Ogilvy Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy

Ogilvy

Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide

What is Beers trying to accomplish as CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide?

When Charlotte Beers first assumed the reigns of power, the new CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide wished to resurrect the reputation of the once-respected agency. Beers desired to create a new outlook for the advertising agency so it could become truly functional as a global organization in terms of its strategic outreach. Ogilvy & Mather must not be worldwide merely in name, but in reputation and attitude as well. The best way to accomplish this, the CEO believed, was to unify the agency under one common, singular vision statement.

In Beers' view, the advertising agency had developed a tarnished and musty association in the minds of most of its potential clients. The agency had once prided itself on its upscale and classy image. Ogilvy was lost in the changing advertising climate of the 1990s. The company had become stogy in its organizational atmosphere as well as the ways that it served its clients. To be seen as anything less than cutting-edge is fatal in the peripatetic advertising industry.

Essentially, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide's strength had historically been having what might be called a "strength perspective" in its organizational culture. It had always had a strong sense of its organizational culture as a way of creating goal alignment, motivation, and this strong sense of culture provided the needed structure and controls to improve its organizational performance. Beers believed that Ogilvy & Mather had to adapt to a new competitive environmental reality in the industry, and that its previous, comfortable ethos was no longer tenable. She believed a strong image was necessary for the new Ogilvy, but felt that this strong image had to fit in with the new competitive reality of the global marketplace.

What is your assessment of the vision?

Beer's new vision for Ogilvy & Mather can be summed up in the words: Brand Stewardship. If Ogilvy's image was tarnished in the advertising industry, it must be resurrected from the top down -- the company had to be re-branded, just as if it were a product. This was a controversial at the time. Firstly, Ogilvy had traditionally been managed in a fairly loose fashion, with low hierarchical control as is typical of advertising agencies. Advertising agencies have many different divisions managing multiple accounts and thus often have little sense of singular control and stewardship under the helm of one leader or idea. Also, the agency is often seen as serving and creating the client brand, rather than having a brand itself.

Beers and her team realized that to succeed in an expanding it was essential for the company to stand out against its competitors. Organizational vision with a global outlook had to replace the agency's reliance upon a successful dynamic within its internal organizational culture. Clients had to understand what Ogilvy could provide for their own brands, in a unique fashion, and to do this Ogilvy had to have a strong reputation or brand.

What is your assessment of the process Beers and her team went through to create the vision?

Although Beers' expansive vision statement was a seismic attitudinal change for the company, Beers deployed a fairly participative management style in achieving this vision. She was intent upon bringing many members of Ogilvy's senior executives into the debate, as she was still an outsider to the organization and thus did not wish to act in an entirely autocratic manner. By doing this, Beers focused on creating open chains of communication, to fully integrate the various divisions and members of the organizations, all of who played critical roles in aligning the different strategic objectives of the organization into the vision statement.

Essentially, in the new Ogilvy, communication had to be lateral, or across different parts of the organization, as lateral integration was a goal of its new unifying vision.

What are the challenges facing Beers at the end of the case?

When Beers came to Ogilvy and Mather, she was the first individual hired from outside of the agency to such a high level of leadership. She was also a female in a still largely male-dominated industry. The insider culture of Ogilvy was quite resistant to any outsider, and the clubby, male ethos at the agency was a further obstacle in establishing control over the agency. Resistance, even after establishing a successful general vision statement, remained difficult to overcome.