I normally find these kinds of sessions quite tedious as once more we are treated to the kind of diatribe about how our industry is dying and we have to change because the world is changing faster than we are. However, happily, I found Barry Wacksman’s presentation thought-provoking and uplifting with his use of his Beats By Dr Dre case studies making them quite compelling.
His premise was that there were four fundamental transformations currently underway which r/GA were responding to: Changes to clients; Changes to work; Changes to Agencies; Changes to Data.
The changes to work and agencies was the kind of ground that has been covered quite often – commercials are no longer the currency and instead stories across platforms now supersede. Likewise Agency’s now acting as consultancies and innovators is a formula that has been tried across the world with varying degrees of success although his enthusiasm for their Accelerator programme is sincere and justified.
The changes to data section was an interesting take on the move from big data (that buzzword again) to the more useful earned data – as demonstrated by his McCormicks Spices case study. Here, huge amounts of data were generated but by consumers solely in the area of interest (this time, cooking) which allowed continually more detailed pictures to be built of them – “ the information is more intimate because they are willing to share”.
However, perhaps the most interesting part of his talk concerned the changes to Clients. Here the change was from the traditional models of horizontal or vertical integration to the great 21st century success stories of Apple, Google and Amazon who create “functional integration” or systems built around consumers thereby offering greater desire to interact with a brand portfolio. This had the knock on effect of changing Ideas from ”big ideas” to “whole ideas” – whereby successful systems link communications to utility eg. Nike Fuelband.
It is now not just a question of what you say or what you do but what allows you to make them work together – that is the Whole Idea.
