• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, December 20, 2014

“Breaking down silos,” “pulling the pieces together,” “planning holistically” – are all adages most of us have been hearing throughout the digital age of increased fragmentation and platform clutter. As we have covered here, and some research shows, the marketing world talks a better games than it plays in the necessary integration of planning that everyone admits must take place. But what does it look like in practice?

I was intrigued by FleishmanHillard’s appointment last week of Stefan Gerard to lead its global strategic integration team. In making the appointment FH’s CEO Dave Senay stated, “Integration is as much a mindset as a strategy,” and so I spent some time talking this week with Gerard about what a department of integration looks like at a modern agency and how it goes about the daunting task of pulling those oft-mentioned fragmented pieces together.

The idea has been around FH for several years, and his appointment marks the next stage of its development as a team that will help large clients craft more holistic plans that span the many disciplines and multiple agencies involved in their brand. It is not just the introduction of new platforms and technologies, but a host of additional stakeholders and added visibility across channels that have helped make such integration imperative, Gerard begins.

In the past there has been traditional and discrete audiences for any brand, from customers to partners, press to regulators, and communications and marketing tended to address each in their own channels. that has changed dramatically in recent years. “In a transparent world, all that is visible; anything you say to one is visible to all,” he says. “That demands alignment that comes from a deeper and truer determination of the fundamentals so a brand and the reputation of an organization are really going to reflect the authentic core of the business.”

As a result of this growing transparency, Gerard is seeing more consolidation ahead of communications and marketing and the need for a more “centrally managed model” where internal, external, marketing, regulatory and other channels of communication are viewed more holistically and driven by a common understanding. Not only do the different practices within a single firm need to be better aligned but so do the other agencies on a major client account across everything from PR to media buying and planning, creative, experiential, etc.

Easier said than done. In order to implement this, his unit has the specialized function of driving alignment within and across agencies.  The team members come from diverse backgrounds and are often working in different areas of FH. And although trickier at times, the effort also works across other agencies both in and out side of FH parent Omnicom. “Usually the strategists develop what we call a universal brief. It is used by all agencies to aligjn all of their efforts across all of the channels. It is usable by every agency above and below the line, from experiential all the way through to advertising, social… .” the inter-agency brief is constructed collaboratively, so it can address the needs of each channel. “It is not authored by any one agency, but co-authored by all.” The brief starts with a strategic perspective but then has operational, executional and creative pieces. “It makes for more successful engagements for all agency partners when done well,” he says.    

He points to great collaborations on the SAP account via Omnicom agencies like BBDO. But on the Cadillac account that integration is seen across a number of agencies across holding companies.

Gerard admits that while virtually all clients express a desire to make their marketing and communications work together, there are a range of client views about how to get there. While there are frustrations around managing multiple agencies, different remits and a lack of coordination, clients also have different philosophies of managing their agencies. Some believe competition among their agencies breeds more innovation, and others consider the channels complementary and less in need of coordination. Some marketers are just more comfortable focusing on one or two channels. They are not all ready for the level of integration Gerard’s team and model promises.

“The premise offers operational efficiency, management efficiency, potential cost efficiency, but certainly the process of getting increased performance,” he says.

Operationally for FH his integration group at any one time may compose about 10 people just in New York, but they are being pulled from different groups in the agency and rotated in and out, trained by the leadership of the group. “It is sort of like a new business team,” he says. The aim is not to take over strategy from other teams but to use a set of proven processes to help the client and agencies set up an integration plan for themselves.

Gerard says that while he has seen presentations about the “360-degree planning” for over a decade, the need for more focused attention on concrete integration plans have become imperative. “We have continued fracturing of communications and the explosion of platform opportunities,” he says. “And then put that into a global context and it makes your head spin around.”