REFINING THE ART of the agency
In a move to consolidate all its abilities and skillsets, dentsu has officially launched DENTSU CREATIVE, building a global full-service creative agency.
Despite launching in the New Zealand market at the beginning of 2021, Dentsu Creative launching around the world marks the beginning of a combined offering as it brings together all of its dentsu-branded creative agencies under a single brand globally. In Aotearoa, this included dentsu BC&F, Isobar, MKTG, and WITH Collective. This new creative offering signals the beginning of a new, more integrated chapter for the business says Murray Streets, Managing Director, Dentsu Creative Aotearoa. He says this combining of skills will mean clients get access to greater capability. “It’s all on one PNL, so they’re not having to worry about our financial battles internally or turf wars about who’s going to get what part of the budget. “Ultimately they should get stronger thinking and execution as a result of us being able to mix the varied skillsets from across those businesses. It’s easy because it’s just under one brand,” he says. “There is a lovely phrase from Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer of Proctor and Gamble: ‘Your complexity should not be our problem’. I’m a big believer in that. Clients want strong solutions, they don’t care about what happens under the bonnet at the agency and they shouldn’t have to.” So why now? Murray says that the move was a way to simplify and focus on creativity in the dentsu network globally, especially with Fred Levron coming on board as Global Chief Creative Officer. “For our [New Zealand] clients there was no change, it was simply a re-articulation of what we are trying to do, this time with a stronger sense of identity which I think is good for our people as well. People like to see businesses and brands that are clear and have meaning and consistency.” It is also in recognition of the changes happening in the industry at the moment, he adds. “The desire for digital, data, technology and creativity to marry more powerfully for the benefit of clients has been a demand for a while. But like all of those future directions, it’s sort of a case of ‘gradually, gradually, suddenly’. Change happens like that.” The marketplace is now at a “bit of an inflection point where the power of digital, data, media, technology, and creativity come together is being realised”, he says. “I think both traditional agencies, and emerging agencies like dentsu Aotearoa, which Dentsu Creative is part of, are all essentially moving to try and find a new integrated offering to clients businesses as they digitise and hold onto the best of creativity.” Murray says, in this way, dentsu is very of the moment as a business as it tries to marry those offerings together. The Dentsu Creative offering will mean more seamless operation across technology, data and creativity, putting its people in a position to be able to execute across multiple challenges. “Fred Levron always says we are seven years young. And we are actually very young, so if we are going to do this now, we have every right to create this proposition against everyone else, so we should back ourselves and go for it. “Ultimately clients want to work with partners where they can say ‘here’s what’s going on in my business, here are some of the challenges we have got. We are looking for partners who can diagnose some of those problems and then assemble the right set of skills around that problem and offer, initially good strategic thinking, and then excellence in execution on how that turns up’. “That could be digital experience or a content strategy or it could be the need for
advertising in a more traditional sense.”
Although this is still a work in progress, this intent is shared by all the senior leaders at dentsu Aotearoa, and is the reason people want to join their team, Murray says.
“We love the thought that we have all the pieces and can bring those people together to collaborate around a problem. We can really step change some of the thinking that we do and improve the quality of the output.”
This could be as simple as creative, media and strategy working better together or as complex as strategy, digital experience and user design specialists working together, which Murray says is when you “start to get really interesting, strong thinking coming out that will help to solve client’s problems”.
“I’ve always appreciated the fact that you can never be a specialist or deeply knowledgeable in all the disciplines, but I love the choreography of different disciplines, and when that happens it’s quite magical.
I think that’s what clients ultimately want. They would like a partner that can say ‘we can see the problem you’re trying to solve and we’ve got the people in our team with the right capabilities that can come together around that’.”
So what does this collaboration look like exactly? It looks like saying yes to the mess, according to Murray.
“Collaboration isn’t a flow chart. You have to have just the right amount of structure. You have to allow the serendipity of people coming together with different perspectives, you have to allow them a little bit of divergent thinking, and then you have to allow them to come together with some decisions before you go back to the client.
“It’s freedom in a framework, in the best way. It is a bit of an art versus a science. Good Project Managers know you’ve got to allow for a little bit of ‘two steps forward one step back’, and you’ve got build in a little room for error and mistake making throughout the process because often you’ll get to a better place.”
To see some real life examples of what Dentsu Creative can achieve, check out the following case studies.