Advt: Victim or agent of change?

CANNES: Is there anyone out there trying to reinvent the seemingly archaic agency model for the new digital age? Or is Cannes yet another opportunity to pay lip service on how technology and consumers have totally taken over the communication process?

At the DraftFCB's seminar 'When creativity and accountability collide', chairman & CEO Howard Draft was straight and to the point: "You can choose to be either victim or agents of change. We have chosen to be the agents here and in the next 12 months, all our 9,000 odd people across the world will undergo the new training."

Essentially what DraftFCB is doing is removing all boundaries that exist among various disciplines within an agency. "The new model is simple. There are no silos- no below-the-line, above-the-line, online, digital —just the death of many holding companies with the company."

DrafFCB is reinventing the agency 'Wheel', with multi-disciplinary teams - with everyone thrown in into the 'black room' room, from creative, planning, servicing, media, customer intelligence, et al. No one gives anyone a brief in the new DraftFCB structure. Wonder how it works?

"We work simultaneously around a table and the Smart Wall (the data modeling in the new Draft parlance) acts as the springboard for generating great creative ideas, not putting consumers in a box," explained Toby Sachs, chief growth officer. The team can have access multiple walls, a couple of competitor walls for instance.

But if it's the team at work, what about big fat agency egos? "Well, in a way its' the end of creative racism between ad disciplines," quipped Chris Becker, chief creative officer. But still, people love to be identified, recognized, celebrated and become heroes, don't they, and the ad industry perhaps has more than its share of it? "Well, I used to be a suit guy and I though I had the power. I have given up the suit and now we let the consumer come into the room," remarked Becker.

But won't the data-driven centricity in this new DraftFCB structure stifle free thinking? "The wall reduces risks, in the sense that it lets us go great creative work and not safe work," says Michael Fassnacht, chief customer intelligence officer.

According to Becker, earlier with the clients it was more of 'Trust Me', but now with the 'Wheel' and the 'Smart Wall' its ' Approve Me', cause everything is backed with consumer understanding that dovetails into creative work that aims to change or influence behaviour.