Employer Insights Archives

Experts warn that climate change is one of the most significant threats of our time. As extreme weather events like major wildfires, epic floods, storms, heat waves, and droughts affect more and more people, pressing issues like water scarcity and deforestation become increasingly urgent. We are witnessing a degradation of natural systems and a drastic decline in biodiversity.

Tech has become a significant part of our lives, but the tech sector is one of the biggest pollutants on the planet. As electronic devices become an increasingly inseparable part of modern existence, so does our need to mitigate the e-waste that comes with them. The communication tech sector now makes up over 2% of global greenhouse emissions — and it’s forecast that it will constitute 15% of global emissions by 2040. And that’s just what’s in the air. On the ground, we’re talking an estimated 57.4 million tons of e-waste in 2021.

Companies are only just now starting to find solutions as the climate crisis becomes increasingly life-threatening. Yes, the challenges are immense and complex — but there is hope, as innovators (and their innovations) are helping make the world healthier and safer. The good news is that tech companies are also beginning to step in and lead the sustainability charge, making concrete efforts to drastically reduce their impact on the climate and protect the environment.

In honor of Earth Day, let’s take a peek at how 10 of today’s biggest tech companies are driving impactful eco-initiatives today and where they’ll be tomorrow, according to Technology Magazine and Sustainability Magazine:

Image: Google

Google

Google’s sustainability aims revolve around three key pillars: accelerating the transition to carbon-free energy, empowering individuals and communities to lessen their climate impact using innovative technology, and creating positive impacts for the people and places across the globe where Google operates.

Google first began purchasing renewable energy in 2010, and in 2017 it became the first major tech company to match 100% of its annual electricity usage with renewable energy purchases. By 2030, Google plans to operate all its data center and office campuses using carbon-free energy sources. It is investing heavily in sustainability research and development to create new technology that can help reduce waste and conserve natural resources, employing machine learning to discover ways to increase efficiencies, like using smart thermostats to cool its data centers.

Google is itself a major innovator in climate tech. Its Maps app is infused with sustainability features, like showing the most fuel-efficient routes, which help drivers make more ecological choices. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, created a $5.75 billion Sustainability Bond — 100% of the proceeds are dedicated to supporting environmentally and socially responsible projects. With these ambitious and innovative initiatives, Google sets an example of how a tech company can use its influence and resources to help address the climate crisis.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft’s sustainability efforts are on the ramp-up. In 2022, the company contracted to have 1.4 million metric tons of carbon removed from the environment. The tech giant is also strategically working to ensure it can secure renewably sourced energy for its global operations in the future by weaving sustainability into its purchasing strategy today.

That same year, the company launched Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which offers a comprehensive set of enterprise-grade sustainability management tools geared to support other companies to lessen their climate impact. What’s more, Microsoft is significantly accelerating the development of new climate technologies through its Climate Innovation Fund with the goals of bolstering climate policy efforts, advocating for skills programs to expand a global green workforce, and developing a more dependable carbon accounting system for global use.

By 2030, Microsoft plans to achieve carbon negativity — in other words, removing more emissions than it has generated since its inception in 1975! With additional plans to achieve zero-waste and water-positive status by 2030, Microsoft is elevating the standard for sustainability strategy in big tech.

Image: Amazon

Amazon

Another major play, Amazon, is the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy and has set impressive sustainability goals for itself. These include achieving 100% renewable energy usage by 2025 — five years ahead of the company’s original target of 2030 — and plans to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

In fact, by 2022, 90% of Amazon’s electricity came from renewable sources, and the organization’s strong water reduction efforts resulted in 3.9 billion liters less water used from areas surrounding Amazon’s operations.

Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing division, also enables customers to build robust sustainability solutions. From waste reduction and energy conservation to carbon tracking, AWS data services are a powerful tool for clients to input, analyze, and manage complex sustainability initiatives and even track their success — effectively driving strong connections between sustainability and desired business outcomes.

Image: Apple

Apple

Sustainability has been a core part of Apple’s business, with strategic initiatives that encompass reducing its carbon footprint, increasing its use of recycled materials, and consuming renewable energy. A testament to this, since 2008, Apple has tweaked its product design, reducing the average energy use of its products by 70%! And in 2021, the company doubled the amount of recycled cobalt, tungsten, and other rare earth elements in its products.

Apple’s latest reports show significant progress toward its carbon reduction goal. Lisa Jackson, Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, said in the company’s 2023 ESG report that Apple had reduced emissions by 45% since its 2015 baseline. In that same period, the tech juggernaut increased its revenue by 65%, ultimately proving that sustainability strategies can (and probably should) align with financial ones. “We demonstrated that the choice between a thriving business and a thriving planet is a false one,” said Jackson.

Today, about 20% of the materials Apple uses in its products are made from recycled content, and by 2034, the company plans to be carbon neutral. It’s clear that, in this case, going green means increasing both eco-friendliness and profits.

Image: Intel

Intel

In 2022, Intel made some incredible strides toward its 360 approach to reducing its climate impact across its entire operational footprint. That year, 67% of manufacturing waste was upcycled — showcasing a big win for Intel’s circular economic business approach. The company also increased its renewable energy to 100% within the United States, Europe, Malaysia, and Israel, bringing its global average of renewable energy use to 93%. And, with respect to water conservation, Intel saved about 9.6 billion gallons too.

Looking ahead, Intel also plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its worldwide operations by the year 2040, with 100% renewable energy use and zero waste to landfills. This ambitious goal certainly puts Intel on par with industry leaders.

Image: IBM

IBM

IBM is making moves as part of its sustainability strategy to drive ethical and equitable impact as it continues to support businesses entering the digital landscape. In 2022, it implemented conservation projects that saved 71,000 megawatt-hours of energy and 25,600 metric tons of carbon. The company is investing in research and development to create technology that can help reduce waste and conserve resources, to divert 90% of nonhazardous waste from landfills and incineration by 2025.

By 2030, the company plans to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and have optimized operational plans in places that further reduce pollution and minimize climate risk. With these goals in place, IBM is at the forefront of the tech industry’s eco-efforts.

Image: NVIDIA

NVIDIA

Tech multinational NVIDIA’s sustainability strategy is centered around its commitment to acquiring or producing renewable energy to offset its global electricity consumption. The company seeks sustainable solutions especially when building new or expanding existing data centers as part of its overall carbon prevention and efficiency process.

On top of this, NVIDIA’s core technology is part of a societal shift towards electric and AI-driven vehicles, helping to drive these sustainable initiatives forward. They believe that autonomy will allow greater efficiency via simplified transportation and that their chips allow the smartest integration into cars and other modes of transport, ultimately making a green impact that’s scalable and future-forward.

Image: Meta

Dell Technologies

To mitigate the 57.4 million metric tons of e-waste currently being produced yearly, Dell Technologies is taking a quid pro quo type of approach. The company is planning to reuse or recycle an equivalent product for each new product a customer purchases. They have also set a goal of net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, while actively investing in research and development to create new technologies to meet these sustainability goals to drastically reduce waste and conserve natural resources. As the world moves towards a more digital and connected future, Dell Technologies is moving along with it, delivering sustainable solutions to meet the needs and expectations of its clients.

Image: HP

HP

Last but not least, HP is making sustainable changes of its own to match the competition. The company has set the target goal of zero waste by 2025 across all operations and is investing in sustainability research and development into new technologies that can help it achieve its aims. By 2025, HP will also use 100% renewable energy to power its global operations — and by 2040, it plans to be carbon neutral. The organization’s commitment to corporate social responsibility across its supply chain and operations is set to drive positive change for the planet, people, and profits alike.

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Our society’s push for sustainability has become a centerpiece of American business culture that permeates organizational strategy from operations to product design. Just as companies continue to fall in line with consumer preferences and expectations, their business goals continue to fall in line with their desired economic outcomes. For the first time, the Department of Energy had a CES booth, where Jennifer Granholm, The United States Secretary of Energy, spoke about the Biden administration’s goals of achieving 100% renewable clean electricity for the nation’s grid by 2035 and a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

As large and small companies seek ways to become more sustainable to stay competitive, they will face challenges — finding a smarter path forward can require a lot of trial and error. If you’re at an eco-conscious crossroads or need help navigating this operational terrain, reach out to us at Creative Circle. We have systems experts and operational gurus who can help you transform your company into an eco-friendly powerhouse that’s prepared for what is to come.

In 2011, Kat Gordon, a Creative Director, got firsthand experience with how women were often left out of pitches and essential meetings — and why it matters. Her agency had an important pitch to Saab. But when they actually went to do the pitch, the team was a wee bit lopsided: 16 men and (just) 1 woman, and — spoiler — they didn’t win the pitch. Wanting to better understand why, Gordon decided to do some research on women in creative leadership at ad agencies. She was dismayed to find only 3% of Creative Directors were women, so she dug a bit deeper to get at why agencies were so woefully short on women in Creative Director roles. Overall, she found that there was a glaring lack of:

Motherhood support
Female mentorship
Women negotiating the salaries they deserved
Awareness that a woman’s perspective was critical for connecting with consumers
Recognition for women’s work, due to gender bias in awards juries

She wondered if part of this issue had to do with men making the majority of purchases. She kept digging, and it turned out that was not the case. Apart from only three categories where men dominate purchases in the market, women were making the majority of purchasing decisions, effectively making them the superset, not the subset. And with the rate at which women were building wealth and influence in society, Gordon concluded that it was simply myopic to overlook them. Unfortunately, advertising, at least at that point in 2008, had largely been doing exactly that. Case in point: the Saab pitch.

All of this became a rallying call for Gordon to create change in the advertising industry — and so she birthed the 3% Conference with the straightforward goal of growing the number of women in top creative marketing jobs and expanding diversity and inclusivity within the industry (especially since, of that 3% cohort of women Creative Directors, an even smaller percentage were women of color).

How are things for female creatives today?

Flash forward to 2023 — some change has happened, but not as much as you might think. The pandemic created a seismic shift in how and where we work, creating an unintended revolution of more flexible policies that have helped women (and men) juggle their home and work lives. Although conversations around equity, inclusion, and opportunity have grown, the lack of representation of women as creative directors persists. Ironically, women hold the purse strings, making more than 80% of all purchasing decisions — not to mention 60% of social sharing — but the advertising intended to help sway their choices is often not ideated or produced by women.

However, this is not an ad industry-wide issue. Whereas women make up roughly half of the advertising industry’s workforce, as of 2023, women only hold about 12.6% of Creative Director roles in the sector. Even as women have seen their economic impact grow, contributing 37% of the Global GDP, substantial discrepancies abound. Despite women playing an increasingly significant role in driving consumer purchases, they are still conspicuously absent from the command center of creative decision-making.

Why representation matters for your business

Women account for $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, but according to a 2019 study, 66% of women don’t actually connect with what they’re seeing in advertising. Even worse, 60% say that ads have an outdated view of women.

Given that most purchasing decisions are made by women, it is critical to ensure that advertising messaging and storytelling align with their experiences, perspectives, and values. However, when creative leadership lacks adequate gender representation, the risk of producing marketing content that fails to resonate, or worse still, misrepresents women is high — and the ensuing impact on the business’s bottom line can be sizable.

Check out what some key decision-makers in the advertising industry have to say about how women’s desires and needs have shifted in a recent Quantcast article, Why It’s Time to Change the Conversation About Women in Advertising.

“Between 2011 and 2021, the number of women drinking beer has increased 12%, which is four times faster than men. So the idea that women don’t drink beer — those days are over.” Josephine (Fien) Bertrams, Senior Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Heineken USA.

“According to Statista, two-thirds of women are self-proclaimed sports fans. And you’re seeing them not only as fans, but as engaged participants in sport on social media. And for brands, that’s important – that’s where the audience is. I also found that 80-90% of women sports fans don’t feel like they’re being properly spoken to by brands. This is where the data and AI part comes in. This is an opportunity for us to really personalize and customize messaging. That’s what I’m excited about in this space.” Leah Meranus, North America CEO, dentsu X.

“In the month of January 2023, we had more women betting than in the entire year of 2021. Women are sports fans and sports betting is a form of entertainment. It feels scary at first, but there’s not that barrier that everyone assumes. Being able to do it digitally on your phone has opened it to everybody.” Jennifer Matthews, Vice President of Brand Strategy, FanDuel Group.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Women’s desires are changing in many ways, and these are just some that go up against ingrained ideas of what is “male” territory.

Closing the gender gap

Advertisers need to adjust exactly who is crafting the narratives used to sell products across the board, especially when women are often the main audience marketers are trying to reach. Tone-deaf marketing will continue to haunt brands, effectively sending market share to brands that aim to reach women where they are today and choose to amplify women’s voices through commensurate representation in the creative suite.

To truly address this disparity, agencies need to actively promote women into key creative leadership roles and create environments that foster advancement, growth, and opportunity for women. This means creating dedicated mentorship programs, flexible work policies, and addressing inherent biases in hiring and promotions. What’s more, being intentional about vendor and partner selection that is representative of a brand’s audience can also go a long way in connecting with a brand’s intended audience.

It’s no secret effective communication thrives when diverse voices are behind branding and marketing efforts, and it’s high time women’s influence as high-level creatives mirror their consumer purchasing power. Inclusion, among other things, means producing work that is relevant, authentic, and impactful. It starts from the inside out, not just with a script that pays homage to women in March but forgets them come April.

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Bottomline

The 3% Conference now goes by the name 3% Movement, and its mission to bring the number of female Creative Directors to 50% is well underway. By giving agencies a clear road map on how to champion female talent and leadership — along with annual conferences, a vibrant online community, a student scholarship fund, and so much more — the 3% Movement is helping lead the change for a more inclusive world.

How does your team square up? Are your creative leaders reflecting the purchasing power of women? If your goal is to diversify your team and be more inclusive of different viewpoints, Creative Circle can help you (and your bottom line while we’re at it). Talk to us if you’re ready to ensure your brand is effectively communicating its core values to its core customers.

Influencer culture has taken over the world — but has it completely conquered the marketing world? In this fast-paced space, brands continually seek smart ways to connect with their target audience. In recent years, the advertising world has been marked by a massive transformation — moving away from traditional advertising methods to embrace increasingly digital avenues for promotion. The rise of influencer marketing is one of the more significant trends helping reshape the ad industry in the last decade.

The Meteoric Rise of Influencer Marketing

Using celebrities and public figures to sell products is nothing new. After all, brands have long hired famous actors, athletes, and musicians to endorse their products and services on television, billboards, radio, and print.

However, the rise of social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and more recently, TikTok has minted a new class of social media celebrities — with massive followings and influence over their fans — commonly referred to as “influencers.” These influencers have become a marketing juggernaut for brands looking to promote their products and services to a younger, more digital demographic.

Influencer marketing strategically uses social media stars to promote brands, products, or services to their audience on their social channels — an approach that has grown exponentially in popularity, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. As social media platforms thrive, influencers wield significant influence over consumer behavior.

Here are some of the top reasons influencer marketing has such an outsized influence on advertising.

Where Influencer Marketing Excels

Niche Audiences and Targeted Reach

One of the main advantages of influencer marketing is its ability to precisely target niche audiences. While traditional advertising can reach a mass audience, it often lacks relevance to more specific demographics. By leveraging the power of influencers, who have amassed loyal followings within particular niche groups, brands can connect with audiences who are genuinely interested in their wares or services — creating a more meaningful and significant engagement. This is a departure from the more traditional approach of reaching as many people as possible, whether they’re interested in the product or not.

One-Way vs. Two-Way Engagement

Traditional advertising is a bit of a one-way street, offering limited engagement opportunities with a brand’s target audience. Companies produce ads and hope people will see or hear them and act. Influencer marketing has upended that mono-directional approach by creating a space where brand promotion is more engaging, authentic, and relatable — letting brands partner with influencers who have cultivated a loyal following that essentially hangs on their every post, purchase, and stylistic whim. And this often enables them to promote a brand’s offerings more organically than traditional routes, making influencer marketing a go-to advertising tool because it offers a more tangible (and measurable) connection to their target audience.

Not Just for Big Brands

Influencer marketing has also disrupted the traditional advertising model by making it easier for smaller brands to compete with major industry players. In the past, large brands with big advertising budgets were able to dominate the market. Influencer marketing has upended this status quo, allowing smaller brands to work with influencers who actively engage their dedicated following and ultimately reach their target audience more effectively.

Measurable ROI and Engagement Metrics

In traditional advertising, success is typically measured by the reach and frequency of ad views but often struggles to measure the direct impact of its marketing and ROI. In contrast, influencer marketing offers more transparent, measurable outcomes, letting brands analyze performance, track conversions, and measure direct impact on their bottom line. Success is typically measured by engagement, such as likes, comments, shares, and saves — a more data-driven approach that empowers brands to make increasingly informed decisions which has led to a greater emphasis on creating engaging and shareable content.

However, there are also profound benefits to more traditional forms of advertising that we should keep in mind.

Benefits of Traditional Advertising

Broader Reach and Wider Audience

Traditional advertising excels at achieving a broader reach and vast audience because television, radio, and print — despite digital incursions — have retained sizable viewership and listenership. Recent studies have underscored the enduring power of television, with 88% of people watching TV daily, which means brands that advertise via traditional commercials can reach diverse demographics — including those less engaged with digital platforms.

Trust and Reliability

Consumers see TV advertising as more trustworthy, with 63% acknowledging its reliability. This legacy of trust is built from the presence of reputable brands on TV and print media, conferring a deeper sense of legitimacy.

Emotional Impact and Brand Building

Traditional advertising has a unique capacity to evoke emotions that can leave a lasting impression on viewers. TV commercials craft memorable experiences with masterful storytelling, visuals, and curated music choices. This kind of potential outsize emotional impact can help cement brand recognition, fostering deeper connections with consumers. When TV advertising is part of an omnichannel campaign, with print ads and out-of-home signage, the brand message can reach consumers at key touchpoints in their daily lives.

It’s a Complementary World — Traditional Agencies Are In a “Yes, And” Frame of Mind

Instead of choosing between marketing modalities, agencies are leaning into the strengths of both traditional and influencer marketing, finding ways to stitch cohesive, blended strategies together. By combining the two, brands can leverage the strengths of each approach, maximizing impact. While traditional methods cast a wider net, raising brand awareness, working with influencers can provide a more targeted approach that reaches specific niche customer segments more successfully.

Many traditional advertising agencies have created social-focused teams that specialize in leveraging influencer marketing and other social-based marketing. These teams sometimes partner with influencer marketing agencies, whereas others are beginning to manage their own influencer engagements. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every major agency holding company has been on “a shopping spree,” snapping up influencer marketing firms, revealing how forecasting gurus see the trajectory of the industry. Traditional agencies are learning to adapt more quickly to technological shifts in the landscape, and buying up companies with specific expertise has proven to be the fastest way to get up to speed — or, at the very least, not fall woefully behind.

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Brands are approaching advertising by shifting focus from a brand-first approach to one increasingly centered on the individual, revolutionizing how success is measured. With the growth of digital-first marketing, smaller brands are better able to compete with larger ones, and smaller niche audiences are increasingly feeling more seen, with brands increasingly recognizing the value of leveraging influencers and even micro-influencers). New features, tools, and guidelines are helping make influencer marketing a more transparent and accountable avenue, ensuring that brands can engage across the spectrum and feel safe as they do so.

The more things change, the more critical it becomes to position your brand for future success. If you need help navigating the increasingly complex waters of advertising today, Creative Circle has social media and traditional marketing experts ready to help craft cohesive strategies for your brand — ones that will move the needle.

The advertising world lies largely in the hands of six agency holding companies — Omnicom, Havas, Dentsu, IPG, WPP, and Publicis — which serve as the overarching structures that own and control myriad smaller advertising firms. These agency holding companies all face the same external business challenges — slowing growth, new competition, and the growing need for new skills. But they are taking divergent paths in confronting these struggles.

Historically, holding companies followed the same tried-and-true playbook — growing via acquisition model and accruing clout as they ramped up scale, thereby increasing access to major clients. However, the recent shift driven by digital has rendered scale and buying power less salient than access to the right data.

The Rise of the New — Consulting Firms Enter the Agency World

Ad agency silos have long blocked access to said data, inhibiting collaboration and slowing down work streams. These weaknesses were exploited by consulting firms, who successfully muscled into the advertising game with their own targeted enterprise data offerings to pose a significant competitive threat.

To battle the Accentures and Deloittes of the world, the big six agency holding companies are all vying to get to the same place — win more of their client’s budgets and take back some of the market share they’ve more recently ceded to consulting firms. To get there, however, they’re taking different routes. Some are betting on data ownership, while others are doubling down on finding efficiencies across their networks and following different paths.

Agency Brands — Do They Matter Anymore?

While some agency holding companies are doubling down on their marquee agency brands, others are looking for efficiencies by having their historically competitive agencies come together to work as a “single” agency.

Publicis has perhaps been the most vocal about operating as a “single” company since acquiring Sapient in 2014. Their integrated strategy won over major global clients like GSK and Marriott, albeit at the expense of individual agency contributors, shared Greg Paull, co-founder and principal at independent global marketing consultancy R3.

Publicis has been pushing its “Power of One” model for years, through which it transformed its business model and organizational structure to center around client needs by facilitating access to all its services across agencies in a fluid, seamless manner — touting the move as one from holding company to platform. By pooling creative, strategic, and technology expertise, their aim is to provide top-tier service by cohesively leveraging the individual strengths of its many subsidiary agencies.

In a somewhat mixed approach, IPG and Omnicom continue to spotlight the achievements of individual agency brands like McCann and BBDO on earnings calls, capitalizing on the brand equity that these agency names evoke. Still, behind the scenes, they also have a history of combining services across agencies to service major clients. Omnicom Media Group is now managing new business development for all of its subsidiary agencies in order to eliminate operational siloes.

WPP, on the other hand, has been merging individual agencies across disciplines to form sub-holding companies that effectively pool resources, doubling down on its corporate brand and leveraging talent across its network more cohesively.

Does this Transformational Collaborative Business Model Work?

Like all things, there is an upside to this cross-agency, collaborative trend — and a downside. Clients see a single bill for services without the dust-ups that can happen behind the scenes. However, what looks good to the C-Suite and shareholders may not work so well for the folks on the ground.

The land of ‘cooperative creative’ can provoke unrest among employees, and executives have complained about the lack of communication despite newly broken-down siloes. Others cite a sense of confusion about where their loyalties should lie if they only work half the time for the actual agency that employs them.

Paull from R3 said that holding companies that veer too far in the direction of a collaborative singular organization may struggle, as “intercompany conflicts are still a top five issue for big brands.”

Pfizer — A Client-led Push for Consolidation

Sometimes, however, it’s the clients who call the shots. After all, the customer is always right. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer decided to consolidate its agency relationships and house its account, worth $2.8 billion in 2022, to a single agency. The NYC-based pharma company, whose accounts had historically been spread across a vast network of agencies and agency holding companies, wanted to find economies of scale and simplicity with its advertising agency engagements on the heels of pulling in tens of billions of dollars from its COVID-19 drug and vaccines.

But in September 2022, Andreas “Drew” Panayiotou came aboard as the company’s inaugural biopharma Global Chief Marketing Officer role. His goal was to “bring Pfizer’s marketing organization into the same transformation the larger organization has undergone over the past years — to be more innovative, nimbler, and data-driven,” Panayiotou told PR Week in an interview. “By consolidating and centralizing our agency model, we will use scale to our advantage to get the best of the best from the agency world and power better content creation.”

In February 2023, the brand initiated a massive global agency review to regroup its media, creative, production, and PR duties under one roof. After an intense process of scrutinizing proposals, Pfizer chose two agencies: IPG Health to spearhead creative and Publicis Collective to lead media planning/buying, technology, data, and creative production.

Whether this model will ultimately ladder up to better work for a better price remains to be seen. Only time will tell.

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Regardless of the way in which the big six advertising holding companies position themselves to remain competitive in the rapidly changing advertising world, they’re all doing what they can to find organizational efficiencies while augmenting service offerings as they seek to find cost savings, reduce churn, and hang on to clients. It’s clear they have their work cut out for them.

As the world of advertising continues to twist and morph, many brands are looking for new ways to reach their audiences. If you are looking for innovative, creative solutions at scale, Creative Circle offers a full suite of creative and marketing services focused on optimizing your business and solving your unique challenges.

If you had asked tech gurus ten years ago where AI would have the most significant impact, creativity would not have been at the top of the list — if it even garnered a mention at all. But 2023 changed the game with the explosive advent of generative AI platforms like Chat GPT and Midjourney, which have completely disrupted the creative landscape. And with this tsunami of change comes a host of hard-to-answer questions about the future of creative work.

Ad agencies, Hollywood, and more are grappling with existential questions about the origins of creativity and what that means for the humans whose ideas serve as the very foundation of generative AI technology. It’s clear that AI is here to stay — and major marketers are figuring out how to capitalize on it — with agencies increasingly seeing their role as mediators between this new technology and brands.

The ad agency landscape is primarily led by six agency holding groups: WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Havas, Dentsu, and Publicis, each of which owns hundreds of agencies.

Until very recently, the ad industry had been less impacted by technological progress that has impacted other industries like print media, music, travel, retail checkout assistants, and more. Now, there is a growing tension between the allure of cost savings that AI could bring and what its implementation means for creatives. To find the right way forward, many agencies have formed cross-departmental AI task forces to uncover the opportunities and limitations of the technology.

Some agency holding groups have taken a more strategic approach to using generative AI internally and with clients, setting safeguards as internal groups assemble to work on their due diligence with this burgeoning technology.

How Key Agency Holding Companies are Managing AI

Here’s how some agency holding companies are futureproofing themselves as AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous.

WPP just announced on January 2024 that they are investing $317 million in AI this year while assuring employees and shareholders that they won’t forget about the company’s roots in creativity, said CEO Mark Read.

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Omnicom CEO John Wren said the company’s outlook on AI’s potential is evolving. “We’ll be embracing it as quickly as we possibly can,” Wren said, adding that it would help employees and benefit clients.” In November 2023, the organization announced a groundbreaking collaboration with Getty Images that gives its agencies early access to Generative AI by Getty Images, a generative AI tool that’s trained only on Getty’s licensed photo library, ensuring a commercially safe and legally protected creative sandbox.

Also of note, Omnicom is the first advertising holding company to join Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), comprised of a group of media and tech companies, NGOs, academics, and others, which seeks to increase trust and transparency in digital content by the general public.

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Havas has been implementing AI in its creative agencies to make teams more efficient and effective. The company has taken a business-first approach to integrating the new technology into its agency subsidiaries. As digital advertisers say goodbye to cookies, Havas has unveiled an AI-enabled media planning methodology that optimizes buys as the cookie-less future becomes the cookie-less today.

With respect to creative, copywriters can breathe easy, according to Havas Media Group. The group has made public its intent to use AI to optimize creative, not replace its creatives.

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Publicis is placing AI at the very core of its business. The last six years have seen Publicis evolve from a holding company to a platform — and now, they’re using AI to become the industry’s first intelligent system. Publicis is now positioned to harness the power of AI by connecting every data point, across business units and geographies, to put the data in the hands of all its people. In a January 2024 press release, they shared that “everyone within Publicis will become a data analyst, an engineer, an intelligence partner, with all the information they need at their fingertips to supercharge client growth.”

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Bottomline

The AI landscape will be a bit of a Wild West for some time still, especially while the technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed. Some advertising business leaders see generative AI as an accelerant for the industry, seeking to leverage the tech to enhance work and provide increased strategic value. Yet, others are more sanguine in their approach, preferring to wade in more slowly as they assess the boundaries of what’s possible — uncovering ways to use AI tech as an enabler instead of a total solution.

Looking for guidance on how to leverage AI for your company? Creative Circle offers a full suite of creative services focused on solving business challenges leveraging this new technology. Once upon a time, the rise of the internet struck fear into the hearts of many, but here we are today, creating great work that matters — it just might look a bit different than our pre-WiFi days.

Do you have any matchmakers in your life? We do — in fact, dozens of them! Their professional title is “recruiter”, but metaphorically speaking, we think of them as Cupid.

To us, each arrow in Cupid’s quiver represents an essential recruiter skill: analyzing resumes, interviewing, negotiation, patience, empathy, and listening. Cupid’s wings symbolize the express transport our candidates and clients ride on when working with our recruiters — an expedited job and talent search.

We sat down with our most tenured recruiter, Jennifer Marshall, to walk through some of the steps involved in her 20+ years of matchmaking success.

1. Understanding Wants and Needs

Recruiters work closely with employers to understand their requirements, including job descriptions, skills, experience levels, and any specific qualifications or certifications needed for the positions. But it goes deeper than that. When working regularly with an employer, recruiters gain a deep understanding of what makes a candidate the right “fit” for them. Recruiters use this expertise to home in on specific qualities that align with the employer’s needs and assess if they would mesh well with the existing team.

Sure, the candidate enjoys long walks on the beach… but if the conversation isn’t great along the way, the match is not a good one. After all, the number one reason employees leave their job is due to a lack of connection with the company culture.

Jenn says, “It’s a mix of experience and vibes, so the more you can get to know your client and candidate, the easier it is to get a sense of what will click. Resumes tell part of the story but personality, desires, goals — these things aren’t on there. Building strong relationships with both parties truly levels up the entire matchmaking process.”

2. Making the Match

Recruiters find candidates through various methods, including job boards, online platforms like LinkedIn, and internal databases. But the real diamonds are often in referrals. Jenn estimates that about 60% of her matches come from referrals within her network.

Like online dating apps, the algorithms can work…sometimes. But, odds are the date you land with your friend’s friend will go better than the one with the guy or gal on Tinder.

Jenn says the recruiter/candidate/client relationship is what sets recruiters apart from AI algorithms. “I’ve placed candidates on jobs they would have never originally considered!” She shared a story about how she recently called a candidate she has known for years with a role that was completely outside of her industry experience. The candidate went for it and got offered the job — an AI bot would never have led her there.

Opening yourself up to something that doesn’t have the surface-level traits you thought you wanted can be pretty eye-opening.

3. Setting Up the Date (Interview)

Recruiters play a crucial role in helping candidates prepare for interviews. They share essential details about the interview process and can offer tips and techniques to excel. The reassurance and support a recruiter provides can help candidates feel more comfortable and confident going in.

Jenn offers two pieces of interview advice to candidates and clients:

“It’s imperative that candidates research the company they’re interviewing with beforehand, and that knowledge should be displayed in the questions they ask. Candidates should express interest in what the company does, even if they’re not that interested.”

“Clients should remember that not every candidate gives good interviews. And, good interviewers aren’t always the best employees. Make sure to look beyond the surface.”

Full Disclosure

Recruiters get compensated when a candidate works a job through them. It’s how they make a living! So, if there is anyone on this Earth (other than you) who wants to find you the perfect match, it’s your recruiter.

What started as a simple screensaver has become a dynamic destination. What?

If you let a Roku idle for a bit, you land in an immersive, magenta-hued cityscape, where you can explore art deco theaters, cozy diners, elegant cafes, noir-ish mansions, and a romantic moon-kissed lagoon, all with a Blade Runner-esque vibe. This noteworthy screensaver has taken on a life of its own — known on social channels as Roku City — with fans dreaming of packing their bags to move in. That’s the power of some seriously good UX.

When most folks flick on their Rokus, the streaming hub that says it has more than 70 million active accounts, it’s generally because they want to watch a movie, show, or event. However, what has become quite clear is that many of these people are also spending a bit of time watching Roku’s dynamic screensaver.

“This particular screensaver has taken on a life of its own,” said the New York Times last year, pronouncing that idle Rokus had become “the unlikely venue for a massive public art experiment.” With the sheer size of Roku’s customer base, millions of homes peek into Roku City every night, providing a window into its dazzlingly enigmatic streets. “It’s always golden hour in Roku City — it’s really appealing to everyone,” shared Cheryl Singletary, a design director at Roku. And over time, an enthusiastic subculture of Roku City devotees has emerged on the web.

This digital cityscape was born in 2018 and was designed by Kyle Jones, a freelance graphic designer at the time who now works at Pixar. He imbued the digital urbanscape with 30 plus movie references, from the emerald city of Oz to Sleepless in Seattle, King Kong, Spider-Man, and more — crafting an aesthetic that dances between Art Deco and noir.

In the foreground, we see a shining strip of theaters with lit marquees, romantic restaurants, cafes, and apartment buildings. But across the river is a more pleasingly frightful affair, with rampaging monsters, voluptuous volcanoes, and other assorted chaos. This friction-y contrast is part of what makes Roku City so mesmerizing and easy to space out to as your mind wanders into the contours of this land that is, yes, a screen saver.

Now, this digital Gotham is folding in something new: advertising.

While it’s a nascent endeavor, it’s a sign that Roku is pioneering new ways to grow at a time when other streaming services are cutting costs to stem subscriber loss. Roku had a strong last quarter of 2023, growing total revenue 20% year-over-year and, for the first time, opened Roku City up to major brand advertisers like MaNel and McDonald’s, integrating those brands’ visuals into their now-iconic screensaver, presenting a new way to engage their audience.

Earlier this summer, Grimace appeared in Roku City, bringing McD’s Golden Arches and all to R.C.’s Main Street, part of the first branded ad deal on the screensaver. Barbie’s marketing campaign this summer included adding an extravagant three-story Dreamhouse to Roku City, complete with an extensive shoe closet, hot pink slide, and rocking dance floor — along with a Barbie-branded Roku Movie Theater, with billboards showcasing the film’s trailer — representing a revolutionary approach to movie marketing. And more recently, an Acura dealership and a Walmart opened their own virtual storefronts, leaving some to speculate that Roku City may be spawning Roku Suburb.

Right now, it’s not clear exactly how much money Roku City ads may be bringing in, but Roku has said that there is more to come, suggesting that demand is higher than capacity. What is clear, however, is that Roku is building an ad-friendly digital city — which has become increasingly valuable real estate.

Last May, Paramount+ muscled into the Roku City space with its own “neighborhood” vis-à-vis a brand takeover that reimagined R.C.’s digital streetscape with Paramount-centric landmarks, from its logo to visual homages to Star Trek and Top Gun: Maverick among others — with billboards in this Paramount corner leading straight to Paramount content. What makes these engineered spaces valuable is the UX that makes them believable. Digital innovation is entering a new era of invention — and stellar UX is at the helm.

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Takeaway

The contours of the marketing landscape are ever-changing; Roku has crafted a monetizable digital metropolis, birthing a completely new way to engage with its customer base. Marketers, take note. If you want to lead your company’s UX marketing innovation charge but need help figuring out where to start, Creative360 can help you dream up a whole new world where you can proudly plant your very own brand flag.

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