The Digital Effect
Annabel Palmer discusses trends with Gwyn Jones, BBH’s group chief executive
BRITISH advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has been Agency of the Year twice at the Cannes Lions Festival, and has created notable campaigns including “Vorsprung durch Technik” for Audi and “The Lynx Effect” for Unilever. Group chief executive Gwyn Jones tells Morning Wire where he thinks the industry is headed in the years to come.
You joined BBH in 1987. How has the company grown?
When I started there, it was one office in Soho with fewer than 100 people. Now it is a global business with over 1,000 employees. But it hasn’t just changed in terms of scale – our range of activities is radically different now. Whereas we used to do predominantly television and print output (and occasionally cinema and radio), today everything we do is digital in some way, shape or form. And we’ve had to adapt to that changing environment.
The industry has been tough in the last few years, and much of my focus since becoming group chief executive has been on restructuring.
You moved to the US in 2004. Was it an eye-opener?
The old phrase “divided by a common language” felt especially true in advertising. America is much more advanced – even in 2004, the web felt all-pervasive. With national advertisers, you would deal in massive budgets. There was more opportunity, but also more caution. You saw a lot of work there that was sub-average. But the best work in the States remains the best work in the world, in my view.
How do you see the industry’s landscape unfolding over the next few years?
If only we could answer that question! The greatest opportunities now are in connected selling – consumers live in a more connected age than ever before. And yet our industry – because of the growth of the media business and the growth of digital – has become more specialist and segmented. So now the big question is: who can best join the dots again? Reintegration, and bringing companies into alignment, is the most important trend right now.
This is one of the most dynamic industries in the world – it is constantly evolving. There will be big changes in the next few years in terms of both how media is traded, and how brands reach customers at an individual level. But I still believe that story-telling and a compelling narrative, or brilliantly reported news, will remain what drives engagement in media. Advertisers have powerful channels to work with because of that.
How is social media shaping the industry?
I’m not sure we’ve worked out the best formats for integration of advertising into social media messaging yet. Nonetheless, many clients believe that finding a way to manage communities is essential to their brand. And if you’re a company that operates in such a way that you’re engaged in regular relationship management with your consumers – for instance a retailer or financial services brand – then servicing them as communities is far easier than if you’re a packaged goods brand.
That’s a very interesting change. Those packaged businesses have often been seen as the academies of great marketing. But how digital plays a role for them is much less obvious than for those firms where digital is right at the core of the business model.
What’s the best campaign you’ve ever worked on?
In my early days, Levi’s and Audi. More recently? Lynx. What makes those campaigns stand out is not just that they had the biggest budget. They were businesses that wanted to break new ground, while engaging a youthful or progressive audience.
I wish I had had the genius to manage Apple. What has happened to that brand over the last 20 years through product design, retail presence, its vision, as well as advertising, has been very exciting.
@AnnabelPalmer1