Adam Wilson recently came aboard McCann Erickson’s office in Birmingham, Mich., as executive creative director of consumer engagement, a newly created position at the agency. In this capacity, he will help lead McCann’s efforts to fully integrate digital thinking as a primary consumer touch point for clients at the ad shop’s Birmingham and Los Angeles offices. He will report to McCann Erickson Detroit/Los Angeles chief creative officer Steve Levit, working on behalf of such accounts as Saab, Nestle, Travel Michigan, Prestone and Bumblebee Tuna.
Wilson comes over from Organic Inc., where he served as group creative director. Among his credits there were several groundbreaking integrated digital campaigns for Daimler Chrysler’s Jeep brand. He spent a total of six years at Organic, split between two tours of duty.
Wilson’s background spans the traditional and digital worlds. On the traditional front, he broke in as a creative at JWT in Detroit, working primarily in TV and print on the Ford national account. Next he had a brief stint at Campbell-Ewald, Detroit, on Chevy TV and print, followed by a year and a half at BBDO Detroit on Chrysler.
Then came his first stop at Organic in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “I was the first traditional advertising person they hired,” recalled Wilson, who got a formal digital education there. He left after three years for Y&R, Detroit, only to return to Organic for a more major role, what he described as “a seat at the big table” where decisions were being made.
During his second Organic stay, Wilson had a hand in such notable fare as the digital centerpiece of the Jeep Patriot launch, “The Way Beyond Trail” web adventure game/series–short-listed at both the Cannes and Effie competitions–as well as Jeep’s PatriotAdventure.com, which enabled comic book buffs to help construct a story online highlighting aspects of the Patriot, resulting in a limited edition printed comic book.
SHOOT: What attracted you to the opportunity at McCann Erickson to begin with?
Wilson: The people and clients here, and the chance to be in on the ground floor of the creative process. Organic is probably one of the best places in the business at inter-agency collaboration. We had some great experiences at Organic working with BBDO and later with Cutwater on Jeep. The creative people at Cutwater in San Francisco are terrific and we attained success in integrated work. But Cutwater was often calling many of the strategic shots and sometimes it’s like baking a cake where there isn’t room for so many cooks.
McCann Erickson is giving me the opportunity to be at ground zero in creative development, where consumer engagement ideas can take root, grow and flourish. It’s no longer a case of after all the television and print is strategized, let’s bring in the digital shop to frost the cake. McCann has given me the teeth to build an agency team and develop great creative and strategy.
I was also drawn to the fact that we already have a leg up with our clients. We don’t have to educate our clients on the importance of digital. Saab and GM [Saab’s parent company], for example, are completely committed to digital and value it.
They are clients who truly understand that in order to be successful, they have to share the media stage with consumers.
SHOOT: What was the most important lesson learned at Organic, the place where you embarked on a digital career path?
Wilson: I had an amazing career experience at Organic. First and foremost it’s a place where there’s the intrinsic belief that you can dig really deep–and the deeper you dig into consumer insights, the better chance you have of coming up with more relevant communication that will meaningfully connect with those consumers. That was the most important lesson I learned there. It made me a believer.
SHOOT: What do you hope to accomplish at McCann Erickson? What’s highest on your agenda?
Wilson: To put it simply, I want us to make stuff that talks with people and not at them. There’s a rich, longstanding tradition of storytelling at McCann and I want to harness that culture and create more eco-systems where we can meaningfully engage consumers.
And by engage, I mean not talking at–or down to–consumers, but talking with them.
Plus we need to engage our own people at the agency. There will not be a digital department within the creative department here. That model doesn’t yield great media or business ideas. You wind up being the cake frosters in that model.
We want everybody contributing. We want to tap into the creative talent here to figure out the best ways to be relevant to and to engage consumers. And we want to attract creative hybrids whose minds and experience span both digital and traditional–people who just get it. Knowledgeable, solid idea people.
McCann Erickson offers the advantage of having big agency resources. Yet at the same time the culture and community in both our Detroit and Los Angeles offices are still small enough to affect positive change. That’s a best-of-both-worlds situation from my standpoint. And the diversity of clients here is vast and wide-ranging–from automotive to packaged goods to tourism. We have some great brands to work for and with. And again these are brands who are very much receptive to what digital can do for them and their customers.
SHOOT: What made Jeep a great brand to work with digitally? And can you replicate any of those qualities for your clients at McCann?
Wilson: There’s a lot of love out there for the Jeep brand. That built-in audience appetite for the brand made Jeep a natural fit for breaking new ground in the social media world. On jeep.com/experience, Jeep content seamlessly co-exists with user-generated content. It’s a great example of how marketing can evolve into and be more of an eco-system.
We’re fortunate in that here at McCann a client like Saab has its own fan club similar to that which exists for Jeep. There are true Saab enthusiasts out there. You don’t create that. In that kind of situation, you have tons of potential for social media participation with the brand. There’s a party going on already. We just have to make sure the brand shows up at the party bringing the right dish and wearing the right clothes.
SHOOT: From your perspective, on what platform or platforms is the party happening?
Wilson: It can happen on any platform. I’m not at all into designating one platform as being the best or even better than another I don’t like to point to any one platform or technology or technique and deem it to be the killer app. I think that this kind of singling out would be a mistake.
The platform that’s best is the one that in a certain case can help you connect with consumers. The most important thing isn’t the platform but that people interact with brands. It’s an interaction that’s becoming more social and personal.
Someday we’ll laugh at the fact that many of us used to call this ‘social media.’
Someday it will be so ubiquitous that you won’t define or differentiate it that way at all. It will simply be regarded innately as the inner web, just an accepted everyday part of our lives and culture.
We have to engage the consumer and give him or her an experience that is entertaining or functionally relevant or both.
