Moving Fast and Slow

IPA Excellence Diploma 2012 Candidate# 7003
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Moving, Fast and Slow: I Believe in a New Agency
Operating System
IPA Excellence Diploma Dissertation
July 2012
Tom Darlington

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Abstract
The current rhetoric around the future of advertising agencies promotes
adoption of the working practices of software and technology companies,
Agile planning, as it has become known. I believe the doctrine of Agility
should be treated with care, not only because ‘Agile’ methodologies are
largely incompatible with current agency structures, but also because the
current agency model has many valuable attributes that must be protected. I
believe in a new agency operating system that lies in understanding how to
marry the old and the new, balancing existing practices with new working
methods. The new system will move both fast, and slow.

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Moving, Fast and Slow: I Believe in a New Agency Operating System
Part 1: Where we find ourselves today
“Intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same
time and still function” – F Scott Fitzgerald
The question over the future models, or operating systems, of advertising agencies is
as old as the agency system itself. Advertising, as a means for companies and
brands to communicate with their customers, is inextricably linked to change – as the
attitudes and behaviour of society change and progress, so to must the means by
which companies communicate.
Digital technology is accelerating the rate of change and subsequently the level of
uncertainty is enormous. Media, message and product design are converging, and
as a result, the question of how the advertising agency of the future will look has
never been more important.
The rise of technology and software firms as the supposed dominant creative and
innovative forces of the day has led commentators involved in Marketing and
Advertising to suggest that the future of our industry lies in copying the behaviours of
Silicon Valley. We’re all technology companies now, they say. In order for the agency
model to survive the assertion is that we must change and adopt the “mantra of agile
creativity…. learning from the processes and models that relate to what advertising is
becoming, an industry much more about technology” (Google, 2012).
The number of blogs and articles espousing the benefits of ‘Agile’ or ‘Lean’ planning
systems is vast – but I believe that this wisdom should be treated with care, both
because the systems and processes they promote are far from being a panacea to

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the industry’s woes, but also because we risk undervaluing our industry’s existing
and unique skillset in the process.
The literature on the subject covers mainly the ‘what’ – what systems, tools and
processes are involved in this new framework – but there is little written on the ‘why’,
and indeed the ‘how’, of ‘Agile Planning’. The reality of implementing agile working
practices is, in my opinion, beyond the majority of agencies and client organisations.
As the thinking around the subject gains traction we run the risk of becoming
members of a “cargo cult” (Malbon, 2010) – worshipping the ideals of a system that
we have no proper idea of how to actually use.
The central message of this paper is one of realism, of pragmatism – a repost to the
sensational and often impractical rallying calls of journalists and bloggers. The
agency of the future will be different to the ones we work in today, that is a given, but
all too often we seek to kill off the old in adopting the new – we’re capable of holding
only one idea in our head it would seem, rather than a combination of many
competing themes. This paper preaches a moderate yet progressive approach to
change. I believe that the agency of the future will span old and new, digital and
analogue. It will move fast and slow.
“Strategy is dead…Management is dead….The Big Idea is
dead….Marketing is dead” – Kevin Roberts (Draycott, 2012)
Gustav Von Sydow, founder of software design agency Burt, said at the Cannes
Advertising Festival in 2010 that there are two ways to “Market a Marketer - Win a
bunch of awards and/or announce the end of the world” (Von Sydow, 2010, p. 38).
Whilst this is a pithy, and amusing statement, there is more than a little truth in it.

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Those in the advertising and communications industry are a morbid bunch, not in the
classic sense, but in terms of their relationship with technology.
A close examination of trade press reveals some startling headlines (Fig.1), and
accordingly a phrase we’ve become fond of is Paradigm Shift. Scientist Thomas
Kuhn coined the phrase, as he outlined that scientific progression was not so much a
smooth evolutionary process, but instead a “series of peaceful interludes punctuated
by intellectually violent revolutions" whereby "one conceptual world view is replaced
by another" (Kuhn, 1996). This is how we treat our industry and the technology that
we use. As a new tool arrives, we publicly sacrifice the old paradigm, loudly
proclaiming the benefits of the new school of thought.
Fig. 1 It would appear TV has more lives than the average cat. Thinkbox's 2011 Annual Report report suggests
both commercial impacts are up, and that viewing has remained stable since the all time high recorded in 2010
largely unaffected by competing media. (Source: BBC/ Thinkbox)
An important distinction made by Kuhn though, was that ‘Paradigm Shifts’ are the
preserve of scientists only – “a student in the humanities has constantly before him a
number of competing and incommensurable solutions” (Kuhn). Communications,
Advertising and Marketing, as subjects which deal firmly with the human condition

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can easily be argued to sit within the realm of humanities. We have the “tendency to
argue that the arrival of X will cause the total eradication of Y. The Internet will
destroy television. Phones will destroy MP3 players…. and forget that the likely
scenario will be that everything will be a blurry munge like it was before, with this new
element added in” (Davies, 2007).
So, what next for advertising and communications agencies?
The current rhetoric around the future of advertising agencies is rooted firmly in
technology, as we continue our constant hunt for ‘innovation’ and the ‘next big thing’
in our field. The rise of the Internet and digital media has fascinated the advertising
industry. The Internet has radically changed consumer behaviour and the business
landscape. Facebook, in 6 years, has gone from being a cottage industry for ivy
leaguers to a business worth $57bn at time of writing, with 800 million users
worldwide. We’re led to believe that the Don Draper of today doesn’t work on
Madison Avenue or eat lunch on Charlotte Street. He is a Prius driving nerd living in
California, and if the ad industry wants to survive we should be more like him, and
less like the Mad Men we used to be.
The current wisdom is that advertising agencies should embrace agility as a means
of operating, that we should start being more like software and technology
companies, that we should “act and think like tech startups” (Inamoto, 2012) because
many of our tools and methods are now defunct. These changes would have severe
implications for our business. Should we be so quick to emulate these companies
and adopt their systems and discard our current ways?

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The origins of Agile Planning
Agile Planning and Lean Planning for advertising are a mutation of the Lean Startup
movement, which has been popularised by Eric Reis’ book of the same name. The
book describes the “new trends in the start-up landscape…a combination of the use
of open-source software, agile development methodologies and ferocious, customer-
centric, rapid iteration” (Eccles, 2010). Ries frames these methods in the context of
modern software entrepreneurs, but in fact the methods are quite a lot older. The
idea of ‘lean production’ began not in Silicon valley, but in Japan – as the central
methodology of car manufacturer Toyota – the company business built on two key
ideological pillars – “Continuous improvement and respect for people” (Liker, 2004, p.
xi). Another precursor to Reis’ work was the Agile Manifesto For Software
Development, published by a group of software developers in 2001. This manifesto
called for a system which worked much more quickly than traditional ‘waterfall’
production methods, with the ambition of “help(ing) to drive waste out of product
development” (Ries, 2011, p. 47) – just as Toyota’s system was intended to.
It is out of this movement that buzzwords such as Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
and mantras such as “Fail Fast” have originated. The crux of this method is to arrive
at a piece of software that works as quickly as possible, to present this to customers,
and through a data driven schema of “validated learning” (Ries, p. 9) understand
quickly what is working, what is not, and then iteratively create the next version of the
product. This system has been key to the survival of start-ups since the financial
crash in 2008. Seqouia Capital, a leading investor in tech start-ups, published a
document to the companies it was working with, entitled “RIP Good Times”. This
document encouraged companies to “decrease headcount…question what features

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are absolutely necessary…measure, cut what isn’t working” (Sequoia Capital, 2008).
This mandate is an excellent summary of agile and lean methodologies.
Fig. 2 The Agile Manifesto for Software Development - a lighter, more fleet of foot method of development and
production, which has found favour amongst start-ups (Eccles, 2011)
This way of working requires small, flat team structures with everyone involved
present at all stages of development. Unlike Waterfall (Fig.3), process is run in
parallel rather than sequentially. These methods are about focussing a team on
getting a product to market as soon as possible, in whatever state. Functionality
takes precedence over form. Once the product comes to market, based on data, the
team can decide whether to “Pivot or persevere” (Ries, p. 164). A pivot is defined in
this context as a “structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental
hypothesis about the product or strategy” (Ries, p. 149). Pivots have in some very
well-known instances, resulted in a wholesale change of the product. Flickr, the
photo-sharing site, started out as a Massive Multiplayer Online Game called Game
Neverending (Ha, 2008). Groupon, the social commerce site, began life as

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The Point, a site for gathering names on petitions. Herein lies the rub, for
Entrepreneurs, being successful as a businessman is the goal. The means by which
that is achieved is irrelevant.
Here is where the application of agile to advertising begins to fall down.
Fig. 3 An example of a 'Waterfall' system, a sequential method of development and production used in software
and industrial manufacturing. There are obvious parallels with how advertising has traditionally been
developed (Source: Wikipedia)
Agencies have clients and brands to be considerate of; we aren’t able to ‘pivot’ as
easily. A brief has a distinct set of objectives that must be met. An advertising
campaign has far less room for manoeuvre. Also traditional advertising doesn’t lend
itself to iteration particularly well; at least no more than current DR optimisation
methods allow.
Agile methods also require constant client presence. This requires a special type of
client, a breed that is increasingly rare – one with both the time and the inclination to
get involved in the creative process from start to finish.

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‘Agile’ systems lend themselves to certain parts of our business, especially in
delivering new and important innovations – essentially non-traditional forms of
advertising, such as the design and creation of digital products (Fig.4.), which are
beginning to become more important.
Fig. 4 "This is the new advertising" says Albion's Chief Executive Jason Goodman (Goodman, 2012). Agency
R/GA built Nike’s customisation tool NikeiD, an example of an ad agency creating products as well as
communications for their clients
However, whilst smaller start-up agencies can set themselves up specifically to work
in this way this is not a system that we can base the entire day-to-day running of a
large advertising agency on. These methods do hold value for our industry, but
understanding the balance, when they should be deployed, and how they can be
integrated into a larger agency system, will be crucial.
The tyranny of scale
Agile methods require flat hierarchies and small teams. Whilst size is generally a
feature of organisations that is admired, scale creates a barrier for companies

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looking to truly use Agile methodology. More generally size hinders those trying to
innovate, and that is ultimately the key reason we’re being told that “agile” is our
future, as a means of delivering innovation. As a business gets bigger, it “becomes
more efficient, it also becomes more specialised, and its flexibility in supporting
innovation diminishes” (Govindarajan & Trimble, 2010, p. 30). This is as true of
Facebook and Google as it is of the biggest advertising networks such as Ogilvy or
JWT.
Most big companies deal with this in a similar way – they acquire. They buy smaller
companies who have been proven to disrupt their markets, and try to integrate their
challenger culture into their existing business. Advertising agencies have long
behaved in this way, “buying and merging is what big, un-dynamic agencies do to
reboot” (Beale, 2012, p. 2) – but it is also a trend in tech too. It is often quicker and
easier for cash rich companies to spend money to acquire new products, as
technology companies are just as susceptible to falling foul of technological
advancement as everyone else. Google has a long tradition of acquiring new
companies as it tries to maintain its dominance, buying companies such as Youtube
and Motorola. The problem is that the rate of change is greater than the adaption
rate of large organisations, and the bigger a business, the harder adapting becomes.
Fig. 5 The merger of Adam & Eve with Omnicom’s DDB is the latest in a long line of mergers conducted by the
American network – previous deals include the formation of AMV BBDO and several purchases by TBWA.

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – Charles Dickens
John Webster, writing a piece for the 40th
birthday of D&AD, notes that the 1970s
“were heady times to be in the media, and a fresh generation of talent nurtured in the
sixties started to change the status quo in agencies… in Advertising, London
embarked on what is now considered it’s Golden Age…things were buzzing. The
seventies were confident times” (Webster, 2002, pp. 178-179)
The parallels with today are obvious: technology is disrupting our industry as well as
changing consumer behaviour, the “rulebook of what it means to work in marketing
and advertising” (Graham, 2012) is being re-written. In the 70s, it was advancement
in TV; today it is the digital revolution. If one of my colleagues were asked, in 30
years time, to write a review of the first decade of the new millennium as D&AD turns
80, would their account be as reverent as Webster’s? Would it remember, with
enthusiasm and excitement, the opportunities created by the upheaval currently
being experienced? Whilst Webster had the benefit of hindsight, my instinct suggests
not.
The current mood of the industry is one of fear – fear of disintermediation, fear of
irrelevance. Disheartened by the tightening grip of procurement departments, and a
world that has become cynical of advertising, we are almost apologetic about our
trade. As we wrestle with technology companies for the best talent, it is more
important than ever that we try to recapture the spirit that characterised the 1970s
and 1980s. We can either be scared and afraid of what is happening now, or we can
take the view that “there has never been a more exciting time to be doing, what we
do” (Graham)

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We have “access to well over a hundred years of slowly evolved and priceless
understanding on which to draw” (Bullmore, 2012), an understanding of how
creativity can be leveraged to change our clients businesses, an understanding of
human behaviour, of culture, of commerce, of how communication works. The
canvas may be changing, but the basic rules will remain the same in spite of the fact
we often ignore them – treat people as people; entertain them, educate them,
connect them with each other, or prove useful in their lives (Cotton, 2008). The best
advertising and marketing has always done this, and it will have to continue doing so
even as the definition of what constitutes advertising and marketing changes.
Do we actually need a new agency model?
The advertising industry has a lot to be hopeful about; we have established ourselves
over the last century as a group of companies that can truly add value to advertisers
through “intense brand stewardship” (Bainsfair, 2012, p. 13). The recent ascendancy
of technology companies should give pause for thought, but we should be careful
before abandoning our past for a future of borrowed process.
Whilst we have much to be hopeful about, we still need to adopt a new method of
organising our businesses. The disruption we’re experiencing at the moment is like a
snail, slow, obvious, and relentless. The Internet has been changing things now for
15 years; we’re fighting “a hundred year war, not a skirmish. It’s about continuing,
relentless technological change and how we create organisations that deal with
snails, not panic about trends” (Davies, 2012)
In a world where “a two term Prime Minister would end his term of office with an
iPhone 64 times as powerful as the one he won the election with” (Hammersley,
2011), we need a device which allows large organisations, normally so slow to adapt,

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to evolve and deal with new technological, social, and commercial disruptions whilst
preserving their heritage at the same time.
Any new model must also take into account the limitations our clients face. They too
move and operate at different speeds, and have need for different products and
services from us, (Fig.6) and “it is a company’s customers who effectively control
what it can and can’t do” (Christensen, p. 101).
Fig. 6 UK Media spend in billions of pounds, 2011-2020. Client demand for more traditional, broadcast and
mass communication media channels shows no signs of waning, despite decreasing popularity amongst
commentators. Advertising is going to change more slowly than perhaps we like to think it will. (Source:
Opera/Omnicom Media Group)
The challenge is to find a way of navigating this inhospitable landscape in a way that
is not only suitable for agencies, but also services the multitude of requirements that
our clients have too. I believe this new system will compliment the old hierarchical
systems we’ve created rather than replace outright. By appending a newer, quicker
division to the old system we can evolve, adapting to the new conditions we face.

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Part 2: Moving, Fast and Slow
Agency Structure
One solution to keeping older, rigid and hierarchical organisations innovative has
been the creation of a separate division of the company, a “Skunkworks”, as
pioneered by Lockheed Martin. Created to work on advanced and often secret
projects, the skunkworks usually operates behind closed doors – in Lockheed
Martin’s case, a separate building.
Whilst secrecy and distance is a necessity for certain industries, communications
agencies derive their strength from their ability to share knowledge amongst a
number of different teams. An analogy I keep coming back to whilst thinking about
this is the way a shipping liner works with a tugboat as it approaches a dock.
The shipping liner is where all the long term value lies, yet it is slow – it is less able to
traverse difficult and unpredictable waters. The tugboat by contrast, is much smaller;
it’s very fast and extremely agile – allowing it to explore potentially hazardous waters
with ease. Crucially, the vessels are linked – the tugboat is valuable only in context of
the larger ship it works with, the shipping liner requires the smaller vessel to protect
itself. This is how I believe agencies should be structured to deal with change,
providing a model for the future proofing of our business. It is a model reliant on
finding the optimum balance between the two vessels.
The ‘Traditional’ agency (Fig.7) is a highly evolved beast, its capabilities perfected
over decades and regulated by carefully established process and infrastructure.
Principally, this body should be responsible for 3 things in this new model. Firstly,
creativity - not in the way we often use this word – as in a piece of creative work such
as a poster or TV execution - but creativity as a constituent part of problem solving,

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the recombination of ideas to create a new solution to a challenge. Agencies have a
proven track record in this area, and strong ideas will continue to be the foundation of
our business no matter what the technological context in which they are executed.
Fig. 7 The 'slow' agency structure, a creative powerhouse is built to deliver perfection, perfection which is
facilitated by its processes and hierarchy. These are the same features which slow it down and hinder its ability
to react to change (Source: Author)
Fig. 8 The 'fast' innovation unit augments rather than replaces the traditional agency model. It is designed to
be more flexible, faster, and capable of working with the agency to make sense of a changing technological
landscape (Source: Author) (n.b – shape chosen is not significant in this diagram, it is symbolic only)
Secondly, it is responsible for client relationships. The agency model provides the
security and stability which clients require and desire – allowing the creation of long
term alliances, as well as the long term strategic and commercial decision making so

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vital to the effectiveness of advertising, communications and brand planning. Whilst
short term metrics may be easier to measure – it is long term brand health and
metrics which may be the most valuable to companies (Broadbent, 2009), and strong
agency/client relationships are crucial in effecting these metrics over time. Like any
relationship, stability and constant attention are vital. Thirdly, it is responsible for
producing, on an almost industrial scale; the products that it has learnt to craft and
perfect over time – traditional advertising and media campaigns. These products
whilst derided as increasingly ineffective, are still highly demanded. These are often
resource and cash heavy investments, and it is therefore correct that time and effort
is spend ensuring they are created and executed properly. These are tasks which
the slower agency structure has perfected, and it would be foolish to assign these
duties elsewhere.
The ‘faster’, newly created organisation which appends it (Fig.8) is by contrast largely
process free, it is an amorphous body which is fluid enough to adapt to the number of
differing tasks which it must fulfil in its role as an evolutionary engine for our existing
agency structure.
Experimentation, Provocation and Augmentation and Execution: ‘Fast’
working with ‘Slow’
Whilst the relationship between ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ elements of the agency must be
symbiotic and intrinsically linked (Fig.9), it is vital that there is still a distance between
the two. If the new unit becomes too embroiled in the day to day running of the
agency, this effects its ability to move quickly and remain challenging to the status
quo, as it will inevitably become subject to the same bureaucracy and process which
defines the established agency body.

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Fig. 9 The relationship between 'Fast' and ‘Slow’ agency parts. The smaller, faster element must work together
with the larger, more institutional organisation to be effective. Both have strengths and limitations that this
arrangement looks to either minimise or take advantage of. (Source: Author).
The tasks that the ‘fast’ section of the business must undertake fall broadly into three
categories: experimentation, provocation and augmentation and execution.
Fig. 10 BBH Labs Robitify.Me taps into the digital trend of 'The Quantified Self' - exploring applications for
personal data in a digital world
In terms of experimentation, the innovation unit, sitting outside of any specific client
team, has the ability to think much more about what our industry’s output could be in

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the future, rather than what it is today, and start to experiment with techniques and
tools that will come to define our business. BBH’s innovation unit, BBH Labs, is
currently undertaking a project called Robitify.Me (Fig.10), an initiative that takes
social media data and builds digital robots based on user information, creating virtual
representations of people based on their own behaviour.
The innovation unit must also be responsible for provocation, for inspiring,
challenging and educating the slower institutional body of the agency in order to
improve the way it thinks and works on a day-to-day basis by providing diverse
sources of influence. In a world where access to information has become so easy via
comprehensive Internet search engines, an agency’s ability to think differently will be
vital in maintaining an edge over its competition. Sir Ken Robinson notes how of
1600 3-5 year olds tested for their ability to think differently “98% scored at the
genius level for divergent thinking. They gave the same tests to the same children
ﬁve years later at the ages of 8 to 10. Then 32% scored at the genius level in
divergent thinking. They gave the same test to the same children at the ages of 14 to
15 and the result was 10%. Interestingly, they gave the same test to over 200,000
adults and the ﬁgure was 2%” (Robinson, 2005).
Institutions, like schools in the example above, can hinder people’s ability to think
differently. Creativity is stifled as we get used to solving problems in a certain way.
Advertising and communications agencies, which place creativity at their heart must
avoid this blindness, and as a separate entity the innovation unit is perfectly placed
to infuse the divergent and radical inspiration agencies require to remain creatively
fertile.

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In acting as a provocateur and experimental unit, the innovation unit is helping to
drive and improve the culture of the agency it works for – this is building competitive
advantage for the future.
Whilst the innovation unit sits outside the day to day running of the agency, its
purpose is to improve the core agency system, and so a key task is that it must
augment the agency’s teams to undertake and execute more specialist projects
when required.
These projects may include media or advertising “firsts” when thinking about
traditional revenue streams – projects which have never been done before such as
digital innovations involving emerging technology, or helping to create a solution
which falls totally outside of the day to day experience of the agency such as new
product development or inventing technology from scratch. Google have created the
Google X division to execute tasks that are outside the core expertise of a company
that heavily prioritises the efficient running of a search engine in its day to day
business. This division is busy creating future facing technology solutions, such as
the recently announced Project Glass (Fig.11). It is in executing ideas and tasks that
the innovation unit excels. It has acquired none of the bad habits of its slower
counterpart, and has no set hierarchies holding it to account – it has none of the
“organisational memory” (Govindarajan & Trimble, 2010, p. 51) that large agencies
do, a factor that prevents them from moving forward. The unit’s executional
capabilities, unlike provocation and experimentation, are commercial – they directly
apply to clients, and therefore contribute commercially to an agency’s financial
health.

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Fig. 11 Google's Project Glass Experiment - a first step toward cybernetic implants.
Creating the ‘fast’ team
The entire point of the faster innovation unit is that it is able to move more quickly, be
more agile, and perform tasks that are outside of the main agency’s capability (or
tasks which would be problematic). As a result, the makeup of the team that inhabits
this division should be fluid with resources allocated on a project-by-project basis.
This does require a central team in order to manage this process, but outside of
these few permanent members of the team, the people who work in the innovation
unit should change to suit the projects that are being undertaken. These teams can
be formulated in two ways, either as a physical team or as a virtual, networked group
working remotely.
In the case of a physical team, this is where the lessons of ‘agile planning’ can be
applied to great effect. The assembled team(s) should be made up of experienced
practitioners, with one representative of each discipline that the project may require

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(Fig.12). Ideally, for these special projects a client representative should also be in
the room, and form a permanent part of the team. This enables the team to work
through a problem quickly, iteratively and removes lengthy sign off and approval
processes. By virtue of the fact that each discipline is represented, nothing needs to
be outsourced, and the team can be responsible for everything from strategy through
to production of a finished item, whatever that item may be. The projects that these
teams will undertake will be projects that lie outside of the agency’s core strengths
such as the production of applications, web based services, or even physical product
development and therefore they should be approached in a way that removes the
creation and development from the factory like production line of the normal agency
environment.
Fig. 12 An example of a flat, fully skilled and autonomous project team working within the ‘innovation unit’ in
line with agile methodologies. (Source: Author)

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The second way to formulate the ‘fast’ team could be virtually. Pre Internet, work
forces had to be present at the location at which their skills were required. In a
networked world, this is no longer the case. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a
fascinating example of how labour can be networked and brought to bear on a
specific task. This “marketplace for work gives businesses access to an on demand,
scalable workforce” (Amazon, 2012). Businesses and developers submit specific
tasks or jobs to the network, and then individual workers choose to perform these,
earning small amounts of money in return. Amazon’s system aggregates and
manages these individual workers and their work, meaning large tasks can be
completed extremely quickly. Common tasks include testing web links, debugging
programmes, or testing compatibility of software in different operating systems. This
method is suitable for tasks that require quick answers to simple, yet vital tasks –
such as debugging. Using this type of method can relieve stress on a resource light
organisation such as an ad agency. Case study C details how these methods have
been used in real world conditions to develop products.
Long term, this ‘networked workforce’ could have huge implications for agencies, and
how they operate. Nearly 20 years after agency HHCL equipped all its staff with
mobile phones and championed the idea of the ‘hotdesk’ in the hope of creating a
dynamic, mobile workforce, the notion of an ‘virtual agency’ could be coming to
fruition, fuelled by the hyper connectivity of the broadband age. Instead of employing
hundreds of people, an agency could be made up of a small, core team of long term
employees who manage a network of freelancers, who instead of being a “traditional
employee, is a member (of a club), available to work on projects” (Bochenski, 2012)
when they want. This changes the core role of an agency from being one which
produces advertising for it’s clients, to one which represents talent – joining together
clients and their problems with the correct people to solve the issue.

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Planning for evolution: Creating the future
As we know, technology is changing everything – this is a slow, deliberate and
relentless process. The opportunities offered to companies in this new digital world
are almost limitless, and are only equalled by the risks and dangers that arrive
simultaneously. Throughout history there have been two prevailing schools of
thought regarding technological advancement – the school of “technological
determinism”, and the school of “instrumentalists” (Carr, 2010, p. 46). Determinists
argue that technological advancement is a force outside of man’s control, and is the
primary factor in influencing the course of human history. The opposing school
suggests, “tools are neutral artefacts, entirely subservient to conscious wishes of
their users” (Carr). I believe that many companies and organisations, our clients,
have adopted a Determinist outlook – that they are under threat from market
disruptions and there is little they can do to stem the tide. If we continue to think like
this, change and disruption will consume our business. If we adopt an instrumentalist
viewpoint, and embrace new technology with excitement, things may be very
different.
Whilst the ‘Fast and Slow’ structural changes detailed so far may help organisations
react and manage change, they do not address how to ‘create’ the future, proactively
exploring and creating opportunities in the new landscape in which we operate.
Currently “we work with what works…we deliver success models based on what
(has) worked in the recent past and…the near future…it’s lucrative, in the short term.
In the long term we must plot our own obsolescence” (Mawdsley, 2012, p. 22). A
survey I conducted of agency professionals compounds this – only 29% of
respondents budgeted for experimental programmes in their client’s annual spend.
(Research in Appendix A).

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Proactively creating the future requires deliberate planning and allocation of
resources, just as we always have done; it’s just that we can’t always plan what
we’re going to spend the money on.
One approach is to split everything an agency or client does into 3 boxes, one
relating to the future, one relating to the present, and one relating to processes and
outputs that are no longer necessary. Business Professor Vijay Govindarajan has
created a model that works along these lines (Fig.13). He suggests, “many
organizations restrict their strategic thinking to Box 1” (Govindarajan, 2006), a fact
which is accentuated in times of technological or economic turbulence, such as
today. In actual fact, businesses should extend strategy to boxes 2 and 3, as this will
help them prepare for change which is “rapid and non linear” (Govindarajan).
Fig. 13 Vijay Govindarajan's 3 box approach to innovation, forces strategy to deal not only with the immediate
present, but also work towards creating the future

28
Fig. 14 Google’s Eric Schmidt outlined a model that involves his and his colleagues times being split into 3
categories. 70% of time is spent managing day to day tasks. 20% of time is spent doing special projects related
to day to day work, and 10% is spent on pursuing projects that are not related to the core business (Batelle,
2005)
Models such as this have been used as the basis of theories relating to workplace
education and time allocation in organisations such as Google (Perkin, 2012), and
can be equally useful in the way agency teams and their clients plan their marketing
budget. (Fig.15)
Fig. 15 By adopting Eric Schmidt’s model for time, and applying it to marketing planning actively begins
process of creating the future. This creates a system of learning, where we both introduce new techniques and
tools into the day to day, but also optimise everything on an on going basis

29
By organising resource, or indeed finances in this way, clients and their agencies can
begin to plan for a future that they are responsible for creating, rather than reacting to
conditions as they happen. It is a “failure of management” (Levitt, 1975, p. 2) which
causes businesses to falter in light of changing market conditions rather than market
conditions themselves, and so it is vital that businesses plan, and allocate resource,
for markets and opportunities which may not exist yet.
‘Fast and slow’ will improve our work now, as well as helping us prepare for
the future
I believe that structuring and organising our businesses around the principles of fast
and slow will act as evolutionary tool that will protect both our clients and our industry
in the long term. In the short term, ordering ourselves in this way makes practical
sense – our core product, advertising and communications, has already shifted to
work in this way and aligning with this will improve our work immediately.
“One of the key tensions that...exists for modern marketers is the changing
relationship between longer-term 'always-on' communications, and the kind of short-
term speed bumps that has long characterised traditional campaigning” (Perkin,
2011). The arrival of tools and channels such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising,
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), social platforms, email and database marketing
and tools such as websites now sit alongside the traditional range of mass media
channels. The new tools require on going support, and changes within these
channels can be implemented extremely quickly. Accordingly, there is an increasing
need to balance communications that work in “real time” and those that work “over
time” (Gray & Himpe, 2012) (Fig.16). More and more, the real skill of brand
management and brand communication will lie in managing these fast and slow
communications in tandem to create an overarching, holistic brand narrative.

30
Fig. 16 Understanding the timelines involved in each new media channel, and therefore how they work
together, is imperative for the modern brand guardian (Source: Gray & Himpe, 2012)
By organising our businesses and our output around the ideas of fast and slow, we
can tackle this problem today, as well as building for the future. The following
examples demonstrate creative businesses, of all types, that are using the ideas of
“fast” and “slow” organisation in the way they work.
Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Communications
Case Study A: Wieden and Kennedy // Old Spice
‘The Old Spice Guy’ has become one the most revered ad campaigns of recent
times. Launched as a traditional TV spot, which was filmed over “3 days and 57
takes” (CBS News, 2010), ‘The man your man could smell like’ went on to capture
the hearts of both men and women in America. As this traditionally crafted and
distributed piece of content began to gain traction online, agency Wieden and
Kennedy saw an opportunity to create a reactive and highly interactive digital
element to the campaign to compliment the standard TV spots.

31
Filmed over 2 days, the ‘response campaign’ saw a team of writers, creatives,
producers and social media analysts create 186 individual 30” videos featuring the
‘Old Spice Guy’ as he answered questions and reacted to posts from fans all over
the world (Grant, 2010). These films were then posted onto Youtube as soon as they
were filmed – reacting, in relation to a traditional advertising production, in real time.
To achieve this the creative team shot on a basic handheld camera in a small studio
- and then used proprietary social and digital data analytics software to ascertain
which tweets and comments they should reply to in order to gain as much exposure
for the work. Traditional and lengthy approval processes were circumvented by
working to the terms of engagement agreed in advance with the client. (Borden,
2010)
This campaign has in many ways become the quintessential example of how old and
new media can work together in a digital age. Older, ‘slower’, glossy brand
communication, months in the making, used as a catalyst to consumers engaging
with an idea in more personal, digital environments via ‘quick’, personalized,
interactive and data driven brand communications. It is also a perfect example of
how a flat, autonomous and fully skilled team of creative staff can work quickly,

32
reacting to real consumer interaction, creating content of the highest quality in the
process.
Key Applications for Agencies:
• Old and new media compliment each other; they do not compete against one
another. The strength of this campaign is the idea at its heart, and the craft
demonstrated by Wieden+Kennedy in bringing it to life.
• Fast and reactive doesn’t mean that long term planning isn’t relevant anymore.
This example shows that working hard in advance to agree brand behaviours,
and acceptable parameters with clients is the key to allowing the phenomenal
speed required to work in this way.
• Getting the right skillset on a team can be more important than having a large
team of many people. Understanding the task at hand, and constructing a small
but comprehensive team allows for rapid productivity.
Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Organisational Design
Case Study B: Ringier AG Publishing, Switzerland
The publishing business has been one of the most affected by the ‘creative
destruction’ caused by the onset of digital technology. Always a high frequency
business, the speed at which the publishing industry has to work at now in the era of
24-hour news is remarkable.
The biggest problem facing this industry is that the ‘slow’ element, printed products,
are still the channels that drive the greatest revenue. The ‘fast’ channels, extremely

33
important from an audience retention standpoint, generate far less revenue. The key
challenge then from a commercial point of view is to create an organisation that
balances these two elements, optimising output in order to maximize revenues whilst
maintaining audience share vs. the competition. From an editorial standpoint the
modern editor must manage the numerous and constantly active ‘fast’ touch points
such as Twitter, as well as the ‘slow’ traditional outlets and ensure that editorially a
newspaper or magazine remains cohesive and consistent in its approach over time.
Ringier AG, a Swiss publisher, has gone to significant lengths to integrate its old and
new media divisions, building a new wing of its office, which acts as a physical bridge
between “publishing and slow departments… and online and fast departments…..
this is the command post of the newsroom” (Zemp, 2010), where all decisions are
made. (Fig.17)
Elsewhere, journalists began working across all touch points rather than single
genres for single titles or touch points (Fig.18 and Fig.19). Decisions to prioritise
‘exclusives’ became based on the time sensitivity of the story.
If it had a long shelf life, it would be kept back for paid for channels in order to
maximize revenue, if it was likely to expire quickly or be broken by a competitor then
faster, digital channels are used to publish the story in order to gain as big a share of
audience as possible.
The publisher also began to use digital to inform how they prioritised traditional
publishing, using a proprietary data analytics dashboard to monitor buzz, consumer
behaviour such as sharing and commenting of stories, with the most interacted with
pieces of content becoming developed as fuller features in the printed product

34
Fig. 17 The ‘Command Centre’ became the physical hub of the publishing company. All editorial decisions,
irrespective of channel or subject, where made here before being re-routed to the appropriate place
The publishing business arguably hasn’t won the fight to preserve revenues in a
digital world just yet, but structural changes such as those implemented by Ringier,
which allow it to balance the fast and slow of its business are the industry’s next
defence in this battle.
Fig. 18 AG Ringier's portfolio of Blick titles and it’s editorial staff operated in a disjointed and isolated fashion
prior to the integration of the "fast" and "slow" elements of their business (Source: Zemp, 2010)

35
Fig. 19 Post integration, editorial teams worked across numerous touch points, operating at both "fast" and
slow" speeds within their specialist disciplines (Source: Zemp, 2010)
• ‘Bridging’ the old and new, fast and slow requires effort and thought. This can be
done either through a physical manifestation; such as the ‘command centre’ or in
more abstract terms such as departmental and job design
• The prioritisation of fast and slow channels must be aligned to long-term business
objectives.
• Planning brand communications will require agencies and clients to understand
how short term, faster digital communications work in tandem with slower,
traditional communications to create a cumulative brand or product narratives

36
Moving Fast and Slow: Applications for Product Design
Cast Study C: Linux
Whilst terms such as ‘crowd sourcing’ and ‘open source’ production may have
become mainstream in the era of web2.0, the most famous product of these
movements launched in 1991, years before high speed internet access was widely
available in homes. Linus Torvalds’ operating system, Linux, “proved that a
community of like minded peers was capable of creating a better product than a
corporate behemoth like Microsoft” (Howe, 2008, p. 8). Not only is it the best
examples of open source design, but it is also one of the best examples of how the
notion of ‘fast and slow’ methods can be deployed in creating and developing
products, in all categories.
Crowd sourcing as a principle often falls down because it imagines an almost utopian
state where people go to work of their own free will, and arrive harmoniously at a
solution. What Torvalds realised in the creation of Linux, was that you need a
“benevolent dictator…. Someone to play the role of decider” (Howe, p. 285), he also
realised that the ‘crowd’ are good for some tasks and institutions are good for others.
Torvalds built a slower, institution like organisation to create and perfect his product
and employed “a hierarchy of talented software programmers around him” (Carr,
2007). In stark contrast to other companies, such as Apple or Microsoft who tend to
be ultra protective over their software and its development, he then allowed outsiders
access to the source code

37
Fig. 20 Linux exemplifies the idea of ‘fast and slow’ or as Eric Raymonds called it the “Cathedral and Bazaar”
(Raymonds, 1997), the “cathedral characterizes the heavily managed, hierarchical approach” (Howe, p. 55)
of modern organisations, whilst the ‘bazaar’ denotes “a large and informal community of volunteers in
aggregate” (Carr, 2007) who rally around a problem, task or project. Linux demonstrates how the two can
work together.
Allowing access has empowered a huge voluntary work force that helps him and his
team improve this product, the Internet allowing them to work remotely, quickly and
in parallel. They carry out simple debugging exercises that are set and coordinated
by the central team. Torvald’s team then implement these changes. This is in stark
contrast to a project such as Wikipedia, which allows all users a level playing field,
and in doing so has found itself with serious quality control issues.
Torvald’s acknowledgment is that slower, hierarchical institutions are ideally suited to
delivering brilliant ideas and creating products, which may need help being perfected.
The crowd, by contrast, lacks the creative capacity required to conceive ground
breaking new ideas, yet can work at speed to help refine the institution’s work.

38
• Whilst the idea of ‘crowd sourcing’ has come in and out of fashion, this example
shows just how useful these methods can be – it is not about utilising free labour
to do the work for you, but it instead about how human resource can be
networked and harnessed in a digital age.
• Faster, more agile networks of teams can invigorate older, slower organisations,
but setting the responsibilities of each and how the two sections integrate should
be based on the specific objectives of a particular project or initiative.
“The future doesn’t arrive all at once” – Syd Mead (Bryant, 2011)
In 1975 Theodore Levitt said that in order “to survive, plot the obsolescence of what
produces your livelihood now” (Levitt, p. 4). In a business environment where the
only certainty is change, this is sage advice. We must prepare for the future, not
tomorrow, but today. Practically, we cannot implement huge structural changes
overnight, and nor should we. Technological advancement does not play out in a
“tidy timeline of progress” (Edgerton, 2006); it is a gradual process rather than
absolute one, and therefore the skills and qualities our industry has perfected over
nearly a century are extremely valuable, and it would be foolish to abandon the way
we have worked overnight for newer, more fashionable techniques being used by an
industry in the ascendency. Agile methodologies will help us in certain areas of our
business as we begin to work more and more in the field of technology, but only as
an addition, rather than instead of, our current hierarchical and slow moving agency
operating systems.

39
We must therefore create an organisational framework that allows us to both
preserve the value that currently exists within our businesses as well as begins to
evolve our capabilities so that we are fit for the future.
I believe in a new agency operating system, an operating system that fuses together
our past and our near future, a system which helps us apply our knowledge and skill
to new problems, a system which moves both fast and slow.
Word Count (Excl. Titles, Abstract, Bibliography and Acknowledgements and
Appendix): 6,947

40
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Acknowledgements
I would like to briefly thank the following for the time they kindly gave to help
me write this essay: Andrew Lloyd, Garrett O’Reilly, John V Willshire, Jon
Ghazi, Lisa Myers, Mel Exon, Neil Perkin, Ollie Gandy and Ros Godber.
I would also like to thank Chloe Williams at the IPA for all her assistance over
the last 18 months.

45
Appendix A: A survey of 74 agency workers, investigating attitudes and
practices that exist in their organisations concerning innovation
Q1. What Best describes the agency or organisation you currently work in?
Organisation Respondents %
Media 53 72
Advertising 7 9
Digital Specialist 2 3
Boutique Comms/Strategy Agency 0 0
Advertiser (‘Client’ Side) 2 3
Media Owner 7 9
Other 3 4
Q2. What best describes your job title/level of seniority?
Job Title/Level Respondents %
Exec 8 11
Manager 16 22
Associate Director 17 23
Director/Head of Department 22 30
Other 11 15
Q3. How frequent are your typical planning cycles?
Job Title/Level Respondents %
Yearly 14 19
Half Yearly 7 9
Quarterly 10 14
Monthly 8 11
Weekly 6 8

46
Ad hoc 19 26
Other 10 14
Q4. How important is innovation to your role/clients?
Scale Respondents %
1 – Not Important 0 0
2 2 3
3 21 28
4 24 24
5 – Very Important 26 26
Q5. Do you actively allocate budget for ‘innovation’ in your planning?
Answer Respondents %
Yes 21 29
No 53 71
Q6. If so, roughly how much of your total budget is dedicated to new/innovative
activity?
1-5% 6 28
6-10% 10 47
11-15% 4 19
16-20% 0 0
20-30% 0 0
30-40% 0 0
40-50% 0 0
50%+ 1 6

47
Q7. Do you think Agencies or Client Organisations value innovation more?
Agency 60 81
Client Organisations/Advertisers 13 18
Q8. Comparing the marketing and advertising community with ‘consumers’, do you
think the advertising community overestimate the impact of new technology in
comparison to actual usage/adoption
Yes 60 81
No 13 18
Q9. Do you think novelty, rather than effectiveness/client payback is the biggest
driver in the advertising industry’s usage of new technology?
Yes 70 95
No 3 4
Q10. Is the current model of advertising/comms agencies dead?
Yes 7 9
No 38 51
Maybe 28 38

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