{"id":5330,"date":"2018-12-05T15:01:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T15:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/us\/?p=5330"},"modified":"2019-07-12T14:43:36","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T14:43:36","slug":"creating-new-global-company-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/us\/creating-new-global-company-culture","title":{"rendered":"Wunderman Thompson and the challenge of creating a new global company culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Advertising giant, WPP Group, has recently merged 154-year-old ad agency JWT with digital ad agency Wunderman to create Wunderman Thompson<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is big news because of how revolutionary JWT has been in the past. It invented the modern creative department model. It hired the first female copywriter. It was the first American advertising agency to work internationally, working with US household names like Kraft and GM. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It created iconic ads like the 1973 Oscar Meyer commercial (when I polled our US team, they could all sing it!):<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rmPRHJd3uHI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>An Icon Falls<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">JWT was an industry icon, but some say its approaches were outdated, and it was in desperate need of modernising. It was also reported that it has had cultural problems that have tarnished its hard-won reputation. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Search the opinions of people who have worked for JWT, and you\u2019ll find unsettling reports of a company culture in decline. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The importance of a great company culture <\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s a lot of nostalgia about the agency at the moment, and harking back to its glory years. A <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignlive.co.uk\/article\/william-eccleshare-magic-jwt-end-era\/1519848\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">former MD<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of JWT London, for example, published an article about how much he loved working at JWT. When he tried to leave back in the \u201880s:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I was summoned to the managing director\u2019s office.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8220;I can\u2019t offer you a motor car,&#8221; <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he purred. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I can\u2019t offer you more money. \u00a0But I can offer you the magic of J Walter Thompson.&#8221; <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I stayed another 12 years.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These days, though, if you want to attract, and retain, those with the best skills, you need more than magic. You need to create a cohesive global company culture. Feedback from JWT employees shows that experiences were often quite different depending on the office you worked. The agency clearly recognised that this was an issue, as it tried to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/learning.linkedin.com\/blog\/learning-thought-leadership\/jwt-wanted-to-rebrand-its-culture--their-first-move--learning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">overhaul its company culture<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> back in May.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Merging a big name traditional ad agency with an innovative, data-driven powerhouse to create Wunderman Thompson was a no-brainer. But what will happen when the company cultures collide? <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Culture issues don\u2019t just go away because of a change in ownership. If anything, a clash of company cultures creates more problems in a newly-merged business. A new culture must be created from the two companies.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the first priority for management is usually the development of a strategic market approach, over its company culture. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WPP needs to work hard to develop and set a new company culture. It\u2019s not easy after a big change, but it is vital to retain talent and clients. It will mean a lot of travel for senior management, high-quality face-to-face time, and the creation of a truly inspirational and visionary executive team.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What makes a great culture? <\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The culture of a business is hard-won. It takes commitment right from the top, and needs nurturing. We don\u2019t claim to always get it right, but it\u2019s something we work on constantly. It means different things to different people, but here are three areas that I believe help to create a strong company culture: <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01. Create values you can live by <\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The culture of your business might be managed from the top, but it is maintained by the everyday actions of every single employee. So the whole team should be involved in setting those values &#8211; after all, they will be the ones who live by them. We constantly ask ourselves: how are we living our values? For example, one of our values is \u2018do the right thing\u2019. That informs every decision we make, and it\u2019s empowering for teams to know that if they do the right thing, the business is behind them.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02. Communicate with respect<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open communication is so important to maintaining a positive culture. We use DISC profiling, which is a great psychometric assessment tool that helps us communicate better with each other, by understanding and respecting our differences. The more you understand what is driving someone to behave in a certain way, the better you can respond to them to achieve a positive outcome. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a03. Make the time to invest in culture <\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prioritize culture, and make it an agenda item at every management meeting (this will be particularly true in the early days of the Wunderman Thompson merger). Make time to meet team leaders, to foster inclusion and positivity throughout the business. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And finally, remember three basic rules of human decency. Be kind, be open to difference, be respectful. Learn more about how The Social Element approaches <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/us\/our-people\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">company culture<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertising giant, WPP Group, has recently merged 154-year-old ad agency JWT with digital ad agency Wunderman to create Wunderman Thompson This is big news because of how revolutionary JWT has been in the past. It invented the modern creative department model. It hired the first female copywriter. It was the first American advertising agency to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wunderman Thompson and the challenge of creating a new global company culture - The Social Element USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What happens to company culture in the merger of JWT and Wunderman? 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