Chobani CMO: 90% of creative done in-house
Chobani’s first chief marketing officer Peter McGuiness says CMOs are usually in the firing line when sales tail off, but suggests that’s often as a result of management trying to save their own skins. Changing the guard can be tempting, but the resulting upheaval often means “suddenly the brand is in chaos” (AdAge).
Key points:
- McGuinness is former president and CEO of DDB Chicago following a long run at McCann
- Switch from agency to client-side is “over dramatised”
- Chobani now in-houses 90% of its creative work
- Long-term “Achilles heel of in-housing” is that without outside perspective, you risk “becoming less culturally relative”
- CMOs “should be celebrated more when sales are going well and picked on less” when sales tail off
- Replacing CMO means “reinventing or rejuvenating the brand … and suddenly it is in chaos and that’s not healthy”
- Agencies should “take themselves less seriously and know more about the client's business”
If you want more on brands taking stands and how agencies annoy marketers, this is the podcast for you. McGuinness’s in-house creative team is winning awards for its work, yet he admits in-housing brings with it a risk of cultural myopia, and suggests that Chobani will “probably use [agencies] more in a year or two” to ensure it is not just drinking its own Kool Aid.
His take on the shortcomings of agencies may be blunt – but provides honest insight to those on the other side of the table: “We can be annoying - I was frickin annoying. We don’t shut up. We know it all. We don’t get to the point. We think the CMO cares about this shit. It’s nothing personal, we just have other stuff to do.”
Yet for all that, McGuinness says talk of the agency model being broken is overblown. “Should they continue to evolve? Yes. Should they know more about client’s business? Yes. Should they take themselves less seriously? Yes. But agencies will be around forever.”
