To help mask its layoffs and reorg, Ogilvy has adopted the language of tech startups. The agency is now in “perpetual beta,” according to Ad Age.
Starting immediately, the WPP Group-owned agency is trying to get small, requiring that client meetings center around four key people at the table — marketing, creative, strategy and program management — and it will gradually streamline its structure, doing away with many of its 20-plus departments.
Ogilvy already has done a lot to anticipate the post-advertising world. It got out ahead of many of its rivals by investing in a full suite of marketing services, which it combined a couple of years ago under one profit-and-loss statement.
Perpetual beta? Post-advertising world?
I’m starting to wonder where I am.
Where am I?