The Competitive Edge of Creativity with Emma Armstrong, CEO at FCB New York

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It'S fascinating and you know, looping back around to consumer experience. There's this pent up demand, there's an ability and desire to pay for that demand. And yet you go to a five star hotel and experience can be incredibly patchy. For example.

To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move at an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of su. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Culture. Today we're going to be speaking with Emma Armstrong who is the president of FCB New York. Emma, thanks so much for joining us today on the Speed of Culture.

Thank you Matt. I'm delighted to be here.

We're going to start by getting to know a little bit about you. You went from working in digital and brand marketing director roles at ICrossing Gray and BBDO to now being president of FCB New York. Really an iconic New York ad agency. Tell us a little about your journey that led you to where you are today.

Yeah, so I started in Digital. I spent 10 years working for those of you who remember@agency.com on and off and across different continents. And you know, we really sounds a little crazy but we really kind of built the Internet. You know, we created the first digital advertising. We set up all sorts of things for incredible, incredible brands who were just dipping their toe into digital. And what I learned from that was a real love of solving business problems. So I Came stateside, as you can hear a little bit, my accent is not fully American. I came stateside and what I realized was we were solving business problems. But back in the early days of digital, that was only going so far up the chain and, you know, really unlocking business change was going to require getting to the CEOs, the CMOs, a.

Seat at the table.

So a seat at the table, you know, the trusted advisor seat. So I moved to bigger, more traditional, integrated agencies and ran big global brands for 10 years at BBDO and at Gray, and really brought that love of digital solving business problems together with an understanding of brand and creating platforms that endure and really, truly creating customer value across the entire chain. Then I felt as if I'd got a little bit far away from media, so I went to iCrossing for a bit and then I ended up at FCB, which really for me is kind of the merging of everything I learned in the last 25 odd years between digital brand and media, because I think that's where the future is going. The future is now.

Yeah, of course. What's the one brand that you have the most heart for? I know it's like choosing between your children, so to speak, but what brand have you worked on throughout your career, whether it's early stages or when you finally hit scale and got on a big stage, so to speak, that you really have hard for?

That is a great question, and I'm going to dodge the question by saying two. I know, I know, I'm sorry. It gives you an idea how the rest of this podcast is going to go. Matt. So two very different brands, GE and Pantene.

Yeah.

So ge, we did incredible work. The reason it has a special place in my heart is because it is, was at the time a juggernaut of a company that was very, very hard to understand. And I think we did a great job at truly emotionally engaging people in what traditionally was a very, very disengaged, don't really care until something goes wrong category. And then Pantene, because I went there deliberately to work with some incredible people and truly prove that creativity could drive business. And we did an amazing, amazing job. I'm so proud of the team and the work that we did. Launching a global platform and really selling a lot of shampoo and conditioner along the way.

Yeah. And often, as you know, it's less about the actual brand, whether it's shampoo or toothpaste or deodorant. It's really about that time in your career, the team you work with. Your relationship that you have with the clients and really, really the feeling that you're really made an impact. Because what I found on both sides of the coin when I was running an agency for 15 years is that sometimes we would have a very lucrative client, but I didn't really feel like our work was doing anything. I feel like we're making a lot of pretty PowerPoint decks that ended up on the cutting room floor. Where other times, whether you had that sort of, you know, visionary champion with inside the client organization or you just work with a great team, you felt like that what you were doing actually ended up in front of the consumer. It's actually really impacting the business. And I'm sure you'll agree when you're an agency, that's what really gets you up in the morning, is when you feel that.

I totally agree. You know, I'm very bullish about the future of agencies. I think we have such an important role as a, as a translator. We translate the outside world into a company. It's too easy, no matter how good you are, it's too easy to become a little focused on the company once you're within it. And then we take the company, the product, the brand, the service, and we translate it back out into the world. And that value exchange is essential. And to your point, you have to have a great team. You have to have a great team on the agency side, you have to have a great team on the client side. There really are no sides. It becomes one amazing team pulling in the same direction.

Yeah, I think look at the agency world. I think the two existential threats, and they're both opportunities and threats at the same time, first and foremost is you have these management consulting firms, The Deloitte and McKinsey of the world, who had that ultimate seat at the table. Right. Because their work's connected to not brand results, but business results. Now, diving into this digital marketing set, and what's always struck me about the management consulting agencies is for some reason they're allowed to work on Coke and Pepsi, but the holding companies need to create two different agency brands to work on it. I just never really understood that. Right. Because theoretically they're touching much more sensitive data than even the ad agencies are.

I totally agree. I mean, what's the saying? It's two is a conflict, three is a speciality or an expertise.

Right.

Right.

There you go. Well said. So, and that's crazy. And I think the other thread is just you look at agencies and you know, they're competing now whether it's the Googles or Salesforces or Oracles of the world. And most agencies don't have their own intellectual property. They don't have customer data. All they have is people. And in this world where everyone's fighting for talent, it's really hard to build sort of that differentiation. So when you look at fcb, what is your firm's differentiation?

That was a sneaky add in to the back of a question. I wanted to talk about white labeling and evolving business model.

Yeah, let's do that too.

And I will get back to your question. I'm coming up on my, the start of my fourth year and you know, the first year was kind of really getting the team in place. The second year, second and third year ended up being, you know, expanding the agency and, and, and surviving and thriving through the pandemic and helping the teams really, really survive. Year four is about evolving our business model for exactly the reason you're talking about. Because you know we've, we're stuck in this FTE world and so we're looking at, we've got to look at both top line and bottom line because if we don't fix our business model we can't invest in the people. If we don't have the best people then I can't fulfill my promise to. That's right, the client which is bringing the best people the sharpest minds, giving them the right environment to make the best work possible so we can grow our clients business. Because you know, all we talk about is using creativity as an economic multiplier. The only way I can do that. And you asked about a competitive advantage. It really is the smart people that.

We have has to be. Right?

It has to be. I mean you know, that's what the cons, that's what consulting firms sell. And but in, externally, in reality they sell the playbook. So we are. I always think creative agencies have the benefit of, of truly being out of the box and it's such a trite thing say but truly being creative thinkers and coming at problems from a different way, creating bespoke solutions which is the only way that you get a competitive advantage in the world ahead.

So yeah. And innovate and change the story and ultimately build a brand. I mean every brand ultimately about story. Right. And where the stories come from. So great. Well, super helpful and I thought your answer was a great one and one I kind of agree with as well. And I also would add that like the hard thing in being part of a holding company and IPG I believe is one of the best, if not the best, is that they have pressures to Wall street, short term pressures they need to meet every quarter. So innovating often means you need to take one step back to go two steps forward. But that's all well and good until you miss quarterly numbers. So it's basically that balancing act. And I've been in your shoes before. Once my agency was acquired by Kubless Group. I understand. And I think ultimately it is about the people and it's about the relationship you have with your people and that they have with your clients that build great work and ultimately build a great business. So, yeah, we're going to move on to the next section, which we call Culture Watch, where basically I asked you four core questions that really dive deeper into what's going on inside your brain. And I have a feeling that your brain is really jumbled all over the place because you seem like to be a very smart, creative person, eccentric, and you seem to have a lot of ideas like myself. So I'm really interested to. To dive a little bit deeper into it. And we're going to go into four questions. So the first and foremost is what's the most important business decision you had to make quickly?

So it's not probably an original answer. And I'm sure everybody listening to this will be like, yeah, yeah, me too. But closing, deciding when to close the office and then what to do.

Oh my God, totally.

When Covid hit, you know, there was a moment we closed the office on a Thursday. On Wednesday, we found out that we had won our first big piece of new business that we're all celebrating.

Wow.

Wednesday night at 10 o', clock, I read an article and it was an anonymous doctor in Italy and she said, watching the west right now is like watching a scary movie where the teenagers are going into the basement and you're screaming at the tv, don't go in the basement, you're going to die. And no one is listening. And I texted my boss, who is amazing, and he said, I. And sorry, ipg, I don't care, IPG can fire me, but I'm closing the office tomorrow because this is coming and making that decision. I was like. And you know, sure enough, by when by the end of Thursday, they're like, do whatever you guys. Do whatever you want. Like, figure it out. It felt as if it happened so quickly.

I know.

And then suddenly we were at home and I was incredibly grateful to. And it sounds really silly, but all of the technology that we'd set up already, like we're On Slack, we're on, you know, we're using Google Docs. And actually the transition was a lot.

Of companies weren't, didn't have that.

And we had a massive advantage already because it kept the culture going.

Absolutely. And how many people were in the office you were running at that time?

So we have doubled in size in the last three years. So I think it was probably around 100.

Big shift. Lots of communication, lots of change management.

Through that, a lot of human management as well. I mean, you know, everyone was scared. Like I, it's, I think we forget. It's like childbirth. We kind of forget. Everyone was terrified. We were all terrified. And so managing through that and trying to keep our clients, businesses running was a challenge.

Absolutely. The second question is, what do you think the fastest growing industry will be in the next few years?

So I think the, and this is a bit of a cheesy answer, but I think the entire industry that enables better consumer experience. So everything from, you know, everything from your Adobe Stack all the way through to the megalith that is becoming Salesforce, through to the behavioral scientists who are having their moment in the sun because they're figuring out how to take that data, make it into actionable insights and then use it for competitive advantage. So the whole infrastructure and web that supports that. Because I think customer experience has changed, the expectation has changed. The adoption curve went like rocket fuel in the last two years and expectations are never going back.

Expectations are wildly different now. Yet like if you fly on an airline and you want to change the flight, you know, it's still, it's still impossible. So like when I think about customer experience, I think about why is it so hard to cancel my cable bill? Why is it so hard to change my flight? And you know, I think the key about customer experience is landing that overall strategy in practical ways to touch the consumer that really make their lives better. And I think that is ultimately companies that can do that are ones that are going to win even in the smallest ways that make consumers life better. What do you think the fastest growing product category will be in the next few years?

So I'm fascinated by the revolution. And this kind of goes back to my GE days by the revolution that's happening in the energy sector overall. And it's such a great question, there are a million answers. But I do think that there will continue to be mass revolution in battery tech because that really is the thing and charging and the infrastructure that brings electricity. You know, 10, 15 years ago you had new forms of electricity being created and you couldn't move it efficiently across the country because the systems were so old, not capable of handling it. So everyone wants a Tesla. Everybody wants an electric vehicle. We've got to figure out a way of making that battery tech that supports that, and then the charging network work to support it.

Absolutely. I think a lot of people overlook, when they think about electric vehicles is that the raw materials needed to build the batteries have their own kind of issues with sustainability. It's not just, oh, we have a Tesla, we don't use gas anymore. That's it. It's, where are you going to find the lithium? Where are you going to find the raw materials to basically make the batteries themselves? It's a whole nother.

Yeah. And you know, where a lot of them are in pristine, like, woodlands in the north of Canada or in tiny islands in the Pacific. And understanding that chain and making that as close to a closed loop of recycling as possible, because those battery, I mean, your car is obsolete. The battery on your car is obsolete after about five years. And also it can only go 300, 400 miles without a charge. So, you know, it's. They're incredible, but they're so nascent still.

Yeah, exactly. Definitely in the first inning there. And then lastly, you know, in terms of the consumer and their changing habits coming out of this pandemic, if we actually are out of it already or not, who knows? Changes every day. You know, what do you think the fastest growing trend will be heading into 2023 with the consumer? Whether it's an old trend being revived or a new one, in this new world that we're living in, I think.

It'S an old trend, interrupted and now on steroids. So the experience economy, you know, travel experiences, overall, it's no surprise to anyone. And I'm sure by the time this podcast says it won't have changed at all. The economy is incredibly volatile. It would continue. Will continue to be incredibly volatile. And yet people have been deprived for so long. So, you know, my family's in England. There was a period of time where I couldn't get on a plane legally and go see them. That is an incredible constriction of our. Of our ability to make choices. I think people are using this newfound freedom and ability to feel a bit safer as they go out and about to make good on a lot of what they've had to constrain themselves from doing over the last couple of years. So we were already moving towards sort of experience economy anyway. But I think this is just doubling down and then You've got the interesting part which is the demand is there but there are no pilots. There are. I mean, you know someone, a restaurateur told me it was going to take New York City two years to get back up to the quality of service because every that we had pre pandemic because everybody left, they went to, they went off, they decided, you know, and.

It exposed them or they got stimulus checks which are still living on or whatever it may be over things, all the things.

So it's fascinating and you know, looping back around to consumer experience, there's this pent up demand, there's an ability and desire to pay for that demand. And yet you go to a five star hotel and experience can be incredibly patchy, for example.

Absolutely. So did FCB reopen their office?

The management team came back probably May, June, last year we reopened the office for anybody who wants to come in. We've been back partially since September and then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this month. So the vast majority of people have been here and you know, we're all like everybody we're placing a bet on a form of hybrid and well, I believe it's a competitive advantage and time will tell.

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms with over 2,400 pre built audiences. There's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more at experian.com adweek that's E-P-E-R-I-A-N.com adweek.

Would you say that the return to office has been like kind of flipping on the switch to 2019 all over again or is it markedly different? And if so how?

That is a great question. I think it will never be the same. I think people have a new. What we're seeing is people have a newfound appreciation for the balance that they've been able to flex in the last couple of years to the benefit of being together when it matters and using that time together to truly appreciate being together and solving problems together and then use time apart to do things that require more quiet time, require more thoughtfulness. So yeah, I think it's, I think it's a significant shift. I've always particularly running global businesses. I've spent a lot of time traveling around and so I always worked remotely. I have two not so small kids anymore. So I've always felt as if this industry is pretty flexible, but that was, I think, probably not felt by everybody through the ranks. So, you know, it's been interesting talking to people here and saying, look, you know, you always could stay home and get your fridge delivered and work from home or, you know, if you have a sick kid or if you have many, many, many reasons to go be quiet somewhere or do whatever you want. So it's reinforcing that. We've always been flexible. You can continue to be flexible.

Yeah. The other question I'd have coming out of all this is, your relationship with your customers. Are they more reluctant to see you in person? Are you seeing them just as much? How has that changed?

We've seen clients and partners kind of move into two very distinct camps. You have the ones that ran back, and then you have the ones that last year decided to let everybody do whatever they wanted, and then, you know, a few in between. But it's very. It's actually very polarized. And one of the things we're talking about a lot at the agency is how you manage those two different groups. So, you know, how do you create, in the same way that we're trying to do within the agency, have kind of a structure and use time together for things that you want to use time together for, and then time apart. For time apart. Creating the same relationship with clients and being more thoughtful about why you come together, what you do when you come together, maybe come together for a slightly longer period of time, knock off a lot of the big questions, and then go away again. And it's working pretty well. It's hardest, honestly, with fully remote, fully dispersed clients. So, you know, figuring out how. How and helping them, in some cases, how they come together and reminding them that they also need to come together and that, you know, maybe we should be there at the same time when they do is. It's interesting. I think the next couple of years will be. I think we learn a lot over the last couple of years. I think I feel as if the next couple will be codifying that and truly studying it and then figuring out what works. Because what works for one industry is not the same as what works for another industry, even within ours. You have an agency in London going back five days a week, and you have agencies that are fully remote and everything in between.

Yep. We're all kind of just, you know, just figuring it out in the work in progress right now as we try to rebalance things. So, you know, I was excited about, you know, what you said about customer experience and how important it is the Ad agency world has changed advertising in general, where it used to be much about top of funnel brand building. And now what we're finding is that instead of brands being built top down, meaning I'm going to run 30 second TV spots and I'm going to differentiate why, like you know, our Hershey's or Tide or Nike did, in a world where we just watch linear TV now, many great brands are being built bottoms up, meaning they're being built one great experience at a time. Yeah, and you know, one customer has an incredible experience, they tell somebody else, they share on social media. We all know the story. So has that changed your business model and the way that you pitch brands and ultimately the role that you guys want to play overall? Because again, we used to just want that big Cam lion award, that amazing TV spot. While TV still matters, it's certainly a different world now. And customer experience. And your answer is customer experience really is emblematic of that.

Yeah, absolutely. And for us it all starts with the audience and truly identifying the audience. So we start with, we start with behavioral psychology and we figure out really what the mindset of that audience is. You know, you think back to the days where you had an eight person segmentation and the busy harried mom and the overworked father or whatever it is.

Cookie cutter demographics.

Cookie cutter demographics are insulting to almost anyone that looks at them now and you know, don't truly represent the world that we live in. Didn't then and definitely, you know, don't now. And then you also look at how those segmentations were used. They were used to create generic insights that went into a TV spot to your point, and then to say, oh, here are the big five TV networks that people are watching and off we go to the races. So, you know, we, we really have taken a step back. Start with, with the, the mindset that these people have that unites someone in, you know, in a shared pursuit, in a shared belief and whatever that is. And then we go straight into. So IPG's data set. Fine is axiom. We have software layers that sit on top that allow us to go in, analyze that data, pull it up, add it to syndicated data and create an incredibly robust audience that takes that mindset and, you know, basically you know, everything about them and they're there. It's based on real humans rather than just extrapolation of tropes and cliches. So not only can you then use that to create incredible experiences because you truly understand what is going to move their hearts and minds and, and Wallets, which is ultimately what we're trying to do, but then you can buy against them within the media profile. So it really, I don't understand how people do business without doing that now. But otherwise it's just throwing darts at a dartboard. You know, it's never been scarier. I think it's never been scarier. And I say this every year, so it just progressively clearly gets scarier to be a client. If I was a client, and you know, our worlds are so much more porous, most of my friends are clients, I would want as much surety as possible to make the bravest decision possible, of course, to move your business forward and compete, because it's a knife fight out there no matter what you're doing and who you know, who you are, even for the best brands. So why not, why not use that data to understand the people and then create true value exchange?

Couldn't agree more. I mean, you know, at Susie, our tagline is assume nothing, validate everything. It's basically the same thing. It needs to be rooted in data. You can build creativity on top of that. If you have the right data, you know who your audience is, which allows you to cover the right insights and also know where to reach them. It seems so simple when we put it this way, but I think the advertising industrial complex is built in such a way where it's not always that simple. When you're working, you know, in your organization, you're working with customer organizations and all the silos that you're trying to break down, that's where it becomes challenging.

Exactly. And I think, I think you're totally right. I think the thing that is holding companies, holding companies, agencies, independents, at the entire, the entire world back are those silos. So whether it be, you know, I think back to my days 15 years ago running FedEx and it was siloed. The data was over here and the marketing team was over here. And you know, they've done an amazing job of pulling that together. But even then it should have been more closely knit together. So on the client side of that evolution needs to break down on our side. You said it before. You know, who has that one seat at the table? There's always, there are many seats, but there's always a first seed. We want to be that trusted business partner, but so do a lot of other people. So how do you aggregate that knowledge? And really, I think the biggest differentiator for us now that we're seeing is having people who understand how to create collaborative teams and set a vision. And that team includes all the different people that you need to solve the complex business problems, including the clients, set a vision and move everybody in that same direction. And it doesn't matter necessarily where some of that money flows. It matters if someone is leading the charge.

Couldn't agree more. I mean, in that is just simplicity. Doing one thing great, being known for that one thing is going to drive business results. So that was great. This has been really fascinating just to, you know, see inside your world, literally as you show me your office, which is great to see people back in. So in this crazy, fast moving world that we have right now, what's the one thing that you slow down for? When do you finally get to take a deep breath and slow down?

Personally, I slow down for books and reading. I think one of the things that one of my most annoying traits, and I like to think it's a nice trait, but I think it's probably annoying to most people around me, is I'm insatiably curious. And you probably see, you can probably hear that in my career journey and sort of like, you know, what I poke away at. I just like to. I like to learn, I like to know. So nothing absorbs me better than a good book, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, and I will. The annoying part of that is that I will read something and then press it on the next five people that come my way because I think it's so great and everyone should read it.

So what are you going to, what are you pressing on me today?

What type of books do you like to read?

More business oriented books versus fiction books.

So this is not a business book, but have you read Being Mortal by Atal Gawande?

I have not, no.

So I will send you a copy as a thank you for doing this.

Oh, thank you. And we'll post it in the podcast notes as well.

And everybody listening. It's. I think it should be required reading for being a human. So he's an incredibly gifted surgeon and also writer. And it's. It sounds like a very depressing topic. It's about end of life care. But it is, you know, it's the one death and taxes happens to us all. And it is an incredibly charming, uplifting, insightful book about something that we all go through with our loved ones at some point. We go through ourselves. And it's just, I think what would help anyone that reads it. So read it.

Yeah. It probably makes you so much more empathetic in your leadership. You know, it's so important to have that different Perspective. You're in the weeds every day you read a book like that, it zooms you out a little bit, and then you look at things a little different. I think we all need that, so thank you for that. Okay, so to wrap things up, in our last episode, we had Gail Troberman, the chief marketing officer of iHeartMedia. And we asked Gail, if you had one question for our Suzy Market Research Network, what would it be? And she was really curious about why consumers listen to audio. Being in her position as head of iHeartMedia, and not surprising, we learned that while the majority listen for entertainment purposes, many people listen to not feel alone or to feel connected. You know, they had people feel a certain connection with their podcast host or radio host, which was really interesting to hear. So I guess to wrap up and I'd love to know, is there any burning question you have for our Suzy Consumer Network that you'd like us to kind of dive deeper, to which we'll reveal the answer on during our next podcast.

So as we started the podcast, have two questions.

Okay, great.

And I did. I did crowdsource in. In the spirit of Suzy, I did my own little mini Suzy version and crowdsource this. So this is sort of a question from. From the agency. One serious, one not so serious, but maybe it's deadly serious. One is how people's vision and expectations of leadership has changed over the last few years. And then two is how much fun is everybody having right now? So I love that. Maybe not so serious, but maybe deadly serious. Did anyone have fun yesterday? Did they expect to have fun today and are they going to have fun tomorrow?

Yeah, because there's so many reasons to have fun. You know, the world's opening up, yet there's lots of reasons, whether it's, you know, what's going on in the world more broadly with, you know, the political and social unrest that we're seeing or the financial turmoil, et cetera, There's a lot of reasons not to have fun. But, you know, hopefully people are finding the light, especially as we head towards the, you know, towards the summer. So, Emma, this has been a great conversation. The time flew by. I just want to thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule at SCB to talk with me today. And on behalf of everybody at Suzy, the team at Adweek, thanks so much for joining the Speed of Culture podcast.

Thank you, Matt.

Until next time. Take care, everyone. The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Suzy, as part of the Adweek Podcast Network and a guest creator network. You can listen. Subscribe to all Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcasts to find out more about Susie, head to Suzy.com and make sure to search for the speed of culture in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found, click follow so you don't miss out on any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at susee, thanks for listening.

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers, and more across over 200 top platforms. With over 2, 400 prebuilt audiences, there's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more at experian.com adweek that's experian.com adweek.