Straight to the point
It’s been a week and a half in New York and working/shadowing for the Havas agency. Time flies. I already met so many people that I have to use their amazing mobile app to remember their names and locations in the building (I strongly recommend you to read Lea’s coming article about it, it should be implemented in Puteaux: an app with search tools by names or floors, to know who is who, where he sits, what he is doing).
During meetings or discussions I begin to identify some different work habits. It may be a personal opinion, thus this first week does not reflect the exact reality and I don’t follow every person every second, but I wanted to share with you what may have surprised me and what I consider as different ways of doing my job.
I read recommendations, I attend client meetings, internal briefing, and for sure they know how to go straight to the point! (Did you see, even in this article, I need two paragraphs to introduce my idea! #mybadhabit)
> Tone used in written recommendations seems to be more operational, more focused on, than strategic. Strategic thoughts are developed and presented, of course, but they always rely on concrete data, studies conducted amongst the employees, persona analysis. It makes the recommendation very easy to read, as they are always very concrete and illustrated.
> Let me introduce the main client I met: what we call an octopus in France, shortly a phone.
I have the feeling that in France the physical presence is very important for our clients, for our business. We do work on our presentations in the office, set a meeting – often in our clients’ offices — and then we discuss about ideas presented. It may take a while.
I attend different kind of meetings (content calendar presentation, feedbacks on scripts for a TV campaign, 1st presentation of the social media strategy and channels roles) and all of them were conference calls with shared presentation thanks to the Air Play technology (meetings rooms are fully equipped here).
Objectives of the meeting are always reminded at the beginning of the presentation and then discussions can begin through the slides, above all decisions are made in live: validating or no the idea.
I know all these steps can sounds so logical, and some of you must think “actually, I’m already doing it here” but really, it looks so much more direct and efficient back here, meetings are quick, operational. And then you hang up the phone and you come back to your work, without taking any cab or subway.
Well, I must admit that while discussing with Tonic agency’s boss, during a presentation of “Les Gaulois” agency – what a transversal program! – he told us that this “straight to the point” attitude adapted to advertising may stop them imagining aspirational campaigns. Because their recommendations are a lot based on data or pretest, their communication strategy are really into delivering the concrete message, rather than suggesting it.
Let’s find globally and collectively the perfect balance between concrete information and creative proposal. ;)
