People and partnerships: how to stay ahead of the pack in adland

Not so long ago, marketing was driven by Sharpies and sketchpads. Today, our industry is fueled by microchips, digital data and myriad social media and comms platforms. The pace of change in terms of the technology we rely on, the platforms we communicate with audiences through and the regulations we make (and often break) is incredible.

So, we asked agencies how they are keeping their people at the cutting edge in light of such rapid change.

It’s all in your people and partnerships

Barney Worfolk-Smith, Daivid: “Hire smart, young people. Empower them and put their knowledge front and center. ‘Innovation’ can be stuffy as hell. Just let young people do what they naturally do. Same brief, better outcome.”

Freddy Dabaghi, chief transformation officer, Crispin: “It first begins with our people. We hire individuals who are innately curious and incorporate that as a key attribute in performance reviews and manager check-ins. Agency-wide, we set up bi-weekly partner connects where we rotate different third-party partners to present their offerings to the entire agency. While these are optional, they are well-attended and foster good conversation. Within our specific teams, we are constantly sharing new partners and tech, learning as we pilot them on specific clients. We also have training sessions hosted by many of our partners to keep our team in the loop on updates and share our feedback. We also have a dedicated team member that works with third-party tools and platforms to connect them with client teams and incorporate it into training programs team or agency-specific.”

Sam Maloney, head of agencies and interim commercial director UK, Outbrain: “We’ve adopted a continuous learning approach. We share knowledge through regular training sessions, workshops and webinars and lean on our partnerships with industry leaders to gain insights into the latest innovations. But it’s also a priority to inform our partner agencies. We’ve introduced a structured system with regular cross-team meetings so we can share insights through attention workshops, newsletters and collaborative tools. In our business, you have to lead from the front and demonstrate your expertise on industry developments so that clients can see you are fully equipped to deliver them cutting-edge solutions.”

Django Weisz Blanchetta, chief executive hero, SuperHeroes: “We keep up with the latest tech through a multi-faceted approach. We begin with selective recruitment, ensuring we hire individuals who have a genuine affinity for technology and a passion for continuous learning. To cultivate this further, we have also established our own dedicated AI platform for controlled AI model experimentation and defined clear guiding principles to ensure the ethical use of AI. Task teams are also established to focus on specific areas of innovation, driving targeted exploration and fostering a mindset of exploration and experimentation across the company, even integrating these values into our performance appraisals. Finally, we emphasize effective knowledge-sharing through regular presentations and individual sessions, ensuring that all team members benefit from new insights and techniques.”

Sara Chapman, executive experience strategy director, Adam&EveDDB: “Embrace the new. Experiment boldly. Partner with those ahead of us. While these are not official principles, they sum up how we approach staying up to date with the latest in tech. For example, in our recent internal AI speaker sessions, we invited experts from beyond marketing to share their work in AI and challenge our thinking on how AI is redefining creativity. We also host hands-on tech trials/run work-based experiments so our teams can get practical experience in integrating new tech into daily practices with our clients. This approach empowers our team to credibly shape when and where we use new technology and provides real experiences they can discuss with clients – far more persuasive than quoting from a trends deck.”

John Montgomery, CEO and founder, Big Communications: “One of the best investments we’ve made as an agency is getting involved with 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies). Each year, we host an agency-wide gathering to make sure every employee knows how to take advantage of the resources available at their fingertips through our membership. From the knowledge gained from their research to the camaraderie found through their committees, we know our team is at their best when they’re learning from our peers and experts around the country.”

Bespoke solutions

Michael Chadwick, head of strategy and experience, Cheil UK: “To keep pace with change, we created a platform called Shift (Shopper Habits, Insights and Future Trends). This platform allows us to instantly capture and codify everything ‘new’ that we spot – whether that be a technology, a consumer behavior, a social trend, a design or a fashion movement. Shift is a platform, but more than that, it’s a vehicle to change culture. It’s about embedding a culture of looking, spotting, recording, learning, discussing and using what we find. It’s about ensuring our windows are always wide open to the world and that we’re always looking beyond our office (physically and metaphorically). Having Shift in place means that when a client asks for our take on something new, we don’t have to rush off to Google or download a bunch of white papers on ‘the latest trends.’ We already know, we already have a POV, maybe we’re already putting it into practice.”

Kyle Duckitt, head of cultural strategy, BBH Singapore: “We’ve come up with a smart way to keep our Black Sheep and clients in the cultural loop – we call it Bleats. This bi-weekly digest acts as our shared cultural radar, offering an easy-to-digest roundup of the latest trends, tech and cultural shifts. Bleats has a ‘What is it/Opportunity to Zag’ format that doesn’t just deliver info – it sparks creativity. By breaking down everything from memes to social movements, we spot opportunities others might miss. The best part? We share this bi-weekly newsletter with our whole flock – agency team and clients alike – via LinkedIn and Substack. It’s like we’re all grazing in this ideas pasture together, encouraging innovation from every corner. It keeps us all informed and inspired, no matter our role.”

Gabby Ludzker, UK CEO, Rapp: “Being at the cutting edge of precision marketing and inventing new IP means we need to constantly up-skill every single person in the organization. That requires not only military precision but also empathy for where each individual is on their seniority journey and also the type of clients and business they work on. At Rapp, we have created mandatory Foundation Courses across Data, Technology & Transformation and Next Gen Creative, written by our own internal experts and delivered by seniors across departments to small teams made bespoke by the clients they specifically work on for maximum relevance. And many will progress past the foundation stage if they specialize in that capability or have a deep passion for it. All new IP is taught by the ‘inventors’ themselves and then, as soon as we put them into play on clients, we create case studies to inspire others couched in previous experiences and learnings. This work is never done. It’s a huge commitment but one that is business critical for us and our clients.”

Jennifer Kaplan-Ortiz, head of creative services, Maverick Media: “All our team members, from junior creatives to creative directors, are responsible for exploring and sharing new tools, techniques and trends. We’ve made this a key objective and embedded it into our way of working because we know that curiosity drives creative excellence. Our internal meetings are forums for discussing what’s working, what’s not and what’s emerging. We have created dedicated Teams channels for industry news and creative inspiration, fostering an environment where learning becomes second nature. In our weekly company-wide huddle, we encourage people to share new tech, great work they’ve seen from others and creative movers and shakers. We maintain a strong in-person connection through monthly creative meetings that feature team 101 knowledge shares to drive collaboration and innovation. This approach pushes us to uphold high creative standards and ensure we remain at the cutting edge of our industry.”

Valeria Balaro, vice-president of marketing, Star: “When a new tool or technology launches, a volunteer within Star sets out to learn everything about it, including how to use it and any potential regulatory implications. They then host online talks and offline workshops in our different locations to educate our people about it to ensure that we can credibly advise our clients. AI is a great example of a topic that needed to be mastered quickly. We now have a regulatory AI expert a suite of materials and tools that we’ve developed to educate our workforce and a dedicated trained AI agent to help us navigate this vast topic, find internal knowledge and materials and be able to advise clients effectively.”

Leila Seith Hassan, chief data officer, Digitas UK: “We launched The Digitas AI Labs and Practice in early 2022 to stay ahead of technology advancements, particularly in AI. The Labs serve as a hub for technical training, thought leadership and client education tailored to industry needs. We also conduct month-long sprints on key topics like LLM, RAG agents, embeddings, and cookie-less causality, keeping our team and clients informed. The Practice develops intellectual property, both independently and with clients, across industries from retail to banking. Internally, we prioritize a roadmap of AI use cases, augmenting roles and retraining staff to maximize impact. Knowledge sharing is seamless, supported by regular meetings with our different capabilities, and further enhanced through gamified learning initiatives that keep our teams consistently ahead of the curve.”

Take an integrated approach

Ashley Bolser, founder & MD, Bolser: “Subscribe to appropriate newsletters: it’s worth paying for Azeem Azhar Exponential View and Ben Evan’s Benedict’s Newsletter. Of the free newsletters, I’d recommend drawing from respected companies like McKinsey and KPMG. TLDR newsletters are also great – they provide short summaries of articles.

“Utilize cool sites and tech trends. We use Slack for swift info-sharing with everyone in the company and vice versa. We also hold department showcases, where new tech/ideas/thinking is regularly shared with other departments. Each brings something new to contribute. Initiate formal requests for reports from individuals, eg AI meeting note taker to evaluate the best software to transcribe and summarise client meetings.

“Ask employees to do formal projects on topics. This could be finding the best software to help developers do their work faster and make sure to set enough time to allow them to complete a proper report. Hold ‘heads together’ meetings among department heads to discuss new developments in each area. Have an MD who is massively interested!”

Dana Robinson, VP, social media, SPCSHP: “When it comes to staying on top of trends, there’s no single source of truth. We build teams of people who are chronically online; being tapped into culture is our ethos. We subscribe to all the newsletters, we follow all the thought leaders in the space, and we have relationships with the platforms. We built a diverse panel of Gen Z consumers called Reveal to go straight to the source. To keep everyone up to date, have a variety of news and Slack channels and we do read-outs during staff meetings. The really cool thing? We don’t sit on all that juicy info. We have our own culture newsletter called Internet Brunch, where we share these finger-on-the-pulse nuggets with subscribers daily.”

Ben Bush, partner, The Frameworks: “Our clients expect us to be at the top of our game – and they have every right to do so. Successfully staying on top of best practices ultimately boils down to a combination of curiosity and collaboration. We actively encourage Frameworkers to make time to read around their areas of expertise and support their attendance at industry events and seminars. We then create opportunities for them to pass on what they’ve learned to others, either organically through regular team catch-ups or through dedicated Slack channels or presentation series (we’ve been running regular sharing sessions around AI this year, for instance). We also work best practice workshops into the lifecycle of our client relationships: a great way to ensure we’re not missing out on any opportunities to improve the performance of our work and the health of our accounts.”

Jef Loeb, Founder, Brainchild: “With the Olympics still dripping fresh in mind, we now need to recognize the elevated degree of difficulty in simply keeping pace thusly: we’re in the literal business of hype and knowing what constitutes real change versus what’s just small and distracting beer is something of a time-sheet filler it itself (oh wait, that was last week’s Vox Pop). Which, by the way, is yet another way our “industry” ham-footedly and -fistedly stumbles on the educational front: doctors, lawyers, architects and other trust-essential professions not only have ethical and legal obligations to stay current; they also make continuing education available for said purpose. The technical name for adland’s equivalent is the same as our ‘training’ for people moving up the creative leadership chain: squat. Or, on this side of the pond, maybe the occasional One Club gather. So, what we of the smaller ilk tend to do is what we can. Parse the trades, give a test drive to the intriguing new, become reasonably fluent in the ones that aren’t just repackaging Maslow’s hammer and keeping the dialogue robust between far-flung contributors.”

Christina Rogers, senior director of communications, Luquire: “Our annual Alicorn Awards incentivize team members to find, assess, and roll out innovations in new technologies, platforms, tools and processes that set up Luquire and our clients for success. The winning innovations are judged on how effectively – and measurably – they fuel efficiencies, creativity, insights and/or agency culture and the team members who bring the winning ideas win cash rewards. What’s in the name? It’s a little ‘inside baseball,’ but here it is: an ‘alicorn’ is a unicorn’s horn and the source of its magical powers. We picked this name because our team members affectionately refer to themselves as ‘luniqorns.’ It’s our thing.”

Learn by doing

Gareth Davies, CEO, Leagas Delaney: People learn by doing. Aristotle taught us that. Setting the context for change through lectures, tutorials, workshops etc, is fine, but if you want to build genuine understanding, there are no shortcuts. You have to ‘do.’ This is particularly important when change is imperative, as it is right now for our industry. We made a conscious choice to put technology at the very heart of our agency because we knew its importance and we wanted everyone to be part of that journey. Our team now understands the practical application of tech, and they stay up to date because, when we make changes, they are the first to apply them. As a result, our teams aren’t theoretical experts; they’re skilled practitioners. And that applied ‘doing’ is the difference.”

Karen Correia da Silva, senior strategy director, Iris: “To stay ahead, we need to have our ears to the ground in a much more guerrilla way, ensuring that insights on emerging cultures, platforms and audience needs are filtering through our strategy and creative. We focus on a constant practice of social listening and mixed-method tracking of niche, fandom and emerging cultures – outside of industry tools – to understand what’s next. We feed new insight directly to our creatives in a constant drip-feed collaboration channel, which creates informal spinoff groups of strategists and creatives, developing proactive ideas for our clients. For us, this all starts with a strong cultural intelligence program that connects audience, channels, platforms and aesthetics, informed by direct access to the subcultures that our strategy and creative teams are often already a part of. It requires a cultural shift in how we think about insight in strategy; most of the best intel on innovative new platforms and marketing methods comes from actually living in and participating in these cultures themselves while connecting directly and constantly with the communities, culture shapers, and platforms that we market to and serve.”

Katie Webber, planning director, Bloom: “Our focus is on culture-led design. So, we believe it’s essential for all departments and all levels to be on the front foot and tuned into culture, building expertise in the areas they are passionate about. To support team development in this area, we take a blended approach to cultural trend analysis. Our online insights and trends platform blends data with human insights to predict the future across multiple categories and disciplines. Combined with our proprietary Brand Cultural Audit Tool and immersion days (on and offline), there are opportunities for everyone in our company to actively contribute and enrich their own knowledge on a day-to-day basis while allowing us as a business to track culture both short and long term.”

Abi Ward, deputy MD, Havas Media UK: “Through our industry-leading ‘Campus’ program, open to all employees, we prioritize the continuous development of our people, with workshops and new modules allowing employees to tailor their learning journeys. We also work closely with internal experts, industry thought leaders and external partners to co-design our training programs, all underpinned by the core skills and competencies needed to excel in our industry. In addition to Campus, we host weekly media owner and partner sessions every Thursday morning at our London office, where they present to the agency or hot desk with the planning and activation teams. Bi-weekly innovation and solutions meetings ensure that agency departments connect to drive new thinking and optimize tools and technology. Finally, we bring different communities together through channel sessions to share learnings, case studies and new opportunities. These community sessions also create client-friendly updates to keep our clients informed about new technologies, platforms, and the latest industry buzz.”

Laurel Burton, CEO, Instrument: “True innovation isn’t about chasing the latest tech or buzzword; it’s about fostering a mindset. We cultivate a culture of curiosity and experimentation. We challenge our teams to engage with emerging trends not as passive observers but as active creators. This happens through a quarterly four-part learning and development series guided by our PeopleOps Team. The series challenges each discipline to showcase their ideas through experiments and new tooling. This shared journey of discovery fuels a contagious energy, propelling us forward as we bring ideas to life. For example, these efforts have led to processes that have upskilled our employees in AI Art Diction, AI Prototyping and AI Tooling. It’s in those moments of collective learning, when voices from every corner of our agency are heard, that truly groundbreaking ideas emerge and drive meaningful change.”