labs Robitify.Me taps into the digital trend of 'The Quantified Self' - exploring applications for personal data in a digital world

In terms of experimentation, the innovation unit, sitting outside of any specific client

team, has the ability to think much more about what our industry’s output could be in


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the future, rather than what it is today, and start to experiment with techniques and

tools that will come to define our business. BBH’s innovation unit, BBH Labs, is

currently undertaking a project called Robitify.Me (Fig.10), an initiative that takes

social media data and builds digital robots based on user information, creating virtual

representations of people based on their own behaviour.

The innovation unit must also be responsible for provocation, for inspiring,

challenging and educating the slower institutional body of the agency in order to

improve the way it thinks and works on a day-to-day basis by providing diverse

sources of influence. In a world where access to information has become so easy via

comprehensive Internet search engines, an agency’s ability to think differently will be

vital in maintaining an edge over its competition. Sir Ken Robinson notes how of

1600 3-5 year olds tested for their ability to think differently “98% scored at the

genius level for divergent thinking. They gave the same tests to the same children

five years later at the ages of 8 to 10. Then 32% scored at the genius level in

divergent thinking. They gave the same test to the same children at the ages of 14 to

15 and the result was 10%. Interestingly, they gave the same test to over 200,000

adults and the figure was 2%” (Robinson, 2005).

Institutions, like schools in the example above, can hinder people’s ability to think

differently. Creativity is stifled as we get used to solving problems in a certain way.

Advertising and communications agencies, which place creativity at their heart must

avoid this blindness, and as a separate entity the innovation unit is perfectly placed

to infuse the divergent and radical inspiration agencies require to remain creatively

fertile.


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In acting as a provocateur and experimental unit, the innovation unit is helping to

drive and improve the culture of the agency it works for – this is building competitive

advantage for the future.

Whilst the innovation unit sits outside the day to day running of the agency, its

purpose is to improve the core agency system, and so a key task is that it must

augment the agency’s teams to undertake and execute more specialist projects

when required.

These projects may include media or advertising “firsts” when thinking about

traditional revenue streams – projects which have never been done before such as

digital innovations involving emerging technology, or helping to create a solution

which falls totally outside of the day to day experience of the agency such as new

product development or inventing technology from scratch. Google have created the

Google X division to execute tasks that are outside the core expertise of a company

that heavily prioritises the efficient running of a search engine in its day to day

business. This division is busy creating future facing technology solutions, such as

the recently announced Project Glass (Fig.11). It is in executing ideas and tasks that

the innovation unit excels. It has acquired none of the bad habits of its slower

counterpart, and has no set hierarchies holding it to account – it has none of the

“organisational memory” (Govindarajan & Trimble, 2010, p. 51) that large agencies

do, a factor that prevents them from moving forward. The unit’s executional

capabilities, unlike provocation and experimentation, are commercial – they directly

apply to clients, and therefore contribute commercially to an agency’s financial

health.


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Fig. 11 Google's Project Glass Experiment - a first step toward cybernetic implants.

Creating the ‘fast’ team

The entire point of the faster innovation unit is that it is able to move more quickly, be

more agile, and perform tasks that are outside of the main agency’s capability (or

tasks which would be problematic). As a result, the makeup of the team that inhabits

this division should be fluid with resources allocated on a project-by-project basis.

This does require a central team in order to manage this process, but outside of

these few permanent members of the team, the people who work in the innovation

unit should change to suit the projects that are being undertaken. These teams can

be formulated in two ways, either as a physical team or as a virtual, networked group

working remotely.

In the case of a physical team, this is where the lessons of ‘agile planning’ can be

applied to great effect. The assembled team(s) should be made up of experienced

practitioners, with one representative of each discipline that the project may require


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(Fig.12). Ideally, for these special projects a client representative should also be in

the room, and form a permanent part of the team. This enables the team to work

through a problem quickly, iteratively and removes lengthy sign off and approval

processes. By virtue of the fact that each discipline is represented, nothing needs to

be outsourced, and the team can be responsible for everything from strategy through

to production of a finished item, whatever that item may be. The projects that these

teams will undertake will be projects that lie outside of the agency’s core strengths

such as the production of applications, web based services, or even physical product

development and therefore they should be approached in a way that removes the

creation and development from the factory like production line of the normal agency

environment.

Fig. 12 An example of a flat, fully skilled and autonomous project team working within the ‘innovation unit’ in line with agile methodologies. (Source: Author)


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The second way to formulate the ‘fast’ team could be virtually. Pre Internet, work

forces had to be present at the location at which their skills were required. In a

networked world, this is no longer the case. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a

fascinating example of how labour can be networked and brought to bear on a

specific task. This “marketplace for work gives businesses access to an on demand,

scalable workforce” (Amazon, 2012). Businesses and developers submit specific

tasks or jobs to the network, and then individual workers choose to perform these,

earning small amounts of money in return. Amazon’s system aggregates and

manages these individual workers and their work, meaning large tasks can be

completed extremely quickly. Common tasks include testing web links, debugging

programmes, or testing compatibility of software in different operating systems. This

method is suitable for tasks that require quick answers to simple, yet vital tasks –

such as debugging. Using this type of method can relieve stress on a resource light

organisation such as an ad agency. Case study C details how these methods have

been used in real world conditions to develop products.

Long term, this ‘networked workforce’ could have huge implications for agencies, and

how they operate. Nearly 20 years after agency HHCL equipped all its staff with

mobile phones and championed the idea of the ‘hotdesk’ in the hope of creating a

dynamic, mobile workforce, the notion of an ‘virtual agency’ could be coming to

fruition, fuelled by the hyper connectivity of the broadband age. Instead of employing

hundreds of people, an agency could be made up of a small, core team of long term

employees who manage a network of freelancers, who instead of being a “traditional

employee, is a member (of a club), available to work on projects” (Bochenski, 2012)

when they want. This changes the core role of an agency from being one which

produces advertising for it’s clients, to one which represents talent – joining together

clients and their problems with the correct people to solve the issue.


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Planning for evolution: Creating the future

As we know, technology is changing everything – this is a slow, deliberate and

relentless process. The opportunities offered to companies in this new digital world

are almost limitless, and are only equalled by the risks and dangers that arrive

simultaneously. Throughout history there have been two prevailing schools of

thought regarding technological advancement – the school of “technological

determinism”, and the school of “instrumentalists” (Carr, 2010, p. 46). Determinists

argue that technological advancement is a force outside of man’s control, and is the

primary factor in influencing the course of human history. The opposing school

suggests, “tools are neutral artefacts, entirely subservient to conscious wishes of

their users” (Carr). I believe that many companies and organisations, our clients,

have adopted a Determinist outlook – that they are under threat from market

disruptions and there is little they can do to stem the tide. If we continue to think like

this, change and disruption will consume our business. If we adopt an instrumentalist

viewpoint, and embrace new technology with excitement, things may be very

different.

Whilst the ‘Fast and Slow’ structural changes detailed so far may help organisations

react and manage change, they do not address how to ‘create’ the future, proactively

exploring and creating opportunities in the new landscape in which we operate.

Currently “we work with what works…we deliver success models based on what

(has) worked in the recent past and…the near future…it’s lucrative, in the short term.

In the long term we must plot our own obsolescence” (Mawdsley, 2012, p. 22). A

survey I conducted of agency professionals compounds this – only 29% of

respondents budgeted for experimental programmes in their client’s annual spend.

(Research in Appendix A).


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Proactively creating the future requires deliberate planning and allocation of

resources, just as we always have done; it’s just that we can’t always plan what

we’re going to spend the money on.

One approach is to split everything an agency or client does into 3 boxes, one

relating to the future, one relating to the present, and one relating to processes and

outputs that are no longer necessary. Business Professor Vijay Govindarajan has

created a model that works along these lines (Fig.13). He suggests, “many

organizations restrict their strategic thinking to Box 1” (Govindarajan, 2006), a fact

which is accentuated in times of technological or economic turbulence, such as

today. In actual fact, businesses should extend strategy to boxes 2 and 3, as this will

help them prepare for change which is “rapid and non linear” (Govindarajan).

Fig. 13 Vijay Govindarajan's 3 box approach to innovation, forces strategy to deal not only with the immediate present, but also work towards creating the future


28

Fig. 14 Google’s Eric Schmidt outlined a model that involves his and his colleagues times being split into 3 categories. 70% of time is spent managing day to day tasks. 20% of time is spent doing special projects related

to day to day work, and 10% is spent on pursuing projects that are not related to the core business (Batelle, 2005)

Models such as this have been used as the basis of theories relating to workplace

education and time allocation in organisations such as Google (Perkin, 2012), and

can be equally useful in the way agency teams and their clients plan their marketing

budget. (Fig.15)

Fig. 15 By adopting Eric Schmidt’s model for time, and applying it to marketing planning actively begins process of creating the future. This creates a system of learning, where we both introduce new techniques and

tools into the day to day, but also optimise everything on an on going basis


29

By organising resource, or indeed finances in this way, clients and their agencies can

begin to plan for a future that they are responsible for creating, rather than reacting to

conditions as they happen. It is a “failure of management” (Levitt, 1975, p. 2) which

causes businesses to falter in light of changing market conditions rather than market

conditions themselves, and so it is vital that businesses plan, and allocate resource,

for markets and opportunities which may not exist yet.

‘Fast and slow’ will improve our work now, as well as helping us prepare for

the future

I believe that structuring and organising our businesses around the principles of fast

and slow will act as evolutionary tool that will protect both our clients and our industry

in the long term. In the short term, ordering ourselves in this way makes practical

sense – our core product, advertising and communications, has already shifted to

work in this way and aligning with this will improve our work immediately.

“One of the key tensions that...exists for modern marketers is the changing

relationship between longer-term 'always-on' communications, and the kind of short-

term speed bumps that has long characterised traditional campaigning” (Perkin,

2011). The arrival of tools and channels such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising,

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), social platforms, email and database marketing

and tools such as websites now sit alongside the traditional range of mass media

channels. The new tools require on going support, and changes within these

channels can be implemented extremely quickly. Accordingly, there is an increasing

need to balance communications that work in “real time” and those that work “over

time” (Gray & Himpe, 2012) (Fig.16). More and more, the real skill of brand

management and brand communication will lie in managing these fast and slow

communications in tandem to create an overarching, holistic brand narrative.


30

Fig. 16 Understanding the timelines involved in each new media channel, and therefore how they work together, is imperative for the modern brand guardian (Source: Gray & Himpe, 2012)

By organising our businesses and our output around the ideas of fast and slow, we

can tackle this problem today, as well as building for the future. The following

examples demonstrate creative businesses, of all types, that are using the ideas of

“fast” and “slow” organisation in the way they work.

Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Communications

Case Study A: Wieden and Kennedy // Old Spice

‘The Old Spice Guy’ has become one the most revered ad campaigns of recent

times. Launched as a traditional TV spot, which was filmed over “3 days and 57

takes” (CBS News, 2010), ‘The man your man could smell like’ went on to capture

the hearts of both men and women in America. As this traditionally crafted and

distributed piece of content began to gain traction online, agency Wieden and

Kennedy saw an opportunity to create a reactive and highly interactive digital

element to the campaign to compliment the standard TV spots.


31

Filmed over 2 days, the ‘response campaign’ saw a team of writers, creatives,

producers and social media analysts create 186 individual 30” videos featuring the

‘Old Spice Guy’ as he answered questions and reacted to posts from fans all over

the world (Grant, 2010). These films were then posted onto Youtube as soon as they

were filmed – reacting, in relation to a traditional advertising production, in real time.

To achieve this the creative team shot on a basic handheld camera in a small studio

- and then used proprietary social and digital data analytics software to ascertain

which tweets and comments they should reply to in order to gain as much exposure

for the work. Traditional and lengthy approval processes were circumvented by

working to the terms of engagement agreed in advance with the client. (Borden,

2010)

This campaign has in many ways become the quintessential example of how old and

new media can work together in a digital age. Older, ‘slower’, glossy brand

communication, months in the making, used as a catalyst to consumers engaging

with an idea in more personal, digital environments via ‘quick’, personalized,

interactive and data driven brand communications. It is also a perfect example of

how a flat, autonomous and fully skilled team of creative staff can work quickly,


32

reacting to real consumer interaction, creating content of the highest quality in the

process.

Key Applications for Agencies:

• Old and new media compliment each other; they do not compete against one

another. The strength of this campaign is the idea at its heart, and the craft

demonstrated by Wieden+Kennedy in bringing it to life.

• Fast and reactive doesn’t mean that long term planning isn’t relevant anymore.

This example shows that working hard in advance to agree brand behaviours,

and acceptable parameters with clients is the key to allowing the phenomenal

speed required to work in this way.

• Getting the right skillset on a team can be more important than having a large

team of many people. Understanding the task at hand, and constructing a small

but comprehensive team allows for rapid productivity.

Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Organisational Design

Case Study B: Ringier AG Publishing, Switzerland

The publishing business has been one of the most affected by the ‘creative

destruction’ caused by the onset of digital technology. Always a high frequency

business, the speed at which the publishing industry has to work at now in the era of

24-hour news is remarkable.

The biggest problem facing this industry is that the ‘slow’ element, printed products,

are still the channels that drive the greatest revenue. The ‘fast’ channels, extremely


33

important from an audience retention standpoint, generate far less revenue. The key

challenge then from a commercial point of view is to create an organisation that

balances these two elements, optimising output in order to maximize revenues whilst

maintaining audience share vs. the competition. From an editorial standpoint the

modern editor must manage the numerous and constantly active ‘fast’ touch points

such as Twitter, as well as the ‘slow’ traditional outlets and ensure that editorially a

newspaper or magazine remains cohesive and consistent in its approach over time.

Ringier AG, a Swiss publisher, has gone to significant lengths to integrate its old and

new media divisions, building a new wing of its office, which acts as a physical bridge

between “publishing and slow departments… and online and fast departments…..

this is the command post of the newsroom” (Zemp, 2010), where all decisions are

made. (Fig.17)

Elsewhere, journalists began working across all touch points rather than single

genres for single titles or touch points (Fig.18 and Fig.19). Decisions to prioritise

‘exclusives’ became based on the time sensitivity of the story.

If it had a long shelf life, it would be kept back for paid for channels in order to

maximize revenue, if it was likely to expire quickly or be broken by a competitor then

faster, digital channels are used to publish the story in order to gain as big a share of

audience as possible.

The publisher also began to use digital to inform how they prioritised traditional

publishing, using a proprietary data analytics dashboard to monitor buzz, consumer

behaviour such as sharing and commenting of stories, with the most interacted with

pieces of content becoming developed as fuller features in the printed product


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Fig. 17 The ‘Command Centre’ became the physical hub of the publishing company. All editorial decisions, irrespective of channel or subject, where made here before being re-routed to the appropriate place

The publishing business arguably hasn’t won the fight to preserve revenues in a

digital world just yet, but structural changes such as those implemented by Ringier,

which allow it to balance the fast and slow of its business are the industry’s next

defence in this battle.

Fig. 18 AG Ringier's portfolio of Blick titles and it’s editorial staff operated in a disjointed and isolated fashion prior to the integration of the "fast" and "slow" elements of their business (Source: Zemp, 2010)


35

Fig. 19 Post integration, editorial teams worked across numerous touch points, operating at both "fast" and slow" speeds within their specialist disciplines (Source: Zemp, 2010)


• ‘Bridging’ the old and new, fast and slow requires effort and thought. This can be

done either through a physical manifestation; such as the ‘command centre’ or in

more abstract terms such as departmental and job design

• The prioritisation of fast and slow channels must be aligned to long-term business

objectives.

• Planning brand communications will require agencies and clients to understand

how short term, faster digital communications work in tandem with slower,

traditional communications to create a cumulative brand or product narratives


36

Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Product Design

Cast Study C: Linux

Whilst terms such as ‘crowd sourcing’ and ‘open source’ production may have

become mainstream in the era of web2.0, the most famous product of these

movements launched in 1991, years before high speed internet access was widely

available in homes. Linus Torvalds’ operating system, Linux, “proved that a

community of like minded peers was capable of creating a better product than a

corporate behemoth like Microsoft” (Howe, 2008, p. 8). Not only is it the best

examples of open source design, but it is also one of the best examples of how the

notion of ‘fast and slow’ methods can be deployed in creating and developing

products, in all categories.

Crowd sourcing as a principle often falls down because it imagines an almost utopian

state where people go to work of their own free will, and arrive harmoniously at a

solution. What Torvalds realised in the creation of Linux, was that you need a

“benevolent dictator…. Someone to play the role of decider” (Howe, p. 285), he also

realised that the ‘crowd’ are good for some tasks and institutions are good for others.

Torvalds built a slower, institution like organisation to create and perfect his product

and employed “a hierarchy of talented software programmers around him” (Carr,

2007). In stark contrast to other companies, such as Apple or Microsoft who tend to

be ultra protective over their software and its development, he then allowed outsiders

access to the source code


37

Fig. 20 Linux exemplifies the idea of ‘fast and slow’ or as Eric Raymonds called it the “Cathedral and Bazaar” (Raymonds, 1997), the “cathedral characterizes the heavily managed, hierarchical approach” (Howe, p. 55)

of modern organisations, whilst the ‘bazaar’ denotes “a large and informal community of volunteers in aggregate” (Carr, 2007) who rally around a problem, task or project. Linux demonstrates how the two can

work together.

Allowing access has empowered a huge voluntary work force that helps him and his

team improve this product, the Internet allowing them to work remotely, quickly and

in parallel. They carry out simple debugging exercises that are set and coordinated

by the central team. Torvald’s team then implement these changes. This is in stark

contrast to a project such as Wikipedia, which allows all users a level playing field,

and in doing so has found itself with serious quality control issues.

Torvald’s acknowledgment is that slower, hierarchical institutions are ideally suited to

delivering brilliant ideas and creating products, which may need help being perfected.

The crowd, by contrast, lacks the creative capacity required to conceive ground

breaking new ideas, yet can work at speed to help refine the institution’s work.


38


• Whilst the idea of ‘crowd sourcing’ has come in and out of fashion, this example

shows just how useful these methods can be – it is not about utilising free labour

to do the work for you, but it instead about how human resource can be

networked and harnessed in a digital age.

• Faster, more agile networks of teams can invigorate older, slower organisations,

but setting the responsibilities of each and how the two sections integrate should

be based on the specific objectives of a particular project or initiative.

“The future doesn’t arrive all at once” – Syd Mead (Bryant, 2011) In 1975 Theodore Levitt said that in order “to survive, plot the obsolescence of what

produces your livelihood now” (Levitt, p. 4). In a business environment where the

only certainty is change, this is sage advice. We must prepare for the future, not

tomorrow, but today. Practically, we cannot implement huge structural changes

overnight, and nor should we. Technological advancement does not play out in a

“tidy timeline of progress” (Edgerton, 2006); it is a gradual process rather than

absolute one, and therefore the skills and qualities our industry has perfected over

nearly a century are extremely valuable, and it would be foolish to abandon the way

we have worked overnight for newer, more fashionable techniques being used by an

industry in the ascendency. Agile methodologies will help us in certain areas of our

business as we begin to work more and more in the field of technology, but only as

an addition, rather than instead of, our current hierarchical and slow moving agency

operating systems.


39

We must therefore create an organisational framework that allows us to both

preserve the value that currently exists within our businesses as well as begins to

evolve our capabilities so that we are fit for the future.

I believe in a new agency operating system, an operating system that fuses together

our past and our near future, a system which helps us apply our knowledge and skill

to new problems, a system which moves both fast and slow.

Word Count (Excl. Titles, Abstract, Bibliography and Acknowledgements and Appendix): 6,947


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Acknowledgements

I would like to briefly thank the following for the time they kindly gave to help

me write this essay: Andrew Lloyd, Garrett O’Reilly, John V Willshire, Jon

Ghazi, Lisa Myers, Mel Exon, Neil Perkin, Ollie Gandy and Ros Godber.

I would also like to thank Chloe Williams at the IPA for all her assistance over

the last 18 months.


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Appendix A: A survey of 74 agency workers, investigating attitudes and

practices that exist in their organisations concerning innovation

Q1. What Best describes the agency or organisation you currently work in?

Organisation Respondents %

Media 53 72

Advertising 7 9

Digital Specialist 2 3

Boutique Comms/Strategy Agency 0 0

Advertiser (‘Client’ Side) 2 3

Media Owner 7 9

Other 3 4

Q2. What best describes your job title/level of seniority?

Job Title/Level Respondents %

Exec 8 11

Manager 16 22

Associate Director 17 23

Director/Head of Department 22 30

Other 11 15

Q3. How frequent are your typical planning cycles?

Job Title/Level Respondents %

Yearly 14 19

Half Yearly 7 9

Quarterly 10 14

Monthly 8 11

Weekly 6 8


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Ad hoc 19 26

Other 10 14

Q4. How important is innovation to your role/clients?

Scale Respondents %

1 – Not Important 0 0

2 2 3

3 21 28

4 24 24

5 – Very Important 26 26

Q5. Do you actively allocate budget for ‘innovation’ in your planning?

Answer Respondents %

Yes 21 29

No 53 71

Q6. If so, roughly how much of your total budget is dedicated to new/innovative activity?


1-5% 6 28

6-10% 10 47

11-15% 4 19

16-20% 0 0

20-30% 0 0

30-40% 0 0

40-50% 0 0

50%+ 1 6


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Q7. Do you think Agencies or Client Organisations value innovation more?


Agency 60 81

Client Organisations/Advertisers 13 18

Q8. Comparing the marketing and advertising community with ‘consumers’, do you think the advertising community overestimate the impact of new technology in comparison to actual usage/adoption


Yes 60 81

No 13 18

Q9. Do you think novelty, rather than effectiveness/client payback is the biggest driver in the advertising industry’s usage of new technology?


Yes 70 95

No 3 4

Q10. Is the current model of advertising/comms agencies dead?


Yes 7 9

No 38 51

Maybe 28 38

moving fast and slow

Technology

amazon mechanical turk

agency operating system

von sydow

touch points

current rhetoric

brand planning

innovation unit

agile methodologies