Dive Summary:
- Digiday revives its "Confessions" series, interviewing a digital agency executive who gets candid about the problems large agencies face when they try to change existing infrastructure.
- In the interview, the exec says that hiring chief innovation officers typically does not work out and that agencies are prone to ignoring facts.
- Asked if established agencies can do anything to modernize, the exec states, "It’s just not possible," but that for real innovation to work they need to take on new clients with different budgets and expectations.
From the article:
"... It’s tempting to say that big agencies are so desperate that they will literally do anything to try to look modern. So they hire 'innovation' people to do just that even though I don’t think there is a one single example of an innovation person or department doing well at a big agency. It’s the same as putting a digital person in as chief creative officer. On paper, it’s an interesting move, but in reality there is again not a single example of this ever working out. Each agency thinks it will be the first agency to do that, but there is a fine line between believing that anything is possible and willfully ignoring the facts. ..."
