It is extremely important for agencies, as they will have to focus on strategies that have proven to solve Gray Rhino-like problems. The experience of marketing, advertising and media agencies will be more relevant than innovation in detecting potential problems.
2021 brought the biggest change in marketing in the last 15 years and many have not realized it. The strategic thinking behind corporate planning areas is that they should avoid risks, especially those that they don’t know are coming. This phenomenon was born with the thought of the Black Swan, a book written by Nassim Taleb published in 2007. The author argued that companies should focus efforts on discovering what they did not know they did not know. That is, detect double blind spots. Mindset dominated CEOs for the past 15 years. This is the central reason for pitches looking for “ideas.” Companies – almost generally – made the decision that they did not know the best way to get to market. This sparked a fever of consulting firms and creative agencies seeking to bring the “new big idea” to brands. But in 2020 everything changed. The event that transformed the world economy was not a Black Swan, the pandemic was an expected event, many were talking about it years before it happened. Companies knew about the risk, but focused on detecting blind spots and avoided the predictable onslaught of a Coronavirus.
This change forced companies at a very high level to focus on known risks, the obvious events that could affect their future. With this came the thought of Michele Wucker with the Gray Rhino or Gray Rhinoceros. The North American author argued that companies should focus their efforts on highly probable events with the greatest impact on the organization. This thought shook boards of directors globally and after 2020 strategic planning has dominated. With the advent of this ideology, marketing areas have focused on more immediate and probable issues such as climate change, socio-political problems or inflation.
It is extremely important for agencies, as they will have to focus on strategies that have proven to solve Gray Rhino-like problems. The experience of marketing, advertising and media agencies will be more relevant than innovation in detecting potential problems. In the last pitches that I have had access to, there is an increase in clarity in the requests. Marketing areas are more pragmatic. Obviously creativity and differentiation to solve problems will be crucial, however, clarity of objectives and ability to execute will be of much more value.
Marketing firms will tend to create new work teams focused on large Gray Rhinos, climate change, social inclusion, automation and job losses, political and economic instability, supply chain problems, to name a few. This approach will differ from the large investment made in the last 10 years in creating areas for trend detection. The world’s leading law firms and consulting firms have focused on creating content to solve their clients’ current problems, not just legal risk mitigation. For example, lawyers are the main content generators on COP 26 recommendations. Consultants have also gotten ahead of marketing agencies, a visit to the McKinsey site proves the point. The North American site promotes transgender inclusion, sustainability and COP26. In contrast, a view of Ogilvy’s North American site shows us a gallery of his latest campaigns.
The challenges are enormous, but as marketing companies get into the thinking frequency of the boards of directors, it will be easier to solve strategic and less operational problems.