EVP Brand Strategy
Sydney native Mark Pollard has a clear view on what it takes for brands to be successful in today’s complex marketing world. As EVP of Brand Strategy for digital agency Big Spaceship, Mark believes in combining ideas and approaches that already exist in unexpected and useful ways. True to the ethos of Big Spaceship-- an agency that doesn’t have a creative department, but insists that everyone has ideas and everyone has a voice-- he says, “Creativity is a mash-up of things that don't belong together. And innovation is as simple as having uncommon ideas that are informed by human behavior and business needs; these ideas improve things for humans, while the businesses funds them.”
He adds, “Growing up digital, but working in some conventional environments, meant that I was always looking at things through at least two lenses. This led me to uncommon ways of approaching client challenges.”
Mark Pollard certainly grew up digital. He built his first website in 1997 and spent much of his 20′s as a producer doing user experience, digital and content strategy, and project management at agencies like TribalDDB and Ogilvy. He then developed his brand planning credentials at Leo Burnett and has tried to bring the worlds of digital and direct marketing together with brand thinking ever since.
He created the first full color hip hop magazine in the Southern Hemisphere, featured in the AdNews Top 40 under 40, and won a Gold Account Planning Group (APG) award for his McDonald’s ‘NameIt Burger’ strategy and is listed as one of Sydney’s Top 100 Creative Catalysts. He joined Big Spaceship from Saatchi & Saatchi NY where he was Director of Planning Innovation.
Yet Mark is also a realist who believes that “continual improvement” should be a key focus of digital projects. He adds, “The moment something becomes undone by the world or by the client, the larger incremental shifts happen.”
He sees precedent and culture as the two main challenges to innovation today. “Precedent can be useful to show people that others have taken risks, but it can also be challenging because the client culture is often risk-averse. Many companies find it difficult to talk honestly about themselves and also about their customers. This can lead to a strange ‘forced optimism’ world in which nothing is broken, where it becomes difficult to get to real human insights– rich insights that lead to interesting ideas. At Big Spaceship, the team and I have worked to develop the unique ability to innovate inside and out-- both for ourselves and for our clients.”
Much of Mark’s current focus has been on helping his colleagues at Big Spaceship get to great ideas faster. He talks about a new approach called M.I.C.E. “It stands for Map, Imagine, Commit, Execute – and, it’s all about staying small.” He explains, “The mapping part is innovative; rather than looking for reams of research, we focus on a handful of artifacts and visual codes that help us understand human and business behaviors. We’ve also asked teams to establish a moral code for each project, to explain their SMIT (the Single Most Important Thing) they want to achieve individually or as a team. We’ve started company meetings with a quick game of charades. We’ve done small-group meditations. These are all mini innovations that create and communicate key principles of the agency.”