EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWinto McCann but could then redesign it
and run it our way rather than try to
mold ourselves into a traditional view
of how an agency should be run, was
the greatest opportunity. We were able
to take a much more creative and more
entrepreneurial approach to what had
been a very traditional agency.”
Being invited to reinvent an agency like
McCann, especially with its long
heritage, is no small task. Established in
New York City in 1902, McCann was the
first advertising agency to trademark a
motto: ‘Truth Well Told’. Ben explains
that the credo has stood fast over the
past century, but the way that McCann
has distilled the truth about its clients’
brands and customers has changed
drastically over those hundred years.
In order to keep up with the digital age,
when Ben first took over, he rapidly
transformed McCann to be a digital
agency at its core. His motto became ‘A
Truth Well Told is a Truth Well Shared’.
Ben also saw that, traditionally, media
services and creative services had been
separated. For many new clients, trying
to manage completely separate creative,
media, digital, PR and direct marketing
agencies was too complex. By being able
to re-bundle its creative and media
services to include a digital service
offering, McCann is now able to offer
a much stronger integrated strategic
creative offering for its clients.
Providing integrated, comprehensive
marketing and advertising solutions, all
comes down to one seemingly simple task.
“My primary focus is to continue to offer
our clients the most strategic, creative
and effective solutions for their business
and marketing problems while the world
continues to rapidly change around them
and around us,” explains Ben.
“The things I find exciting about
the work that we do is how we can
adapt to, and embrace, that ever-
changing marketing landscape, but also
how we can continue to be completely
contemporary and relevant — and also
how we use creativity through the
ever-changing channels, techniques,
methods and technology that is
available to us, but still be really creative
and innovative in how we take our
clients’ messages to their customers.”For Ben it’s all about delivering quality
and effectiveness, especially across
McCann’s broad range of clients — which
range from the Australian government to
MasterCard, Microsoft and L’Oreal. They
all have the same need: to find the most
effective, creative ways that they can
connect with their customers. Having
highly creative and innovative partners is
critical to McCann, as is being able to
continue to find new, fresh, and
innovative ways of communicating their
clients’ brand messages.“I’ve been in this industry for long
enough to see many agencies come
up with models they might say are
more innovative, or intellectual
property they might say is unique. The
truth is, we’re a professional services
firm, and our service is creativity. We
are differentiated by the quality and
effectiveness of that creativity.”Ben says the best firms are the ones
whose work delivers the best results,
and McCann’s success speaks for
itself. Within 18 months of the
reverse takeover, McCann became
the most awarded advertising agency
in the world. Its 2013 ‘Dumb Ways to
Die’ campaign for Metro Trains
Melbourne went viral, and became the
most awarded campaign in Cannes
Lions history.As far as the future of advertising goes,
Ben reiterates, it’s all about creativity.
“In a word, the future of advertising is
exactly what it’s always been, which is
creativity. The core challenge of every
advertising agency is exactly the same
as it was a hundred years ago: just try
to find the most creative ways to
connect each clients’ brand with their
customers. Creativity is absolutely the
core of everything we do today — it was
a hundred years ago and it will be in
another hundred years. The thing that
keeps on changing and it will continue
to change is how we go about that. The
channels and the methods by which we
are communicating with consumers is
what is constantly changing and
evolving, so frankly, it’s impossible to
predict what that might look like even
a decade in the future.”