Patrick Rowe, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in Australia for the past five months, says the market isn’t all about selling products.
“Consumer expectations of brands and companies have changed,” he told AdNews.
“In return for loyalty, customers want to know the brand is making a difference.
“Most definitely, rather than just selling a product, I think there's a rounded story that a lot of brands and companies are looking to tell, and they tell those stories in different ways in different places.
“Our business has evolved from being primarily driven by mainstream above the line media to now making sure that we can create content and messages and impact in all sorts of channels, be that content, be that social, be that through CRM in a one-to-one relationship with a customer.
“So creative thinking and helping brands drive their reputation and their connection to customers has evolved.
“And we see that reflected in the work we do.”
The rules are different in a creative environment and the personalities are bigger.
Rowe says it’s wonderful to be in an agency that is so well known, and recognised by people broadly, outside the industry.
He has one of the premier jobs in advertising, with Saatchi and Saatchi a symbol of the industry.
“In the advertising industry we at times can be very sort of full of ourselves and the impact on the world around us because what we do is so visible,” he says.
“The agency names themselves aren't necessarily that well known, even though our work sometimes is.
“But I don't think that's the case for Saatchi. For most people it’s instant recognition.”
Rowe, who’s been at Publicis Groupe for more than two decades, replaced Anthony Gregorio in February.
He was then MD of Publicis’ bespoke agency Team One and was GM of Leo Burnett Melbourne from 2003 to 2018. He was also MD at Publicis Emil, where he launched the bespoke, data-driven, digitally-led creative agency to market.
He noted some years ago that the industry was changing and that the importance of data was rising.
“I saw the role that data, technology and platforms were having on the creative world and the needs of clients were evolving and changing,” he told AdNews.
“And for the last number of years, within Publicis Groupe, I've been working on marketing transformation agencies … how these worlds can come together and they're not silos. You don't have a data department or CRM department or social department and, and a creative department … all of these things fuse together.
“And using data to better understand customer behaviour feeds into creativity and how you reach out to clients.
“When agencies can connect all of these aspects of the customer, then it means the agency can actually bring briefs to clients when we see opportunities directly. We don't have to sit back and react to briefs and tasks we’re asked to do by clients.
“We can be much more proactive in identifying opportunities for growth or problems that might stop a client converting to a sale, and we can address it because we've got full visibility.
“So that's what I've been doing over the last four or five years and that's my vision for Saachi to make sure that our creativity is having a bigger impact and is more relevant to clients and customers more often.”
The pandemic and new ways of working is another challenge.
“I'm certainly not the only executive dealing with how the work process has evolved through the pandemic, and working from home,” he says.
“We work in a people business, so making sure you optimise and get people performing at their absolute best is complex, because it's personalities and people and environment and energy.
“We're adapting. What was proven by both industry more broadly, and certainly advertising agencies, is that it can be done from home. We did it for two and a half years.
“The question remains, can you do your best work in that sort of environment? Or are you doing work that's good enough and gets you through?
“That's the challenge. We set very high standards. We want to do big award winning campaigns that make a huge difference for clients. And so we need to make sure we have the optimal working environment to get those results.”
Productivity is trumped by output.
“This has always been the challenge of our industry. It can take four hours to come up with a fantastic idea or four weeks … you don't know,” he says.
“If the right working environment involves working from home and coming up with that kind of idea, then we're all for it. We are firm believers in flexible working arrangements at the Publicis Groupe.”
Rowe spends around four days a week in the office, the days depending on what’s in his diary. He bicycles to work, 17 kms each way.
“It's a kind of meditation time for me, clears my head and gets me thinking about the day,” he says.
“I like the routine of doing. In fact, I've often written into the work sat down by myself, done some work, and then returned home”
He loves the industry.
“It's changed a lot. Things are much more professional now as they should be than 20 years ago.
“One of the challenges for the industry how we maintain that sense of edginess? Breaking things to reinvent things is part of what we do.
“Doing that, conservative sort of corporate environment doesn't sound right.
“But you need a balance between still having that sort of creative. Nothing is impossible, as we say at Saatchi and Saatchi.
“I think advertising is a fantastic industry, very creative, with lots of young people wanting to make a difference.”
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