BETC, Pole Position
1,000 employees, some 16,000 square meters of workspace, 248 prizes in 2017 (compared to 140 in 2016)... Behind these statistics is one man, Rémi Babinet, Founding President of BETC. And all the collaborators he has been able to gather around him in order to raise the advertising agency to the top European ranking, and to fifth in the world. Since the summer of 2016, BETC has left Paris’s 10th arrondissement in order to set up shop in the former Magasins généraux at Pantin, with the concept of “free”, or unallocated offices. And a large ground floor space devoted to contemporary art exhibitions.
As early as 2008, less than fifteen years after its creation in 1994, the usually implacable Creative Review called BETC (Babinet, Erra, Tong Cuong) “also an ad agency”, when the last issue of this British magazine (July 2018) placed Rémi Babinet in its annual ranking of Top 50 creative leaders. Two years earlier, he was named by Forbes magazine as one of the top ten creative directors in history. Unmistakably, the revolutionary project of the Magasins généraux was due to him. Relaxed, with a barely-sketched smile, and concentrated gaze combined with the gravity which is constitutive of his personality, Rémi Babinet greets the visitor for lunch in the vast canteen overlooking the canal de l’Ourcq. On the menu, which he will have ordered on his smartphone, fish ceviche and apricot smoothie: the dishes of the Cantine (opened in April 2017) consist mainly of organic products. A bright space, beautiful kitchen and table service: all of this is rather unexpected as part of a corporate restaurant. “We recruited 25 people to create BETC Kitchen,” he says, “we did not want outside contractors, we preferred a chef and an in-house team. In addition, each week chefs from all geographical horizons are invited to compose menus, which allows for taste experiences which are unknown for a canteen.” Outside of the lunch period, the canteen is a place of worship, calm, exchange around a coffee, or appointments all day long. All of which occurs in a professional mode, supported if necessary by the resource center – the BETC Doc—and the extensive library set up in the center of the canteen, and managed by four documentalists. As on the five levels housed in each of the East and West wings of the building, no one has a personal office (apart from the accounting and finance services which, for obvious reasons of confidentiality, have a dedicated sector). Management is included in this structure: “the principle of exemplarity is essential,” says Babinet. Each employee is equipped with a basic kit: a laptop and a smartphone, which are essential to order his meal, but also to find the members of the team at work on the current project, or to book a meeting room via the general application developed by BETC Digital. For if the principle consists in a huge open space where employees choose each day—and sometimes several times a day—a place in which to accomplish their task, the spaces also constitute zones identified according to the nature of the work. Whether alone, in teams, in discussion, or in silence (there are thus semi-closed spaces where it is possible to isolate oneself). “The idea was to dramatically place creation and innovation at the center of our project and to create a buildingas-tool at the service of this transformation,” says Babinet. This spatial model of space and energy organization is a cross between several sources of inspiration, including an architectural office in the Netherlands, “arguably the most advanced country in terms of innovation in design and workplace practices”, and the observation of the usual domestic practices of work, where each of us can be led to occupy spaces in different rooms and in different postures (seated, on the floor, lying down...) without any of this disturbing the quality of the work. “My ambition is to make this a place of creation, reflection, and experimentation which is open to our clients, our partners, and all those who participate in the activity of the agency. Brands, associations, institutions, artists who entrust us with a part of their reputation and ambition, must all be able to take full advantage of this openness and hybridity” says Babinet. With more than a hundred brands in their portfolio (including Air France, Evian, or Lacoste), creativity is inevitably accompanied by high productivity. By circulating freely in the various spaces, it is clear that there is a studious quietude that one can hardly imagine being feigned, and a density of population and noise levels depending on the areas and interactions that are sought. These interactions between roles are the keystone of the new dynamic space. We can guess that exchanges between creatives and producers are facilitated by the islet called the Garage, which gathers together all the production activity (photo, design with 3D printing workshop, film, or music with a sophisticated recording studio) in a space of over 2,000 square meters, and where the interested parties of a current project may be found. Because of the daily migration, no personal items (from private photos to a jar of pencils) is required: everybody has a locker where he or she stores the material to be used throughout the day, and which is largely digital. Some people have been concerned by the intrusive aspect of smartphone-driven geolocation, or by the lack of an
office that, as a rule, embodies the belonging of an employee to a company, and which might be construed as a form of psychological abuse. The company management does not mince words: “What is certain”, says Fabrice Brovelli, vice president of BETC, “is that the beginnings of our installation were difficult for everyone, including me. I would say that the first year was one of adaptation where we had to assimilate the building, devote ourselves to the task, and invent new ways of working. The second year is one of real appreciation of the benefits that the building and the organization of these spaces provide. And this benefit will only increase”. Today, it seems to Brovelli unthinkable to reintegrate a conventional office structure. “At each of my appointments with clients in traditional premises, I feel like I’m entering the old world.” In fact, where the previous system, based on a space attributed to each individual, did not allow for any hybridization, here the combinations and re-creation of teams generate flexibility and dynamism, which allow people from different backgrounds to work together.” Our first idea was to de-isolate. Indeed, when a company reaches a certain size, we observe that certain jobs become frozen in their own expertise, and that exchanges of ideas occur less often between disciplines, which threatens the overall dynamics,” observes Babinet. The same goes for Mercedes Erra, “We are artisans of thought, creation and production: we believe that collective intelligence is very important. Having areas for yourself and areas to be together is an accelerator. From now on, our insitu production structures can implement an idea from start to finish. By smoothing out the outward signs of hierarchy, BETC also manages to liberate expression: “here, there are no apparatchiks or politicians”, adds Fabrice Brovelli, “there are only people who work. And the impostors are quickly unmasked.” By planting its flagship in the heart of the city of Pantin, BETC has also firmly committed itself locally. The publication of the Guide des Grands Parisiens illustrates this anchoring in the local fabric, and beyond this, in the project of Grand Paris, which is dear to Rémi Babinet. “This is one of the major features of our project. For us, Pantin is an extremely innovative place that brings together very different populations. It prefigures what Paris will be later, even if people do not notice it yet”, adds Babinet. “So we are in a field of experimentation and storytelling which is very exciting for an agency. We chose to open the conversation on the Grand Paris by skirting the quarrels between town halls, departments... and by inventing names and boundaries of neighborhoods, in which we chronicled real addresses (promenades, restaurants, hotels, shops...). We have tried to free ourselves from the constraints that, for the moment, make the projection of the Grand Paris ossified.” There is here a willingness to be involved in the city implemented by BETC, and also passed on to the companies it advises. “Businesses have this wonderful and essential function of creating work, even before profit. Work is for us a very important and powerful word: how and under what conditions we create work is very important. After this, a company must make a profit, otherwise it will work badly and will not be able to recruit or invest. But its life does not stop at profit: otherwise, how would it contribute to the life of the city?” notes Mercedes Erra. With a thousand employees with purchasing power, and interactions sought through the organization in the 800 square meters of the freely accessible ground floor exhibitions and cultural events (thirty since spring 2017), but also the commercial spaces sought by Rémi Babinet, whose brands are selected for the quality of their project and their suitability for the area.
“It is these initiatives that allow local inhabitants to enter your company, which, from then on, is no longer fantasized, but enters the realm of the concrete”. A quest for “results”, urbi et orbi, underpinned by a strong ethic and material for reflection drawn out of spaces that are not necessarily those of advertising agencies. Rémi Babinet is thus President of the Centre national de la danse (CND) and Mercedes Erra chairs the Musée de l’Immigration du Palais de la Porte dorée. This investment in culture and the social sector—illustrated in particular by the sponsorship of trades and skills across a wide array of fields— is motivated by the personal inclinations of the company copresidents, but also by “the desire not to be restricted to a narrow field of expertise”, says Rémi Babinet.