Page 27 - Adnews Nov-Dec 2022

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Perspectives
Amidst economic headwinds in an inflationary environment, scrutiny around budgets, and the general need to do more with less, CMOs are today responsible for maintaining customer centricity through more complex ecosystems and marketplaces than ever.
The ‘cost of entry’ in the social good & sustainability space is only getting higher and brands need to think differently around how they show up in this area to ensure authenticity and effectiveness.
More recently of course there has been a heightened focus around data and security. Helping brands traverse these issues is a theme that will no doubt only increase into next year.
Our industry must take responsibility for putting creativity on Australia’s collective roadmap to tackle these issues moving forward. We can look forward to many ‘gifts’ in 2023 to get this moving. The arrival of SXSW on our shores, the largest women’s sporting event in history in the World Cup, World Pride and many other events must be catalysts for change.
So, my plea to the industry would be that we all adopt a fearless approach and, to borrow one of our values, to ‘run towards the fire’.
It’s what Australian creativity is all about.
Ferrah Dagli, Chief People Officer, dentsu ANZ, and Chris 2Bower, CEO, dentsu Solutions, ANZ
022 is the first year of uninterrupted work since the pandemic. It’s
also the first year we’ve been able to get a good sense of the toll it has left on us in its wake. We’ve rewired as a society and pivoted our business, and now we finally have the space to process these changes and what they mean to dentsu, and ultimately our clients.
Flexibility is no longer a competitive advantage. Dentsu knows this, and we’ve been fostering a positive environment where our employees are encouraged to deliver their best work, location agnostic where pos- sible. We lean into dentsu’s Japansese philosophy of Sanpo Yoshi - what’s great for our people is great for business, our clients, and society, and ultimately, when we get the workplace humming along (wherever it may be), we as a business can tackle bigger problems for our clients and part- ners, after all, that’s what we are here to do.
There are definitely trade-offs with these flexible arrangements – for some, working from home can be lonely and isolating; we’re pressured by the always-on mentality of technology; and we have yet to understand how all this affects career development. But we also know the benefits flexibility has on productivity. It’s about getting the balance right - sup- porting our people better to fuel performance. And when that’s happen- ing, our clients are winning just as much as we are.
Since the pandemic, we are intent on making sure we support our employees, but also continue performing and delivering great out- comes as a business.
That means, ensuring that our employees’ physical and mental well- being is at the forefront of our people agenda. In addition to their personal and annual leave, employees have access to three Wellness Days a year, in which our people are encouraged to switch off for the day and do what they love, so that they can return to work more energised than before.
We’re making sure that people know that a career at dentsu means possibilities for growth - from multiple courses available for employees to access through dentsu University to the opportunity for global mobility.
Celebrating and cultivating diversity has always formed a core part of dentsu’s culture. This will be something we’ll continue to focus on for 2023 and beyond. Diverse teams remain the soul of our capabilities - we work across a diverse cross-section of client work with skills brought in from different crafts and sectors.
Having assembled some of the industry’s brightest minds, we draw inspiration through our talent experiences every day aiming to disrupt the status quo and create the solutions we’re renowned for. This is why we’re growing our people, where one shared philosophy really helps: Sanpo Yoshi; doing good by our people brings great results for business, our clients, and society.
Within this uncertainty and change, we should look at how we make even more silver linings in the year to come.
Leo Burnett Australia, Catherine King
Catherine King, chief strategy officer,
TLeo Burnett Australia
here are patterns in our indus-
try. Themes that you can tease out from shared conversations and whispers around our worries. They point to a tenacious focus on growth; product or business model innovation; attracting next gen talent; and how to balance the commercial realities of business with the renewed space and care that we share around wellbeing.
The end of the year is a time when we consider all of this and make bets on the future and some- times how we make these bets is as interesting as what we bet on. While the future is never guaran- teed, our collective comfort levels towards uncertainty have taken a hit. Our recent Good Study found that half of Australians feel pessi- mistic about the economic outlook of our country’s future over the next 12 months and only 26% believe that we will be better off.
And while this may all seem a little too hard, history shows us
Chris Bower, CEO dentsu solutions, ANZ