Gasta Media Buying News: Lessons behind a massive agency upheaval Part 2

Big but nimble

While the De Beers "Unbreakable Kiss" campaign speaks to the artistry and innovation that can result from a true collaboration of digital and traditional media minds, it stands to reason that the melding of two previously distinct cultures -- and the mandate that they come to agreement on all elements of a campaign -- could add yet another level of bureaucracy to an already complex ecosystem. Not so, says Montague. "When people think of agencies like JWT, we get tarred with the 'big and slow' brush," he says. "Honestly, the culture we've created here is one that is really nimble and able to take up challenges quickly and respond in real time."

As an example, he points to the agency's recent work -- helmed by JWT New York chief creative officer Harvey Marco -- on the JetBlue "Bigwigs" campaign, which was developed in response to the backlash against executive perks that arose earlier this year when three auto industry CEOs flew private jets to Washington, D.C., to beg for public funds.

"We took an issue -- the issue of CEOs no longer being able to fly in private jets -- and turned it into an advantage for one of our clients, JetBlue, in a way that really caught fire," Montague says. The agency was busily producing work on the campaign within hours of the breaking news -- print ads, Text Ads,radio spots, viral online videos. The timeliness and playfulness of the campaign, positioned as a tongue-in-cheek introduction to commercial air travel for CEOs only, caught the attention of media outlets and spread across the airwaves and internet like wildfire.


Storytelling gone digital
These recent integrated campaign hits, as well as others for companies including Microsoft and Stride gum, serve as vindication that the long, hard process of turning JWT inside-out is paying off. But after all the shaking up and shaking out, Montague notes that the mission of the agency remains the same as it ever was -- to develop compelling narratives on behalf of a brand. It's how those stories are being delivered that has forever changed.

"It's obvious that technology is changing and is going to continue to change for the foreseeable future," he says. "But it's equally clear to us that people are not changing all that much. People are still pretty much the same today that they were 100 years ago, and our belief is that people always have and always will respond to powerful storytelling. So technology enables new forms of storytelling, and it enables them to react and respond and share stories in new ways. But ultimately, if you want to get someone's attention and get them really excited about something, tell them a great story."

When it comes to the evolution of technology and its effects on advertisers, the turbulent transformation undertaken at JWT could easily be viewed as a microcosm of the broader digital marketing revolution.

"From 1777 -- which I believe was the year that the Bass Ale logo was trademarked, so we'll call that the birth of marketing -- to 1995, things were relatively simple and straightforward from a storytelling standpoint," Montague says. That is, storytelling was a one-way affair between marketers and consumers. Although consumers still had opinions and shared them with each other, these opinions rarely, if ever, made it all the way back to the brands themselves. And they certainly didn't make it back to the brands in real-time.
Then the internet happened.

Seemingly overnight, the voices of consumers were amplified. "All of a sudden marketers could hear that for the first time, in real-time," Montague says. "Hearing them for the first time was kind of jarring. It was a very novel experience and ultimately a very healthy thing for the conversation to become two-way -- literally a conversation."

As that conversation continues to grow louder, Montague notes that brands continue to find new ways to get their feelings hurt. "Twitter is just another way of knowing faster what everybody is thinking about," he says. "That's potentially painful and difficult if you're doing something that folks on Twitter think is dumb or wrong or negative in some way. But it also allows you to course correct -- what a great blessing to know what people think in real-time."

Of course, Montague notes, being prepared to participate as needed in these real-time conversations presents quite a challenge, as the infrastructures of both agencies and their clients haven't evolved at the same pace as the communications. But the potential for enhanced consumer engagement is massive -- for those marketers who know how to seize the opportunity.

"Companies need to understand that it's going to take more than just signing up for Twitter," he says. "They have to actually make a commitment structurally and from a staffing standpoint to really take advantage of the medium."

In the end, though, Montague notes that Twitter represents just the beginning of something much bigger, more persistent, and more pervasive. "I mean, who knows if Twitter will be here five years from now? But Twitter-like behavior, I'm certain, is here to stay," he says. "People are constantly going to be broadcasting their thoughts and feelings and observations about the world and brands and their friends and products. I think that phenomenon is incredibly exciting -- and incredibly exhausting. But it holds a huge amount of potential for brands that get it right."
Lori Luechtefeld is editor of iMedia Connection.