The World: World Leaders - Power in diversity for adland's giants

YouTube more than 100 million times across the world within two weeks of
her debut performance.

Despite the current economic climate, it's an extraordinary time to be
in the business of communicating. It's never been easier, quicker or
more far-reaching to get a suitably contagious message spread to a wide
audience. With such change, however, there are some serious questions
about the role of the global agency network. Do you need "people
everywhere" to deliver a message? How do you make a virtue out of the
necessity of internationalism? Is control the main issue? What, in
short, is the competitive advantage for the largest players in our
industry?

For the past 30 years, the major (Anglo-Saxon) networks were built
fundamentally to ensure worldwide consistency of brand message. Their
function was to create messages that could effectively be exported from
head office, albeit with some modification. Global mega-brands such as
Marlboro and McDonald's built their dominance by having access to these
structures and using this philosophy.

But we're no longer in a control world. We're in a world where we can,
at best, influence the global conversation (and it is a global
conversation). To cope with this, the network agency has to be faster,
globally integrated, creatively better and more digitally driven. At the
same time, we're going to need to be doing it for less because, in our
industry, just like any other, our customers want to see the benefits of
globalisation.

So the future network model is unlikely to comprise "quite good at
everything" agencies, everywhere. Instead, we will seek to invest and
build in the following ways:- The future network model will be built
around client needs with tailor-made, bespoke structures for different
accounts co-existing within the one framework. The best examples of this
are both within the network itself, such as Procter & Gamble Oral Care,
where we lead a team of all the different skill-sets under the clients'
brand agency leader model, bringing together all the capabilities and
skills the brand needs in one place. There are other arrangements across
the holding company such as Carrefour, Orange and HP, where we lead and
partner with offices of Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi. - It will
have digital at its heart. In two years, we've built the Publicis Modem
network in our top markets to a level that is already more than 15 per
cent of our total staff. We're concentrating digital in the key markets
to ensure highly capable, leading-edge delivery rather than so-so
delivery everywhere.- It's going to use hubs to service businesses,
according to the specific clients need, taking advantage of the fact
that we are all more comfortable travelling and working in each other's
culture than we were a decade ago. - And it's going to tap the diversity
of cultures to create fresher, more interesting solutions to worldwide
problems. For sure, if you give the same people the same problem - you
get the same result.

One of the challenges is to inject the right degree of multiculturalism
and entrepreneurialism into the way agency networks are run - a
challenge for a lot of networks which are structured for control.

Having spent much of my career outside my London start point and most of
that half either in Asia or working for a non-Anglo-Saxon network, I
have seen the importance of respecting cultural differences and
influences for global work. Not just for local work. Many brands have
their largest market shares in Asia or Latin America - ask Unilever or
Nestle.

Multiculturalism is about more than how agencies approach creative
ideas. It's about how to organise our business. How to lead. How to
engage. And then how to communicate. Publicis' founder, the charismatic
Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, understood this when he built the company in
the pre- and post-war periods. He believed strongly in "Vive la
difference" - and he knew that success for a French company meant being
at the heart of the emerging Europe.

His successor Maurice Levy understood this when he took it to the next
level with firstly the Publicis network and then the Groupe.

He famously persuaded Sergio Zyman of Coca-Cola to engage Publicis for a
pan-European push, rather than the US networks favoured at the time,
mainly on the value of "seeing things from a different point of view". I
passionately believe that this respect for diversity is becoming a key
opportunity for networks in a new way: who is to say that the best ideas
for a global brand can't come from India or China or Brazil? Some of our
best global campaigns already come from Asian or Latin offices and more
are on the way.

Respect for culture has never been more important and embracing the
differences has never been more likely to lead to great results. A
global network with a truly multicultural obsession. Now there's an
idea.

- Richard Pinder is the chief operating officer of Publicis
Worldwide

PINDER'S MANIFESTO

- Think differently about what the agency does. The agency isn't just
involved in producing ads - it's trying to influence a conversation that
is going on, as often between consumers as between brands and consumers.
Today, we create contagious ideas that positively change the
conversation for our clients' brands.

- Build a digital agency network capable of supporting global clients
and their needs.

- Leverage the diversity of the network to maximum advantage through
crowdsourcing.

- Lower costs: more hubs, less doing everything everywhere, more
best-shoring, fewer staff on fixed contracts, lower property
overhead.

- Invite consumers into creation.

- Foster an opportunistic culture, where businesses can start small and
learning can happen.

A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE FUTURE

- Is there a long-term future for the big networks?

More so than ever. But organised differently. There are the major
centres that drive major new business and big client relationships. And
then there are the increasing number of offices designed to get close to
consumers locally for strong local presence - such as the agency we've
just opened in Ghana. We share resources with other holding company
businesses where it makes sense to build a strong local client base, as
we have done in the Nordics and Japan. It is certainly the end of pure
"international trans-creation" offices in local markets.

- Is the ad industry becoming more homogenous around the world?

Advertising is becoming more global, but its influences are becoming
more varied. Today, advertising (like food, film, literature and most
other forms of culture) increasingly draws its richness and its appeal
from the sheer variety of global voices within it.

- What are your three biggest challenges in the next three years?

1) Help our clients to win their way through this challenging time. And
for all of us to emerge stronger.

2) Build Publicis Modem into the world's leading digital network.

3) Make Publicis a top-five creative network across all communications
disciplines.

- What advice would you give to someone who aspires to your job?

Get on your bike. Very few client chief executives reach the top these
days without extensive global experience, and their agency counterparts
should be their equals. Anybody serious about working in a global
company should spend time living and working outside their home country
- preferably outside their own culture.