Bringing People Back at the Core of What We Do

A human-centric approach to marketing communications

Part 3 in the series Prototyping the Agency of the Future

You might think that an industry that is all about communication would master empathy. Curiously enough, adland has a hard time understanding how regular people really feel and think. When words like “awesome,” “cool,” “award-winning” and “no one did it before” are the norm to describe an idea, it’s pretty clear that people’s needs are not at the top of the agenda.

Putting People Back at the Center of What We Do

“Our industry couldn’t care less about the process”

As I mentioned on the first piece of this series, the advertising industry is obsessed with the end product. The pressure to come up with never-seen-before ideas often gets in the way. We always remind our team that our purpose is to solve real problems for real people. And that we shouldn’t get caught up in pleasing our own industry.

The creative development process has traditionally been exclusive: Ideas are expected to come only from those with the word “creative” on the…