Mike Joubert and I have known each other for about four four years. Introduced by mutual friends, we never met through work, even though we worked in the same industries, on both sides of the table in marketing and advertising. To ruthlessly summarise Mike’s bio: he has worked at Ogilvy; as marketing director at Diageo; at Levi’s, first as Managing Director in South Africa and then Vice President of Marketing for Europe. He returned to South Africa and started his own agency, BrandsRock, which was later sold to the Publicis Groupe, where it became BrandsRock Saatchi & Saatchi, and where he became Chief Inspiration Officer and then Chairman. He now consults, advises, invests, mentors and sits on various boards. I chatted with him about culture and purpose in agencies, marketing and business in general.
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Sasha:
I was intrigued at the “Chief Inspiration Officer” title. What did you do in that role?
Mike:
I realised that if I sold my business, I didn’t want to be CEO of Saatchi, which would have meant moving to Johannesburg. So I said, what do I want to do? I’d love to inspire the culture change of BrandsRock into Saatchi. So I assumed the title of Chief Inspiration Officer and recruited a suitable Johannesburg-based CEO for the business.
Sasha:
So a conscious decision was made to have a Chief Inspiration Officer whose role was, as you’ve just said, very much focused on culture. That is very rare, in agencies specifically. In my experience in agencies, there’s very little deliberate attention paid to culture. I never had any “onboarding”, for example. First days were a walk around the agency, and then, here’s your desk, here’s your first brief.
Mike:
True.
Sasha:
I’m being a little bit crude about it, but there was nothing like, this is what we believe, this is how we do things. Was your experience, in agencies specifically, similar?
Mike:
It was. My first exposure to agencies was in the late 90s when I briefly worked for Ogilvy. When I walked in, I was all starry eyed about advertising. The agencies of the 90s had a culture of, well, afternoons in the pubs, but also of creativity, long hours, and it was all about the work. So, I walked into this energy, but I got given a desk and it was pretty much, here you go, no role description. The energy of the office was the engine room for that culture.
Sasha:
It's interesting because culture happens, one way or another. It can happen while no one’s watching, or it can be very deliberately nurtured. What you’re describing, when you talk about wanting to do the best work, and wanting to have fun, I guess that is kinda values-based culture. Then you had a lot of experience at established international companies that were very culture conscious. So when it came to starting your own agency, how deliberate were you – and how were you deliberate – about building a particular kind of culture?
Mike:
I was very deliberate. You know, Diageo went through five evolutions, five name changes, but the heart and soul of it was still the people, the products and the marketing. Then with Levi’s I realised how powerful pronounced, formal cultural programmes were. By that I mean we did have formal induction programmes. Like onboarding: you spent at least a month meeting people, working in the factory, working in a store. So the culmination of that experience made me say, okay I’m going to start an agency, what do I do? I wanted to recruit people and clients into an environment where a strong culture was evident from day one. Which is pretty difficult for a start-up. I rented offices that had a bit of a Rock ‘n Roll feel. We had music posters on the walls, it was very Rolling Stone. And the BrandsRock mission was very simple: “Every brand has a soundtrack. We find it, and play it really loud.” That was always a good conversation starter. I encouraged everyone who joined to be part of the creative process. Instead of a typical linear agency creative process, we had a collective, collaborative process, because the development of great ideas works best where people feel they can contribute to that. People who joined were onboarded through a proper, three-day process. And that culture was a key part of the success.
Sasha:
What you’re saying makes me think how there’s no one way to do culture. What you’re describing is part values, part strategy, part operations. I sometimes get the impression that, even though more companies are more culture-conscious now than they were, and even though there is no one way, they don’t always know how to “do” culture.
Mike:
No, that’s true. In the 80s, 90s, there was a pronounced global shareholder value culture. That has changed. But creating a strong culture remains a challenge. I say to founders, you’ve got a great product, you’ve got a market, that’s a given. But if you build a brand with culture as the glue, from day one, it’s going to serve you very well. You know, every year Deloitte brings out a global human capital trends survey. They interview over 30,000 people, about a third is C-suite, and a recent survey said that culture issues have become the number one challenge that business leaders face. In the same survey, CEOs also acknowledged that while it is the biggest challenge, it’s the most difficult to solve. So if you get culture right, it could and should be a competitive advantage. Case in point was my last agency experience at Saatchi. We pitched against FCB and Ogilvy. FCB won it. The client said, Mike, the marketing team felt – it felt, and there’s the operative word – more like their kind of agency. They chose FCB because of their “It Factor”. That’s nothing else but culture.
Sasha:
So, let’s think about a continuum. You’ve got some companies who’re very conscious about culture, they know how important it is, and they are very good at building a healthy culture. Then there’s a lot, maybe a majority, who know it matters but they’re not sure how to do it, they’re getting some things right but maybe not as much as they could. And then at the other end you’ve got “doubters”, who want it to be proven. If we think about the left-brained types in what is always part of a company’s management – sometimes a disproportionately influential part of a company’s management – they want to see numbers. They want proof.
Mike:
To bring across the rand or balance sheet value of culture is difficult and complex – though there is research and science that is able to prove some of it. But there’s a great quote from the film, Field of Dreams, which is: “If you build it, they will come.” I often say to people, trust me: if you focus on culture, you will see the benefit. And I’ve had clients who’ve said, I will go with this, and when they see the results they go, wow, look at this! Quite often, being the doubting Thomases that we are, we’re looking for logical reasons why things are better. Well, when people have a common purpose, that’s well defined, they feel emotionally more connected to that purpose and the values of that business. They find that some of their personal values are aligned with those of the business. 20, 30 years ago, how many companies actually stated what their values are, what they stand for? The shareholder culture was very much about, you’re working here to maximise their value, shareholder value. Why should that matter to me? It’s a salary, I’ll take the salary, but I’m not really invested. So, you work a little less. You’re not as productive and you don’t give it your all, which means that extra five or ten percent will never be achieved.
Sasha:
In a way, you’re speaking to a different kind of proof. Not quantitative, but perhaps anecdotal, which says, I’ve seen how a good culture benefits a company and I’ve also seen how a poor culture harms a company. What are your observations of good cultures and how they’ve impacted businesses’ success?
Mike:
For me the benchmark is still Levi’s. The Levi’s website still dedicates a big part of the history and providence to Levi Strauss. In the 60s, they’d been vehemently in favour of equality, civil rights. They were the first company to acknowledge publicly that HIV was a problem and to call out the stigma that HIV was a ‘gay man’s curse’. They came out against Trump. They recently made a public statement that they don’t agree with the Supreme Court’s opinion on abortion. So there’s an example of a company who says something and does what it says. Are they profitable? Absolutely.
Sasha:
What you’re alluding to is a culture built on shared values. Some people like fishing, some like knitting, but what are the things that bind those people together? It’s common values. Culture is always directed by people, and specifically the most influential ones. But it can’t just be driven by one or two people, can it? It has to be about shared and agreed values, goals and ideas.
Mike:
Agreed. Take Steve Jobs. He was the genesis of the Apple culture. But he realised that if something happened to him, the Apple brand should stand on its own legs. On the other hand, Amancio Ortega, who started Zara, is famously PR-shy. Today the company he founded is the biggest fashion business in the world. So you also have companies where the leaders are in the shadows.
Sasha:
In both those examples, clearly there are very strong, fundamental beliefs that outlasted the founders. Beliefs around a worldview, about what we think is right, how we want to be, how we want to run our business. Obviously personality comes into it. But if it’s just personality, then it becomes a cult.
Mike:
Culture can’t be a cult. It should be a bit Goldilocks: not too hot, not too cold, but just right. And when it is, you invariably find that more people live it. A really great culture is knowing what to do when no one’s there to tell you, or to see you doing it. You just do it instinctively because it’s the right thing to do.
Sasha:
But how do you actually get there? It doesn’t happen magically.
Mike:
It doesn’t. Invariably, it’s around leadership who recognises that culture is a challenge or culture can be improved. Once it’s recognised, it’s a combination of behaviour change and applying some specific transformational tools or getting professional outside help. I encourage the latter. It’s very difficult to do it from the inside alone. Then, changing culture must be a process of frequent and consistent messaging, where leaders are visibly showing that they are prepared to change. By the way, another bit of supporting research… in the S&P500, in 1975, only 17% of the total market cap was intangible assets. The rest was tangible – bricks and mortar, factories, inventory. In 2020, 90% of the entire market cap was made up of intangible assets. Brands, patents, culture, people.
Sasha:
Intangible is such a fitting word, because you can certainly build and nurture culture, but there is always something intangible about it. When it comes to purpose – which is very much a part of culture and intertwined with culture – purpose has to be tangible and explicit. We said that culture happens one way or another, whether you’re deliberate or not. But purpose, if you’re not deliberate about it, it doesn’t exist.
Mike:
Right.
Sasha:
To go back to agencies specifically, it seems quite hard for agencies to find a purpose, doesn’t it? Do you think that’s a fair assessment? I guess an agency could say our purpose is to do great work, and that’s valid. But if it’s about making a positive difference in the world, it’s hard.
Mike:
Yes, because of the nature of what they do. I think a lot of service businesses have that challenge – lawyers, auditors and so on. You essentially have to provide a service. But can an auditing firm have a purpose? Yes. It’s important, if not to clients, then to people who work there. If I want to attract great people it’s about more than just salary. It’s been proven time and time again – people don’t work just for a salary. It’s the challenge and stimulation and the culture, purpose, values of the company I’m joining. My social status is enhanced or taxed by who I work with. Working for tobacco companies, for example, it’s hard.
Sasha:
I sometimes think about plumbers. People get into plumbing because they want to learn a trade to make a living. Actually, plumbing is a very important job; it’s about health and sanitation. But even if a purpose is not fundamental to the work you do, you can still contribute to the greater good. Business can be a conduit for that.
Mike:
And from a business point of view, it should be. Research is saying that people want to, or will only, buy from companies that have a purpose. So companies are forced to look at themselves and say, who are we? Why do we exist? You can’t afford to not have some reason for being. Customers seek that out, or they’ll go next door. So purpose doesn’t stand on its own. It’s one of a few crucial building blocks of a company’s success. I believe that strategy is the bridge between purpose and performance. That bridge of decisions, to get from purpose to performance, is made stronger or weaker by culture and the soft stuff.
Sasha:
The end result is, obviously, you want profit. But purpose is the starting point. Everything a company does should be an expression of that purpose, should serve that purpose. Including marketing. In that context, for companies and brands that are purpose-driven, do you see purpose coming through in their marketing? Or do you see marketing still being quite separate from purpose?
Mike:
I’m seeing it coming through increasingly, where purpose is more publicly visible. It’s on websites, which are a lighthouse for purpose and culture. I’m seeing it in pitch decks. In more CEOs who are walking advocates for purpose.
Sasha:
When I had purpose conversations maybe five years ago, it felt quite fringe. Now it feels mainstream. There’s a groundswell. Any final thoughts on the future of purpose and culture?
Mike:
Purpose and culture will definitely make business more relevant. We’ve been through world wars, massive global changes. I believe purpose and culture will become that part of business that holds humanity together.