[MUSIC] Hello, I am here at Saatchi & Saatchi, with Richard Hytner, who is the Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. And, he is also an adjunct professor at the London Business school as well as a graduate of London business school at the sloan program. Richard, thank you for joining this mooc. I'd like to ask you about your role at Saatchi, but let's start with Saatchi and Saatchi. How does Saatchi and Saatchi approach branding? What's your differentiation, compared to some of the other agencies? >> We've a pretty clear point of view about branding. As technology's moved on, as people have gotten more power, both employees and consumers. We believe that people act on emotion, they reason with conclusions they act with emotions. So, our point of view about brands is that to really succeed in the age of now, as we call it, you have to move people with the heart. We have a point of view about brands called love marks, which are those brands, those services, those products in B2C or B2B, that command loyalty beyond reason. The people have an irrational loyalty towards, you have a relationship steeped in some kind of emotional connection. So, brands at some level are trademark. How does one develop an emotional relationship towards this thing called brand? How does that happen? >> It happens if you think of the brands that you love and that other people love, the Apples, the Googles, the Disneys. In the B2B world there are plenty of other examples. They are, they're built on foundations of respect. So, no respect, no love. So, it's terribly important that these products and services deliver. They do what they say they're going to do. They out perform. So, it's not without function or trust. But, on top of that, they build emotional connection through things like intimacy, a sense that these brands belong to you in some way. Through playing to all the senses, all five senses. Through developing some mystery, a sense of iconography, history, stories, things that in a human-to-human relationship drive a much deeper emotional relationship. >> Now, you mentioned performance dimensions. Can you actually earn the love of your customers, at least over time if you don't deliver on the performance? >> No, I think that's the critical thing I learned. Actually at London Business School and taking some of your classes nowadays is that if you simply go out and promise some kind of lovely relationship, but you continually let people down. You only get so much forgiveness before they walk away. So, unless you can actually deliver on the kind of relationship that you are laying out as an expectation, you're going to be in real trouble. >> Now, you mentioned B2B examples. What would be an example in the business to business space where, maybe you've taken a company that has had a good performance, but you've added that emotional dimension to the mix? And, if there's an example you could speak to that would be great. >> Yeah, there's a pretty recent example where we worked with PWC, one of the big four, specifically in their assurance division. And, you might imagine that most auditors when asked at dinner party conversation, what do you do for a living? There's a little bit of shoe shuffling. And actually, when you think about the emotional benefits of auditors as a bunch of professionals and what they deliver to the capital markets, the confidence they provide. They fulfill a very important role, but that perception of themselves is nothing like as positive as it could be. So, working with these auditors and these insurance practitioners right across the world. We built a dream for their practice about building a movement of trust in business and beyond, which is a higher its a great aspiration for people doing the daily work of auditors. Something to aspire to, something to feel good about, the idea of providing confidence to the fingertips of their clients. And, that really did give them a sense of, and it's continuing to give them a sense of self esteem and self importance. >> Now, you didn't launch an advertising campaign to say this to world. How exactly was that built? And, maybe you could give some examples of the processes or interventions that you used. >> Yeah, the processes started with what we call exploring. It's kind of ethnographic research which we applied inside the business. Right across the firm in their different regions to understand what different generations of assurance practitioners felt. It is all about feeling. It is critical you deal in the currency of feelings if you want to develop an emotional brand. Understanding what the regulators felt. Understanding what some of their clients felt. Developing insights for the business to act upon. So, a huge amount of exploration, discovery before alighting on some kind of idea. Not to be played out externally, but could be played out internally. And, they arrived this idea of confidence at your fingertips, which the world has never seen. But, which a lot of people around the 80,000 assurance practitioners in PWC are intimately familiar with. >> When you returned from London business school, as a matter of fact the last 8 years, you engaged in a similar journey for Saatchi and Saatchi. Could you describe your role, and what it took, in some sense to transform the group itself, to deliver on your promise to your customers? >> Yeah, we're a purpose-driven company. Our Executive Chairman, and Chief Executive for 17 years, the guy who asked me to initially run Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And then, three years later say I need you to drive our purpose more assertively and inspirationally right across Saatchi & Saatchi. He's a great believer in purpose, we have a dream about world changing creativity. We have a point of view about brands filling the world with lovemarks, these brands that command irrational loyalty. Now, he'd written a book about this, a seminal piece of work. And, he thought that by giving everybody a copy of the book, 5,000 Saatchi practitioners would then go forth and fill the world with Lovemarks. After three years of operating as a CEO in Saatchi, I felt that people needed more than that. And so, when he decided to take me out of that, and put me into a staff role to really drive this thing, I felt the joy was actually creating practices, processes, IP that would inspire our people to adopt the kind of inspirational idea that he'd written about. And so, for eight years, we've been working to process and practices, and learning and development programs, signature experiences with our clients, to actually deliver on the promise of Lovemarks. And, that's the work I've been doing with a pretty lean team, but hats off to Kevin Roberts, our executive chairman. He didn't just have the purpose he put the resources the quite seemly resources against that internal journey. >> And in many ways it's a never ending journey I imagine. You've been traveling the world for eight years have you gone back to the same group. >> Yeah I feel a bit of a fraud because it's the kind of journey you think ought to at some point be done. But, of course, maybe it's a benefit, maybe it's not. But, the industry I work in is quite a fickle industry. It's a young industry. The talent is constantly seeking new opportunities. Millennials are Millenials. Thankfully they are impatient for new opportunities. So, there is a little bit of turnover. Quite healthy turnover in our industry. That means I go back to Beijing or Shanghai and I see different people four years later than I saw previous. But, exciting is, the lightbulb moment for me on this internal thing was involving our clients in this. The signature experience, the learning and developed experience we call the lovemarks academy. We only really began to get sustainable change within Saatchi when we brought our clients in to say this is how we work. We want you working on the same platform. We want you to know intimately the process we go through. And, in bringing them in, we then cemented far stronger relationships between them and our local agencies. >> And, doing this across the world, your agency's in the different markets so obviously in a different position competitively speaking. There are cultural challenges. Can you reflect on some of those challenges and how you address them? >> Particularly in relation to Lovemarks, big variations in local embrace of the concept. So, Latin America, China, India, everybody fell in love with it immediately. It plays to the heart, no embarrassment about the love word, the use of love in business, they adored it. You go to their offices, there are hearts all over the place, it's beautiful. You go to a North America, or a maybe closer to home to London business school, there is a far greater kind of desire to interpret Lovemarks in a way that's acceptable to the talent that works here. So, if you work the corridors of 80 Charlotte Street, the iconic headquarters of Saatchi & Saatchi, you probably hear more the phrase loyalty beyond reason, and the commercial underpinning to Lovemarks, than the Lovemarks word. Because the Brits, as you know, are kind of squeamish about that word. But, the fundamental idea has traveled everywhere. >> And, maybe we'll finish off on reflecting upon your journey at London Business School. You had a moment of reflection, if I recall, afterwards based on what you learned. What was that moment reflection, and coming back to the agency, what did you bring back that changed you and your role within the group? >> I think, as you know because you co-created it, the dream for London Business School is to have a profound impact on the way the world does business. I felt that in the classrooms, I felt like my interactions with my students. I felt a real global immersion that I've never have before to that kind of level of intensity. And so, the thing I brought back to Saatchi was, first of all, the greater confidence to operate in the C-suite. No question about that. Most of my work now, is done with Leadership teams B2B, B2C and the confidence to ask the questions, the naive questions I learned at London Business School. But, the second thing is the sheer brilliance of working in a diverse setting. So, in the creative industry, we often talk about bringing a diverse team together and we pay lip service to it. I came to Saatchi, and I learned if I had an issue on a particular client. I could bring in talent from New Zealand, from Mexico, from anywhere in the world I like to fix the problem. And, to have that kind of global immersion and access is a deep privilege. >> Fantastic. Thank you very much Patrick. >> Thank you. [MUSIC]
