Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategist at Publicis Groupe, made several pronouncements at the Digital Place-based Advertising Association’s Video Everywhere Summit that made the audience of nearly 800 gasp and grow silent.
While one comment was regarding that marketers have to learn to market, the most striking comments were that agencies are driving talent away because of their own “bad leadership”, and that the CEO title is obsolete. One of the alternate titles he suggested to replace it was CFO, not with its usual meaning, but that of Chief Facilitation Officer.
Tobaccowala discussed the speed of changes in the world in terms of globalization, demographic shifts, and digitization, and said that marketing is being outsourced today to the end user and that video is becoming increasingly important.
“The world is becoming more about abilities and services,” he said. “In the Silicon world, we are talking to people, and where you are is as important as who you are. The more you want to stay the same, the more you have to change. You have to change people, cultures and competencies.”
Tobaccowala and Lori Hiltz, CEO of Havas Media (see separate article) were later interviewed together by ad columnist Stuart Elliott, Media Village, where Tobaccowala continued on the need for change, saying that marketers are confused about what is happening in today’s world what with consumers taking control, He gave the example of McDonald’s Restaurants where sales were down over recent years. Consumers in the US demanded all day breakfasts, McDonald’s made the change and sales are up for the first time in two years.
He said that agencies as we know them today will not exist in the future.
“Marketing has changed and consumers are ahead of us. Publicis is concerned with strategic consulting, emotional consulting and technology smarts. The agency is rethinking its whole structure, buying the best of breed talent. It’s changing from a holding company to a business.”
With data being so important in today’s business world, (and it being a topic among many speakers of the day), Tobaccowala said that unless you are a Google, you can’t own all the data you need.
He said, “You probably only have about 10% but store it. You need it to develop insight.”
November 12th, 2015 at 18:14 @801
When, in the last 40 years, could the same observations not been made?
The need for change.
The need to listen to consumers.
The death of agencies.
Consumers are ahead of us (of course they are ahead of us—we are a reactive business). The marketer’s job is to listen and think: to be insightful and anticipate behaviour change.
And not be bamboozled by the avalanche of technology. Technology is stuff, not ideas.