THE BIGGEST RISK IS TAKING NO RISK AT ALL
There’s a question that floats around in Wolff Olins from time to time, and that I’m sure happens in other agencies too. Simply put, it’s whether or not we are enough of a ‘safe pair of hands’, and whether we need to do more to demonstrate this safety to potential clients. And while no client wants to make a bad choice in agency (can’t deliver, poor quality product, doesn’t listen to client etc.) the question is actually more dangerous than this.
When we ask ourselves whether or not we’re a safe enough pair of hands, what we are really asking is “should we be more conservative” and much more dangerously “should we be more like our competition”.
I think not, and here is why.
Sir George Bernard Shaw once said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
You could just as easily swap the word “brand” for the word “man” in that statement.
In perfecting the art of adapting themselves to the world, brands and the agencies that service these brands have found themselves becalmed on the sea of sameness we see around us.
To back up what any consumer already intuitively knows, recent research from Bain & Co. suggests that 80% of CEO’s believe their product to be differentiated, but only 8% of consumers agree. This is a staggering statement of failure.
To succeed in an environment where merely being adequate is not enough, I firmly believe that more brands need to become more unreasonable. Our world is one where taking no risk has become the biggest risk of all.
This means new innovation in products, services and experiences, and new approaches to how brands will present themselves to not only get noticed, but also to change how people think about brands.
So if the question is “are we a safe enough pair of hands” I’d answer by saying “it depends”. If you’re a brand that wants to adapt itself to the world and not take any risks then we’re probably not a very safe pair of hands.
On the other hand, if you’re a more unreasonable brand who intends to take calculated risks in order to drive progress, then I’d like to think we’re the safest pair of hands there is.
(Paul Worthington)
