Truth & Spectacle Press Release - March 2019
Founded against a belief that creativity and innovation have to be rooted in an organisational truth to be effective, Truth & Spectacle’s mission is to help businesses drive their own creativity, because creativity drives business.
Creative business consultancy Truth & Spectacle launches to help businesses rediscover their own truth and free themselves from existing agency models
Creative industry veterans Ivan Pols (ex-adam&eveDDB), and Alex Mecklenburg (ex-Ogilvy) have joined forces to launch Truth & Spectacle, a creative business consultancy which aims to reframe how companies think about their corporate truth while also freeing them from existing agency processes to enable them to reinvent their creative efforts.
Founded against a belief that creativity and innovation have to be rooted in an organisational truth to be effective, Truth & Spectacle’s mission is to help businesses drive their own creativity, because creativity drives business. But many organisations now base their creative efforts on their ‘brand purpose’ and this is limiting and holds businesses back.
Alex Mecklenburg, Co-Founder of Truth & Spectacle, says: “Truth fuels creativity but many businesses have confused their truth with brand purpose. We help organisations uncover their organisational truth, the kernel that sits at the heart of everything they do, just as relevant to management and HR as it is to product development and marketing. And in a post-truth world, this is more important than ever – we are all questioning who we can trust.
“Truth is an important source of creativity because it combines real data and useful facts with the feeling of rightness. This unlocks powerful emotions that help everyone in the organisation understand how to create the best customer experiences, from stories and behaviours to products and services”, Alex concludes.
But even if a business uncovers their truth, they often get stuck in complicated and expensive agency models where creative decisions are made by external consultants who don’t have a vested interest in the business beyond the creative work itself.
“The agency model is falling apart. Many business leaders have abdicated their creative decision-making authority to outsiders. In my past creative agency roles, I became increasingly frustrated that the time and money invested by clients into their creative efforts could have delivered much better value, if only managed differently”, says Ivan Pols, Co-Founder of Truth & Spectacle.
“Client organisations have to be more confident in their own creative skills to become more successful and we can help them take charge”, Ivan concludes.
Alex and Ivan have already put their conviction into ‘truth’ into practical creative and innovative solutions for clients from different sizes and sectors; from large consultancy organisations and NGOs to tech companies and production/ arts companies.
The name, Truth & Spectacle, was inspired by film director Stanley Kubrick who, at the time of making Spartacus, was asked what makes a film great. Legend has it that he said it needs two things to be successful: ‘truth’, the thing that touches you, the story that you connect with; and ‘spectacle’, it must grab you by the throat and make you want to watch it. The same principles are true for the world of business. The ‘truth’ is the kernel – the strategy and the story. The ‘spectacle’ is built around the kernel – how that story is told.
Ivan is the creative director at what3words and was formerly the global creative director at adam&eveDDB and Ogilvy in London and Toronto.
Alex is working with a range of organisations including Doteveryone, Social Innovation Exchange, and Sky TV as a creative business consultant and executive coach. She was formerly a client strategist at Edelman and prior to this, MD at Huge and Business Partner & Global Brand Director at Ogilvy One.
Having originally met at Ogilvy over a decade ago – and with over 20 years’ creative agency experience each – Ivan and Alex have worked with some of the world’s best companies and biggest brands. Through their work they realised that, more than anything, businesses need to develop a creative mindset so that ideas can be challenged in order to make them great.
EDITOR’S NOTES
About Truth & Spectacle
The complexity of great customer experience boils down to this: Be true to yourself and express it beautifully. Creative business consultancy Truth & Spectacle helps discover the truth that’s at the heart of an organisation and enable it to be expressed beautifully through products, services, stories and behaviours. The truth is the kernel and the spectacle is built around it.
About Ivan Pols
With an eye for design and practical hands, Ivan’s career started in marketing and branding as an art director. As he became more experienced, he started to really enjoy the big, complex projects where ideas must be bought by hundreds of people, influence millions and change the fortunes of companies. He had to understand how large teams create together and help them make enough of the right decisions to produce a great result.
Ivan worked with Ogilvy and adam&eveDDB on their biggest accounts and finally became frustrated that as the market evolved their efforts increasingly delivered lacklustre results. He realised it would only improve if client organisations become more creative. That’s why he co-founded Truth & Spectacle.
About Alex Mecklenburg
Alex went into the creative industries because she’s always been deeply connected with creating and making things that she cares about. After diving head-first into the dotcom boom, she eventually found herself leading big global business accounts at Ogilvy. The meaning of creativity had moved increasingly towards delivering attention-centric shiny executions, with little or no risk. Struggling with the industry expectation of walking into a room with ‘the answer’, Alex grew frustrated that many clients were seemingly handing over creative thinking, creative doing and their ‘creative truth’ to agencies and consultancies.
She stepped sideways to work directly with clients, often within teams using storytelling and coaching to discover their own truth. From helping them to tell their stories, she also encouraged them to invite everyone into the story - teams, leaders, collaborators and customers. Co-founding Truth & Spectacle was the natural next step.
Alex Mecklenburg on maintenance and why we need better stories
Jen McArther from Festival of Maintenance has interviewed Alex in the preparation for their 2019 Festival. It’s a great summation of her talk from last year.
Jen McArther from Festival of Maintenance has interviewed Alex in the preparation for their 2019 Festival. It’s a great summation of her talk from last year.
“Two things have changed fundamentally – again they are simple things, not big things. Firstly, collaboration and co-creation: inviting people who see it differently. There is a certain humbleness and vulnerability in these processes, whereas in the past there was a fear that openly critical conversations could kill creativity.”
Read the full interview at Festival of Maintenance.
Creativity is dead! Long live create!
I believe we could do with less narrow minded rhetoric about who owns creativity and concentrate more on how we’re going to create.
This a wonderfully (un)chained piece of graffiti from Mexico City. I love the duck.
These are interesting times for the creative industry.
Traditional hotshot agencies are protecting their creative turf and talent pool with statements like BBH’s Sir John Hegarty that the in-house model is for “boring creatives”.
Big agencies are watching their bottom lines get squeezed into oblivion (read Madison Ave Manslaughter) and responding with aggressive resizing (Ogilvy) and mergers (Wunderman Thompson).
Old holding companies like WPP are streamlining to become a “creative transformation company”, while new holding companies like S4 Capital and You and Mr Jones are built on the idea that data drives creativity.
Not to mention management consultancies like Accenture who have seen the value of delivering creative assets, not just business services.
Organisations of all sorts are experimenting with in-house creative services, or subcontracted units of agencies, or communities of creative collectives, with various degrees of success.
The CMO of RBS has said that clients “can’t do creative communication”, yet 78% of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in 2018 had an in-house agency.
So, are they all failing at their jobs?
With so many opinions about what is and isn’t creative, who is right?
After 18 years as a creative at Ogilvy and adam&eveDDB I co-founded a consultancy called Truth & Spectacle to see what creativity in business could become.
A big part of my journey outside of the traditional creative industry has been working with an award winning tech company called what3words.
Over the last two years what3words has successfully scaled up to create most of its marketing, brand design and product design in-house; and we’ve had the same debates everyone else is having about the quality of work, striking the balance between pragmatism and belief, attracting and keeping talent, outsourcing and in-housing.
what3words x Airbnb with the reindeer tribes in Northern Mongolia in 2018. Photo by Chris Sheldrick.
How has a tech company like what3words become good at creating?
Early on the management team understood the impact of storytelling on the company’s value and sales, and invested in their own people to improve that skill.
There’s a studio but there is no “creative department”, creativity is the responsibility of everyone in the business.
what3words is confident in telling its core story through everything it does, whether it’s through products, sales conversations, video content, PR, or event posters.
And finally, we’re comfortable challenging our best ideas and experiment constantly to be fit for purpose.
When management consultancy McKinsey looked at the correlation between creativity and financial performance they found that more creative firms outperform their peers, so it seems to be more important than ever.
I believe we could do with less narrow minded rhetoric about who owns creativity and concentrate more on how we’re going to create.
In these interesting times it’ll take open minds to help the industry and discipline flourish in every organisation.
What do you think?
Creating a User Experience for Everyone
Ivan was invited to talk at the Interact UX Conference which was held at The British Museum in October 2018. As the Creative Director of what3words he talked about the design journey, what they’ve learned and how they create a system for everyone to use with voice. You can watch the talk here.
This is a video of a talk I gave at the Interact UX Conference which was held at The British Museum (///orders.behind.tanks) in October 2018.
I have the pleasure of being the Creative Director of what3words and presentations to a specialist audience give me a great opportunity to look at what I do from a different perspective. In this case, User Experience.
For me, the definition of UX is simply everything a company says and does.
But in reality “everything” is incredibly complex to manage, so how do we do it at what3words and what have we learned?
I explain how a 3 word address works, the design decisions that we’ve made in order to make it a global standard, how we work with voice, and show people around the world use the system.
It’s amazing what people can create with a few simple words.
Thanks to Henry and Nomensa for the invitation and for producing this video.
Maintenance vs Innovation
Calen Cole at Stripe Partners does a neat blog post about the Festival of Maintenance and the roles of maintenance and innovation.
“Creativity and maintenance go hand in hand. And in a mature ecosystem as much energy goes to maintenance as goes to creativity.”
Calen Cole at Stripe Partners does a neat blog post about the Festival of Maintenance. He quotes Alex so you know it must be good ;)
Definitely worth a read if you’re passionate about innovation.
“The Festival as a whole was a provocative and eye-opening experience. It was also a strange experience – after all, Stripe Partners specialises in innovation. We spend our time and effort doing the research, ideation and facilitation that produce innovation that works. Our work is nearly always focused on new offerings, new markets, new consumer groups.
The Festival got me thinking: are maintenance and innovation necessarily antagonistic?”
City Hall Digital Leadership
Alex has been hard at work with DotEveryone and London City Hall on their digital leadership programme. She's having a fantastic time working with people who really care about leading with digital understanding and responsibility.
“City Hall has been piloting a digital leadership programme, starting with senior teams, in partnership with @doteveryoneuk ”
Alex has been hard at work with DotEveryone and London City Hall on their digital leadership programme. She's having a fantastic time working with people who really care about leading with digital understanding and responsibility. New cohorts start in September 2018.
“👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼 great work @petite_a who’s leading this programme for us at @doteveryoneuk - building understanding of digital and responsible leadership across the senior team at the GLA - it would be great to see more Mayoral teams do this.”
We can't wait to see how the programme goes from strength to strength.
Female Founders Program at PwC
Alex was recently a coach and speaker at PwC's first Female Founders Programme. Partnering with Blooming Founders its designed to help startups scale in the B2B space.
Image: Kinga Incze
Our very own Alex (fifth from the right) was a coach and speaker at PwC's first Female Founders Programme.
Partnering with Blooming Founders, its designed to help startups scale in the B2B space.
“It was an excellent day - so much energy, dedication, authenticity and openness. Made my week. So many shared stories and shared ambition.”
Innovation obstacles and their simple solutions
What are the most common barriers to innovation in large companies? According to a survey of 270 corporate leaders they are: politics, turf wars, and a lack of alignment; cultural issues; inability to act on signals crucial to the future of the business; lack of budget; and lack of the right strategy or vision — in that order.
Scott Kirsner writes in the Harvard Business Review about a study done for Innovation Leader about the obstacles innovation faces in large businesses.
On one hand CEO's are happily not to blame, but on the other internal politics, turf wars and a lack of alignment are a monster cited by 55% of the study.
Three things got my attention in the study and the feelings of the respondents.
Firstly, it was the simple inability of large businesses to react to market changes. Large businesses can lack structures or processes to test or attempt effective action. It means innovation never moves past the knowledge that something needs to be done, or a well-meaning strategic PowerPoint presentation.
“...what mechanisms exist to set up collaborations with outside vendors or startups, or run a quick pilot test with a function or business unit? Too many companies wait for the annual strategic off-site to roll around before they address the changing dynamics of their market.”
Then the need to influence corporate culture and create an inclusive innovation story can't be underestimated. 45% of respondents blamed cultural issues for a lack of innovation which is remarkable for such a poorly defined aspect of our working lives.
I'd argue that it's a side-effect of positive innovation actions that failed or were dropped too quickly after people invested their reputations or energy into them. Few things reinforce a feeling of inertia more than I-told-you-so disappointment.
Few things infuse a culture with self-belief better than turning ideas into reality, even if they aren't perfect every time. Start-ups disrupt with action, not perfection.
Kirsner's final point cuts to the chase and is brilliantly simple, "long-term commitment is essential".
“Corporate cultures reject many new initiatives if people believe they are the flavor-of-the-month. When CEOs and other leaders talk about innovation, they need to make it clear it will be more like a daily exercise regimen — part of the way things are done here, from now on — than a magical incantation that delivers instant results.”
Ten things about digital transformation by 10 Digital Ladies
Over and over again we see digital programmes failing to deliver real, meaningful change. 10 Digital Ladies decided to ask why, and what could be done differently at our meetup Why it’s time digital grew up: transformation beyond easy answers.
10 Digital Ladies is a networking group for women working in digital practitioner roles such as product management, strategy, engineering and marketing.
Their panel about digital transformation had some interesting insights about inclusive stories, using digital tools well, and managing an organisation going through changes.
“We live in an age of ever increasing complexity. To help us cope with this rate of change, organisations have looked for simple answers to complex questions – adopting digital technologies, tactics, methodologies and ‘digital ways of working’ as the silver bullets of organisation change.
But over and over again we see digital programmes failing to deliver real, meaningful change. 10 Digital Ladies decided to ask why, and what could be done differently at our meetup “Why it’s time digital grew up: transformation beyond easy answers”.”
You can read their full article on LinkedIn - click here.
10 Digital Ladies is a networking group for women working in digital practitioner roles such as product management, strategy, engineering and marketing.
They run small, informal ‘support and networking’ meetings in London, where mid to senior level women can discuss issues that relate to their digital career and could help them reach their full potential.
Experience is everything
A wonderfully in-depth study about the future of customer experience by PwC.
PwC have a great study about the value of customer experience. Definitely worth a read.
“Good customer experience leaves people feeling heard and appreciated; it minimizes friction, maximizes efficiency and maintains a human element.”
Digital transformation is a very human process
Up to 84% of digital transformation projects fail to deliver their expected benefits…and it is no secret.
InnovationBubble have written a very interesting piece looking at the behavioral science behind the crazy statistic that 84% of digital transformation projects fail.
Spoiler: It's not the tech, it's the people.
Typo Berlin 2018 - The Trends
Creativity needs to applied to the business of design.
I went to watch Alex and Erica, from Lola Media, speak at Typo Berlin and got to see a few interesting people. My main take out: creativity needs to applied to the business of design and much as it is to lettering.
Read the full article here on Medium.