Leaders stick to their knitting.
I recently read with great interest about the rebranding of global ad agency Ogilvy. The agency recently announced a global re-founding. “designed to clarify the company’s purpose, simplify its structure, and unify behind one single brand: Ogilvy.” Born in 1948 (as Ogilvy & Mather with the merger of London-based Mather & Crowther and David Ogilvy’s New York-based agency). Ogilvy is an integrated creative agency with offices in 83 countries working with their clients on ‘Brand Strategy, Advertising, Customer Engagement and Commerce, PR and Influence, Digital Transformation, and Partnerships’.
Most interestingly a key part of Ogilvy’s ‘re-founding’ strategy was to engage Collins, a specialist branding agency to manage their re-branding. It is the mark of a leader to understand and acknowledge where their expertise lies and to seek direction when operating outside of that expertise. Too many ad agencies see branding as an unskilled subset of advertising and a way to capture additional revenue from their clients. Many clients whose primary marketing relationship is with their advertising agency, are unaware that their agency is no more qualified to lead their branding than a branding agency is qualified to lead their advertising.
As one of the most respected agencies in the world, Ogilvy’s decision to engage a specialist branding agency for their own rebranding sets a shining example of best practice. If the advertising industry wishes to reinforce their reputation as professional brand value builders, agencies must be prepared to direct their clients to branding specialists for this work and forego the associated fees in order to maintain the respect of those clients.
Great leadership from a great global creative agency.
Dave Ansett
David is the founder of Truly Deeply, a brand agency with 25 years experience working with brands to position them for growth. His deep expertise is in the creation of high engagement brands that attract the attention of their audience and stand out from their competitors. David has extensive experience working with corporate, retail, food & beverage and entrepreneurial clients. Find out more here
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