What's Next In Marketing

What's Next: Make A Film. Change The World.

Link sent to me by my friend Elizabeth Talerman. Check it out.

http://brandimmersion.blogspot.com/2007/12/can-your-film-change-world.html

Brilliant.

What's Next: Heretical Thinking And Dell

As many of you know, I've been tasked by our holding company, WPP, with leading the global transition of the relationship Dell now has with hundreds of different firms around the world to "DaVinci", our code name for the entity we are building for Dell.

You'll notice I said "entity", and not agency. That is because we have agreed with Dell that we will think in a heretical manner (actually WPP's strategy during the pitch).

AdAge: How Sir Martin Cinched $4.5 billion Deal For Dell Biz

http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=122493

We've been at this for about a month now, and I can tell you the following: this is the most fascinating, interesting, complicated, messy beast you could ever imagine. The Dell folks are great. They all want to do something different, which is refreshing in this day and age of agency/client relationships. there is a real acknowledgment on their part that they can build a better MarComm group, and can't do it without a true partner.

Our challenge now is: What does that mean?

It's easy enough for us to recognize efficiencies for them right off the bat. Such as media, where having one firm (Group M) doing all of their buying will save them millions a year. Another example is PR, where they are now working with over 70 firms, and will now have a much more narrow group providing strategy and implementation.

As the leader of the transition team, and one of the people that will ultimately determine how DaVinci will be structure, I relish the opportunity to "re-invent" how we work with clients. Imagine building an organization that allows not only for the most efficient way of working together, but also allows for a relationship that allows us to now only influence Dell's communications and marketing efforts, but that also provides for a level of partnership and transparency that will provide us with the ability to truly effect their business.

How far do you take this kind of thinking before it becomes so complicated that it gets in the way of actually getting anything done? Remember, Dell is a company that lives on demand generations, so we can't afford for them to have a drop off in their business.

Casey Jones, the mastermind behind the decision to consolidate all of the business with one firm (and a really good guy), said it best: "Dell is a plane flying at 30,000 ft, we can't afford any loss in altitude,  and we are going to fix the engines at the same time."

You can't make this stuff up. Will try, as best I can, to describe this journey as we move along.

What's Next: Dell and Project "DaVinci"

Light blogging for the next few weeks. Taking on a small project for the holding company that owns my firm:

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=122419&search_phrase=dell

It's a brilliant, fascinating, complicated, monster of an engagement, and goes straight to the core of what I've been writing about the past few years:

Agencies must change. And the entity I am going to help build for Dell will be unlike any other agency.

Stay tuned.