[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsRpXZML5YU]
I watched the R/GA presentation on The Way Forward for agencies in the same week that I’d presented to the marketing department of a famously engineering-led company.
In both companies the people who make the giant leaps, whilst all around them are taking small steps, are the engineers and the technologists. 25% of the headcount at R/GA are working on the technology behind platforms such as Nike+.
It was the same when I worked on the Honda business. There’s a general atmosphere of cool around the place, and the marketing is awesome, but there was no doubt whatsoever that the engineers are the rock stars at Honda.
At Cadbury it would have been the marketing department.
At Standard Life it’s the actuaries – “Hey. I’m a rock star actuary!”
A long long time ago when I worked at BBH and it was a full-