LOS ANGELES: Wells Fargo, the financial services provider, is asking its agencies to pursue "natural collaboration" in order to deliver truly impactful total-market communications.
Michael Lacorazza, the firm's EVP/Brand and Advertising & Integrated Marketing, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) 2016 Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference.
And he reported that the brand depends on different agencies to pull together effectively to create total-market campaigns that include multicultural insights from the start, and leverage additional segment work as necessary.
"There needs to be this natural collaboration where the multicultural insights go into the brief," Lacorazza said. (For more details, read Warc's exclusive report: Wells Fargo connects diversity with profitability.)
"At Wells Fargo, BBDO is our main brand agency. They're at the centre of the universe for all the total-market, large-scale campaigns that we do. And we have a number of multicultural agencies that support us as well."
In achieving this goal, while also remaining true to its total-market principles, Wells Fargo's agencies must adopt a flexible approach.
"All the agencies sit at a table getting that right. They co-create the work. The main agency needs to be able to play the role of having a point of view for the brand, but also being able to listen and partner," Lacorazza said.
Successfully pursuing this strategy, the Wells Fargo executive continued, requires striking a fine balance between due process and necessary pragmatism.
"If you leave that [process] too loose and it's all collaboration with no point of view, it ends with total chaos. You burn through an extra million dollars in fees and you never get to the answer," Lacorazza said.
"If it's too tightly controlled – with your lead agency as the curator and the decider of everything, throwing briefs over the wall to all the [secondary] agencies – you don't get the best ideas."
Finding the right answer with its agencies, however, can yield results which connect Wells Fargo with consumers across different customer segments in meaningful ways.
"When we win, we win together," said Lacorazza. But the rewards of victory, he added, don't come without a certain degree of boldness: "You have to have the ability to be courageous and not always take the easier route to something."
For more on total marketing, get Warc's free report on Kimberly-Clark's approach for embedding diverse thinking.
Michael Lacorazza, the firm's EVP/Brand and Advertising & Integrated Marketing, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) 2016 Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference.
And he reported that the brand depends on different agencies to pull together effectively to create total-market campaigns that include multicultural insights from the start, and leverage additional segment work as necessary.
"There needs to be this natural collaboration where the multicultural insights go into the brief," Lacorazza said. (For more details, read Warc's exclusive report: Wells Fargo connects diversity with profitability.)
"At Wells Fargo, BBDO is our main brand agency. They're at the centre of the universe for all the total-market, large-scale campaigns that we do. And we have a number of multicultural agencies that support us as well."
In achieving this goal, while also remaining true to its total-market principles, Wells Fargo's agencies must adopt a flexible approach.
"All the agencies sit at a table getting that right. They co-create the work. The main agency needs to be able to play the role of having a point of view for the brand, but also being able to listen and partner," Lacorazza said.
Successfully pursuing this strategy, the Wells Fargo executive continued, requires striking a fine balance between due process and necessary pragmatism.
"If you leave that [process] too loose and it's all collaboration with no point of view, it ends with total chaos. You burn through an extra million dollars in fees and you never get to the answer," Lacorazza said.
"If it's too tightly controlled – with your lead agency as the curator and the decider of everything, throwing briefs over the wall to all the [secondary] agencies – you don't get the best ideas."
Finding the right answer with its agencies, however, can yield results which connect Wells Fargo with consumers across different customer segments in meaningful ways.
"When we win, we win together," said Lacorazza. But the rewards of victory, he added, don't come without a certain degree of boldness: "You have to have the ability to be courageous and not always take the easier route to something."
For more on total marketing, get Warc's free report on Kimberly-Clark's approach for embedding diverse thinking.
Data sourced from Warc
