Yesterday, we highlighted a Swedish advertising agency – Honesty – and its decision to remove “digital” from all their employees’ titles.
As CEO Walter Naeslund explained in an Ad Age piece, this was an effort to get the entire staff engaged in digital and mobile. His thinking was that using “digital” in titles essentially siloed those job duties to just the people with those designated roles rather than a unified effort.
During many of our digital strategy sessions where Lori Lewis, Paul, and I work with radio management teams, job titles, duties, and reassignment options are frequent topics. Oftentimes, there are people inside stations who possess great skills for the newer platforms but they have job titles like “Traffic Manager” or “Account Executive.”
And now, more and more stations and their parent companies are thinking that hiring digital specialists might be the way to go. Walter Naeslund would tell them that that is already old thinking.
To get more clarification on how he came to this decision for his agency – and what it might mean for other businesses – he was kind enough to answer some additional questions recently for me.
Q. You have made this move as an ad agency, but other media organizations are struggling with the same transitional dilemma. One U.S. radio group changed the titles of Program Directors to Brand Managers to reflect a broader view. Do you think that what you’ve done at Honesty will spread to other media organizations?
WN: I think it will. Great digital strategy is increasingly equal to great content strategy. Digital or analogue is a non-issue in the content layer.
Q: One of your motivations for making the move is to send the message that there’s no excuse for anyone at Honesty lagging behind in the space. How big a problem is the transition for traditional agency types, and looking down the road, is the best move for Honesty to try to change the culture in your agency or simply hire differently?
WN: I believe the problem is smaller than we think. Once people are pushed into the pool they tend to swim. Also, I think that it is much easier to teach a great producer or creative how technology works than the other way around. Some people may get mad at me for saying that, but I think it’s true.
Q: In a way, your move away from “digital” in titles might strike some people as a bit counter-intuitive. Many media companies have added “digital” to job titles as a way to signal that they’re serious about not just producing traditional products. But by removing “digital,” you’re hoping your people will stop thinking in terms of silos and instead, simply integrate digital and mobile into everything they do. Can you talk about how you came to this conclusion?
WN: Using that logic of adding “digital” to all titles where things are in fact digital will soon put us in a place where every title will have “digital” as a prefix which would render it meaningless. By removing “digital” today instead of tomorrow, I can already see that we’ve accelerated the learning curve drastically. It’s really quite similar to how we used to use the term “new media.” How many people do you know who use that term anymore? We need terms like that in transitional periods, but that transition is over. We have a digital society now, and then it just becomes society.
Q: In radio, many traditional employees think their world is still transmitters and towers. But streams, mobile, podcasts, social media, and other platforms are where consumers are headed. From an agency point of view, what advice would you give to radio stations as they look down the road?
WN: The era where limited frequency space provided barriers of entry is coming to an end. Make the most of the time you have left to build really strong brands and addictive content and you’ll have a better chance of bringing your listeners with you into the open infrastructure era where content and brand will be your only assets.
That last observation might be the most important – branding, content development, and rethinking your staffing are big steps toward accomplishing those goals.
Walter Naeslund is on this path at Honesty.
Radio companies would do well to consider the same process.
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Philosophically, this is spot on. And for radio leaders in particular, a digital ubiquity mindset is a critical first step to the future.
Here’s the rub though. Honesty’s move and just about everything Walter says in the Q&A may be philosophically exactly right. But practice is another matter. As I’m sure you’re aware, if Honesty can in fact make a digital mindset – and skill set! – truly ubiquitous across its entire organization, they will be a rare thing indeed, even among agencies (who have been pretending to “get digital” for more than a decade). To put a finer point on it — I have worked and continue to work with lots of agencies (big and small) — and the true state of the state is as follows:
– There are more or less NO truly integrated agencies. Plenty of big agencies *talk* integration these days, but you only need to look at how they operate, how their P&Ls are organized, and how their people team to tackle client challenges. What integration typically means in these cases is “we have sister companies, a department, or a partner that we can bolt on if you need something outside our core capability.”
– In the world of smaller agencies, integration is just a secret code for “mediocre” – this is why so many clients keep a roster of specialty agencies on tap for specialized work.
– And speaking of clients (this isn’t just an agency thing), even they tend to organize around media channel specializations. The brand manager isn’t the digital guy, let alone the social or mobile guy. Instead, he’ll work with a dedicated social specialist, mobile specialist, etc who does nothing but that one thing…
– So what about digital agencies themselves? Shouldn’t they be more sophisticated? Shouldn’t they have already moved in this direction? Well, sure, everyone on their shop is “digital” so you need only call them account managers, media planners, creative directors. But you can bet social still gets handled by someone with social on her card, mobile by someone with mobile on his card. So are digital agency staffers truly *digital* in an age when everything is social and increasingly mobile? (BTW, I’m not just talking about the digital boutiques where skill sets might be constrained by the founders’ own experiences – I’m taking Digital, Razorfish, etc.) Oh and by the way, don’t ask your digital shop to take on your TV or radio planning, of course…
Sorry for the lengthy comment. What’s the bottom line? Well, first kudos to Honesty and good luck at making it a reality in their business. Second, yes, radio needs to be more progressive and aggressive in its pursuit of digital ubiquity. But third, that doesn’t mean groups should be chasing the provocative without first understanding the practical.
Greg, you have put a finer point on this conversation and I very much appreciate it. You raise some important reality-based questions. Clearly, there is a curve and agencies – as well as radio companies – occupy different points.
I love Honesty’s aggressiveness and vision. They are food for thought, and your observations just made it a meal. Thanks again.