But, increasingly, the demands of recognizing diversity – and the profits that can come from doing so – are compelling them to understand distinct groups of people.
It is a practice called human-centered design. In this video interview with Beet.TV, Jason Gaikowski, VMLY&R’s global lead for human-centered design and executive director for CX transformation, talks about it with 4As CEO Marla Kaplowitz.
“One of the real powers of human-centred design is it is fundamentally grounded in empathy, and it is fundamentally grounded in curiosity,” says Gaikowski, whose VMLY&R is a marketing agency owned by WPP.
“It lets you see the world differently. It lets you understand that your experience is biased. Just because it’s true for you, it doesn’t make it true.
“When you’re able to view the world with that fuller and more open perspective, it gets really easy and obvious to see that there are people who, they’re in unfortunate circumstance and systematic disadvantage.”
Although human-centered design is all about understanding, well, humans, increasingly it is technology that is enabling that understanding.
Understanding consumers at this level is going to require a lot of data capture and the right kind of algorithmic detection.
“What’s next is companies understanding that empathy and humanity is actually a competitive differentiator and a competitive advantage,” Gaikowski adds.
He thinks companies will need to evolve from just considering product effectiveness to also considering the net benefit in a consumer’s life from her choice to add a brand to it.
“I think that we’re at the dawn of a complete redesign of how we think about what it means to be in a relationship with a customer,” Gaikowski says. “I don’t think that it’s so much customer relationship management, I think that we’re moving into a world of a partnership relationship with customers.”
Gaikowski’s team has used the practice, for example, to build a Ranger Support Team for Ford after realizing some of its international vehicles were prone to breakdown.
And he says it has allowed another VMLY&R client, Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, to see how Miami’s majority Cuban and Latinx population has “an uncomfortable bias sometimes around trans, LGTBQ people”.
Gaikowski thinks artificial intelligence will be key to unlocking empathy and understanding.
“The kind of reconstructions that we can do with artificial intelligence, the insights that we can find via machine learning that then inspire something that was completely unimaginable even five years ago,” he says. “It’s perhaps the most creative time of my career.”
This video is part of the Global Forum on Responsible Media produced by Beet.TV, GroupM with the 4A’s. This track on creativity, advanced technology and advertising is sponsored by IBM Watson Advertising. For more videos on this topic, visit this page. For more information on IBM Watson Advertising, please visit this page.
]]>After all, the number of US brands which have launched in-house agencies has reached 78% – up from 58% in 2013, according to the ANA’s In-House Agency Report.
But traditional ad agencies can stay in business by embracing the in-housing trend.
That is according to one agency boss whose company has just merged with a sibling in order to respond to a changing industry.
“In the last several years, it’s become clear that there will be and there needs to be an in-house solution,” says Jon Cook, VMLY&R global CEO, in this video interview with Beet.TV
“The smarter agencies aren’t too precious about that … (they) recognize that it creates efficiency, creates impact, and it can be a faster way and a better way for your work to get out if it’s done right. The smarter agencies have embraced a certain level of it.”
Cook’s VMLY&R may sound like a mouthful. It is the merger of WPP’s VML and Y&R, announced last year “to deliver a contemporary, fully integrated digital and creative offering to clients on a global scale”.
But the combined unit units the digitla focus of the former VML with the historic creative nous of Y&R (Young & Rubicam), founded in 1923.
In the 21st Century, Cook says the brand in-housing trend can even benefit agencies.
“It helps you as an agency be even more clear and more acute about what your value is,” he adds.
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the ANA In-House Agency Conference. This series is sponsored by Extreme Reach. For more videos please visit this page.
]]>“It’s been around for a long time. There have always been teams inside of clients within the marketing teams or supporting the marketing teams to address the needs that exist,” Kaplowitz says in this Beet.TV interview at the recent Association of National Advertisers’ In-House Agency Conference.
At the event, Kaplowitz moderated a panel discussion titled Agencies and the Velocity of Change. It brought together executives from VMLY&R and GlaxoSmithKline, plus Publicis Media and New Balance. Turns out “balance” is a key word in the modern-day world of marketers and how they mix internal and external resources.
“There’s just so much more that is needed today and there’s a lot of work that needs to get accomplished,” says Kaplowitz. “I do think it’s important to recognize that here is no one size fits all. There’s no right way of doing it.”
It’s more about “finding what is the right model for you, but you have to really think about what are your objectives, what are you trying to accomplish. And that they’re not set in stone. They change over time.”
One theme from Kalowitz’s panel is that client-agency partnerships have to be right for both parties. For VMLY&R and GSK, a key element was “how to work together to support the tech stack that they work with, to collaborate with the team that’s in-house that’s actually managing strategy and comms planning.” In the case of Publicis and New Balance, while the agency sets the “base” brand strategy, the global creative services team at New Balance does “more of the executional work and work closely within the local territories and how they manage it.”
Asked about negative and positive implications for agencies, Kaplowitz says that’s largely in the eye of the beholder. The recent growth of in-house teams is undeniable, but 90% of marketers still require outside resources.
“Agencies have also shifted to being less reluctant to needing to do everything end to end. There’s more openness to recognizing what their specific role can be within the journey and how to bring that to life. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t have to be negative.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the ANA In-House Agency Conference. This series is sponsored by Extreme Reach. For more videos please visit this page.
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