Had lunch with Catalina Cernica today. This posting came out of our conversation. In my trips to Eastern Europe I've discovered that Romania produces more than its fair share of matriarchs - I was surprised to discover how many agencies had female bosses. Catalina is one of the youngest and most effervescent. When I met her she headed up BBDO in Romania. Now in her late 20s she is finishing an MBA crammer at the Said Business School in Oxford and setting her sights on what to do next.
Its always interesting to listen to someone who has run an agency with the hindsight of an altogether broader business perspective on managing finances and people. Her observeration was that the determination of ad agencies to specialise wasn't doing them any favours as a business. Even if it might in the short term seem a prudent course of action. But accruing other revenue streams from other comms channels still fell far short of building a sustainably different offer.
One thing I shall take away from the conversation is the idea of a communications campaign being like a maze. Conventionally ad agencies evaluate creative ideas by their ability to engage people. When perhaps we should evaluate the maze behaviourally by its ability ti sift the audience, to energize the different groups and move them to the various exits. Setting KPIs by the ability to move people seems to be a very different way to think about communications than just engaging them. If 100 people enter, how many emerge? And through how many exits. I need to think a little more about how a behavioural treatment of communications might look. Arguably this is exactly what Dunn Humby are doing using the Tesco data, another topic we discussed. If we pitched the cognitive theorists versus the behaviourists in their ability to move people then I know which party I would back.
