Creativist companies
This week, I heard Lord Watson of Richmond speak at the RSA on the future of advertising. Lord Watson is UK chair of Havas Media, an international communications company. He was very clear: the aspirations of advertising companies need to change. It is no longer just about selling more stuff. They have conducted research which shows that what people are interested in now is wellbeing and what a brand can contribute to society. It is very important that brands grow roots, and contribute to society. It is about a shift to ‘softer’ values and societal benefit.
As he was speaking, Lord Watson made the distinction between consumers and citizens. This raised the question in my mind – what would the difference be if brands spoke to us as citizens rather than consumers? Or, going one step further, spoke to us creativists rather than consumers?
This weekend, there was an article in the Financial Times about Google Ideas, the ‘think/do tank’ set up by Google. According to Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, Google’s business models remains “to come up with new ideas to make the world a better place. The point is that, as a corporation, we’re trying to do more than just serve our shareholders. We’re also literally trying to serve our citizens, our customers.” (quoted in the FT article).
Google Ideas is still in the process of being developed. An example of an initiative is the Summit Against Violent Extremism (Save) in Dublin, where Google brought together 80 former extremists who now work to prevent radicalisation, together with Google employees, survivors of terrorist attacks, academics and experts to develop solutions to fight extremism.
Eric Schmidt makes the point that they are not trying to become political. “We’re taking a pro-information and empowerment stand”. Which is a stand that fits in with the values at the heart of the Google business.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly at the US state department policy planning unit and now at Princeton, is also quoted in the article. She says the role of corporations need to change. “If you look at the role that companies are playing in the world…these are corporations that have to be part of the solutions of most of the top problems that are on the (US) secretary of state and president’s list”. The article goes on to say, “She likens Google Ideas to a government policy unit where the goal is to assemble a group of ‘out of the box’ thinkers to examine issues and then work with other departments to deploy solutions. And, she argues, it’s a model more companies need to consider. “This is not just about giving back,” she says. “This is about how companies can contribute to important policy problems.””
Virgin Unite is another example of a company applying entrepreneurial thinking to societal problems, with their initiatives including a Carbon War Room.
Both Google and Virgin here are actually being creativist companies in their thinking – assessing how they can contribute to wellbeing in the world, rather than just being consumers of resources. So perhaps it is a two-way process – companies need to see us as creativists rather than consumers, and we need to encourage companies to be creativists rather than consumers.
7 Notes