The Works strategy partner Douglas Nicol took to the stage with The Smith Family’s head of marketing, Lisa Allen, at the ADMA Global Forum last month to discuss how a culture of experimentation can improve and deliver more significant and priceless results for a campaign.
Afterwards, Nicol spoke to Mediaweek about building a culture of experimentation in media agencies and the challenges facing media planning.
Nicol said he hoped the discussion gave attendees a better understanding of how marketing experimentation can be fun and how it is about revelation and working smarter.
“I want people to think about testing as not tactical. Testing and market experimentation are cultural things, and it is the only way for a marketing team in most industries to operate. Otherwise, it’s a wasted resource because we live in a data-rich world. We live in a world of very measurable channels.
“If you’re not using that to drive an agenda for marketing experimentation, then quite frankly, you shouldn’t be in marketing, you shouldn’t have a job, because the opportunity and the ability are there. You need the culture to drive that.
“That will accelerate your journey that will deliver acceleration on your customer journeys and deliver results better and faster,” he added.
Nicol said the most important question asked at the session’s Q and A portion centred on building a culture of experimentation, testing, and learning and how to use it to improve and accelerate performance.
“It’s not about maths. It’s not about technology – which often becomes. It’s about having a culture of experimentation in a marketing team, and that has to come from the leadership of that marketing team.”
Douglas Nicol on the ADMA stage with The Smith Family’s head of marketing, Lisa Allen
How to build a culture of experimentation
Nicol explained the best way to build such a culture is to have a leader who is a true believer and has the skills and passion for learning.
Nicol said that structuring those factors in the team ensures everyone has that in their performance objective. People are excited about the possibilities of learning that everyone plays a role in delivering a robust learning strategy and sharing and celebrating the results.
“That’s not a “nice to have” on the side. It’s not a marketing fashion accessory. It should be core to the team’s culture,” he added.
The strategy leader pinpointed one of the challenges facing media planning is data ownership. He said: “Sometimes the media agency owns the data, and sometimes the client, and sometimes it’s a blend of the two.
“With the death of cookies and the increasing focus on first-party data, it’s really important that clients own their data.”
He recalled a client who told him that all their data goes into a black box and that they are told what media to buy but do not receive the learnings.
“That’s because the black box is often somebody else’s black box that holds all the data and the learnings. It’s all about taking ownership of your data and having a strategy to build first-party data so that you can continue to test and learn in a post cookie world.
“It’s going to be a very different environment post-2023. So, you need to have a strategy for that. That’s the biggest challenge facing media, creative, and clients. It’s facing everyone,” he added.
When it comes to experimentation, The Works partner noted that media agencies and marketing professionals should consider where the testing journey starts and where should the focus be placed.
“The starting point should be around finding the most efficient way to find your audience, what channel with what audience insight, and using what combination of first, second and third-party data.
“You’re going to start with a bunch of media personas, whom you think is your audience, and use testing to validate whether the audience and the insight are correct. We see that as about 40% of success,” he said.
The Works at number one
Nicol also spoke about The Works being the highest ranked Advertising Agency on WRK+ Best Places to Work list (placing in 13th).
Nicol noted that the recognition came from the organisation’s very flat structure instead of a traditional hierarchical agency with group account directors, executives, and managers.
“In today’s world, that’s redundant. It doesn’t make sense, and actually, it’s annoying for clients. Typically, what clients want to do is they want to deal with the people who are doing the strategy and doing the ideas.
Nicol explained that the company’s flat structure has project managers and senior staff members, including himself, who work with clients directly to benefit from senior staff in their business and “not pay for a whole lot of hierarchy that traditional agency structures have.”
“The reason that helps us is that everyone in the business gets to work very closely with the senior people culturally, that’s really good.
Nicol said that those new to the industry wouldn’t typically get the same level of contact and interaction as they would under The Works’ model.
“We also just really focus on the senior team, being role models for listening, being thoughtful about what’s going on in people’s lives and building benefits that are meaningful to people,” he added.
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Top and third image: Douglas Nicol