← Adtech Unfiltered
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- [00:07]
A
Hey, this is Noor Naseer for attec Unfiltered. Bringing innovation to an agency can mean a lot of different things in a world so committed to embracing what's new and next for clients. To discuss the topic, I'm joined by Savannah Westbrock, who until very recently was the VP of Innovation and Research at Digital First Marketing and innovation agency Kawagi Partners and just joined Radar analytics as the head of Agency Solutions. We get into what innovation really means inside an agency. Not just shiny new tools, but the incremental and even subtractive changes that can make work better for teams and clients. From Desire Paths to AI Powered Creative testing, Savannah shares how agencies can move beyond hype and build meaningful human centered progress. Let's get into it now.
- [00:50]
B
Savannah, thank you for joining me.
- [00:53]
C
Very thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [00:55]
B
Of all the people that I've ever encountered, professional, professionally, no one has a title that more closely resembles my own. Mine is VP of Media, Innovations and Technology and yours is VP of Innovations and Research. So as we dive into the cross section of innovation, advertising and agency life, can you give me the high level, the 32nd spiel of what it is that you do at your job and what it has to do with innovation?
- [01:24]
C
Well, and I think that's why it's been so lovely to get to know you. Because innovation is one of those words that depending on who you're speaking with, they may define it 40 different ways. But for media agencies specifically, we really focus on keeping our heads up, monitoring the landscape, being that sort of bridge to not only our clients, but also our internal teams as to what is going on, what changes are coming down in the next 12, 18 months and responding to that, forming an agency point of view, forming recommendations for our teams for our clients, and then wearing whatever hats we need to wear to keep our agency competitive, keep our clients happy as well.
- [02:02]
B
When you think of the word innovation, and you just said it yourself, innovation can mean so many different things. And you shared a little bit about how it coincides with your role. How do you define innovation in the context of bringing it to your agency?
- [02:18]
C
Yeah, well, I think agency work is so dynamic that you have to have a dynamic definition. So for us to truly just keep our heads on straight, we break it down into three pillars. So we've got additive innovation, which is what I think most people think of. It's bringing something new, approaching a problem with some sort of new solution. But we also really take a look at both incremental and subtractive innovation. So where do we just need to refine processes or where do we need to remove barriers so that whatever we're pushing, whatever type of change it is, we can feel really confident that we're doing it in a way that's going to help our people and keep the people really top of mind.
- [02:56]
B
So a follow up to that. What signals do you look for in market within your agency when it's time to rethink a process or approach?
- [03:05]
C
It really varies, but in general we like to look for just human centric analogies. So one that I come back to all the time. Do you know what desire paths are?
- [03:15]
B
I don't know.
- [03:17]
C
So you'll see them all the time. When you're walking around parks or maybe university campuses, it's where people have literally cut the corners. Say a sidewalk comes to a point, a 90 degree angle, and there's a shorter distance between point A to point B. So you'll literally see like the grass eroded where people have cut the corner. And that's called a desire path. So for us, when we're looking at what signals may be something trendy or something hype cycle versus what's truly going to help our people, we try to look at what desire paths are our clients asking for. Like what are our people doing in the day to day life that maybe doesn't fit the planned process we've laid out for them or the expected change that we thought they would take? Where can we work with people and make their lives easier, make their work more efficient, increase our performance without having to just force arbitrary change, or try to push change for the sake of doing something differently?
- [04:15]
B
I love that. I love that analogy too. It's a beautiful way to keep an eye out for those signals. What processes do you have in place to ensure innovations actually solve client problems rather than you're just out there searching for hype that looks like innovation?
- [04:31]
C
Yeah, well, you have to build in that feedback loop. You have to be really intentional in your planning. So whenever we're doing something different, we'll approach it with sort of a pilot program mentality. We will map out as many different scenarios as we can anticipate and then check in with our clients throughout. Maybe we'll have one brave client who's raised their hand and said, I recognize this is new, I recognize it's different. I'm willing to be your guinea pig. We love working with those types of clients because then we can truly just build in those checkpoints, try to get as many green lights along the way as we can, and Then that allows us to quickly pivot and shift gears if we recognize that something isn't working within the mold that we expected it to.
- [05:13]
B
How do you assess the temperament of a client who says they want innovation versus the one who's actually going to take it on? And when you're having that dialogue with them, they're ready to put in the work.
- [05:26]
C
It's such a common challenge. And again, it goes back to that definition of innovation. Sometimes clients will claim that they want something different and new and then they realize that when the rubber hits the road, it's a little bit harder to push that change or to adapt their processes. But when we're working with our own agency leads, our client teams, the people who are able to suss out that temperament and say, hey, we have a client who has responded really positively to those smaller, more incremental innovation changes. Usually those are our first candidates to say, hey, we're prototyping a new product. Would you guys like to have a little bit of that added value? That never hurts, but say, hey, let's go in this together, let's just hold hands, let's do what we can.
- [06:09]
B
That's a good example, is if they've tried something before, do you ever have to ask questions about their history and experimentation with it? If you don't have existing experience and you do have somebody who's coming to the table saying they want to try something new and you really need to steer them in the right direction if the potential of the innovation is going to be substantive, and I mean substantive in terms of substantial, like it's, it's a big ask. Right? Sometimes innovation requires a lot of legwork and a lengthy road ahead. So what do those conversations look like before you, you know, you get too far down a pathway that actually you probably shouldn't have gone down?
- [06:46]
C
Well, for me, that's one of the most fun parts about working in innovation at an agency, specifically because you go back to that agency fundamental of just relationship building. If you get to know your clients really personally and you form those years long relationships, you're going to have that trust built in to where they are going to be a little bit more willing to, let's say, carve out a specific piece of their media budget to try something new or maybe just to allow you to work with their data in new and unique ways. Especially as we look into automation and what AI can bring to the table, it's very often the challenge of, well, we want to be cognizant and good stewards of our Clients, data, Where can we build these programs? Where can we maybe work with a technologist on their side who has absolutely nothing to do with their media budget, but is just excited to work together with another team that's trying to increase the business goals? Right. Meet those business goals, have stronger performance.
- [07:43]
B
You mentioned being a good steward, and obviously that's at the core of what every agency wants to deliver on and the role they want to fulfill. I want to ask you about validation. What type of testing and validation work do you need to do before you're bringing an innovative offering to your clients?
- [08:00]
C
That is often where my own marketing team is my best friend. So we can say, hey, if we're doing something for Coegi as an agency, how do we work together to see if we can maybe test something that's truly in that ideation phase? That's that new idea. So, for example, you know, one of the big trends now is looking at the difference between search engine optimization and how we're going to begin to optimize for answer engines or for gen AI. About two years ago, we worked hand in hand with our marketing team to build content that we in theory thought would work really nicely with this new paradigm that we're in. And we started seeing it. Our name begins to pop up when agency leaders, other brand leaders, managers are looking for digital agencies. All of that work that we did, just in theory, to be more content centric and to optimize how we were writing and putting out our content to be a little bit more friendly to those answer engines we started to see. So now we have a playbook. And we can go to clients who are going to hesitate a little bit for something new, new, new, because they don't have a case study or they don't have benchmarks. And we can say, well, we were our own case study, essentially, here's our playbook, here's the path.
- [09:17]
B
So I think there's this underlying thread in some of the questions that I'm asking, where you built something, you being the agency, and then you bring it to the clients and propose it. But how often is co creation a part of the plan where you're building something together before it's actually something that's activated for the client?
- [09:36]
C
Yeah, well, we support brands at every really stage of their journey too. So very often we're working with really small teams. So if it's a marketing team at a brand that's only three or four people, sometimes they have a brilliant idea, but they need that partnership to just be the extra resources, whether it's from a technology perspective or just having more hands paying attention to one problem and trying something new together. We love supporting that and working with those clients because then when we see that growth, it just strengthens the philosophy that we have. And again, we can take those Playbooks to as many different new clients as we need to.
- [10:13]
B
Yeah, I love that. So we've been talking about Playbooks a little bit. I want to pull from a similar lever and talk about frameworks and processes which inevitably have to be central to a lot of the work you do. You want to bring innovation to all different types of clients of all different sizes and scopes, and openness to innovation that also demands that there are frameworks in place to help you solve different types of problems. So I want to talk about bringing it to advertising and ad tech if you want to make sure that an ad is really going to resonate, assuming that this is an innovation process that has to do with ads. And as that resonates. And what is an example of a process or framework you need to bring to the table so that you can solve for that unique challenge?
- [10:58]
C
Well, and that's a really personal problem for us because over the years as a digital first agency, we've never really done any of our own creative, but like I said, we're supporting a lot of brand teams that are maybe building things in house. So previously we've had to be really reliant on the tech giants, so to speak, and their sort of fundamental marketing things like AB testing, but using their technology now with all of the advances we've made in the past few years with our AI discipline, we can take those reins a little bit ourselves. We can have more of that independent approach to that testing. If we want to know if something resonates. We no longer have to wait six to eight weeks for, let's say a brand lift study or an app recall study to come back to us. We can train our own AI to test the creative beforehand. We can almost AB test before we've even put media doll in any platform. And again, just have that conversation with the brand leads. The creative agencies we may be working with just get in that common language, have a sort of central Rosetta Stone with our own technology so that we can test and iterate more quickly and not have to be so dependent on those studies that maybe have boxed out smaller clients before too.
- [12:14]
B
What methods do you use to capture learnings from experiments and feed them back into your organization?
- [12:23]
C
Well, that's why we really prioritize celebrating our staff so Anytime someone has raised their hands and said, hey, I have a client who would be a perfect candidate for this test, or hey, I have my own idea and I just want to hand it off to you all to build those essential building blocks. Having some sort of internal employee incentivization program, I think is really key for that, because then it's not top down innovation, it's more grassroots. We're able to celebrate those wins, make it really authentic, and then those people will become advocates for that type of change as well.
- [12:55]
B
How do you prioritize which internal processes to actually innovate versus when you have to say, what we've got already, this is good enough?
- [13:03]
C
Well, honestly, that's where I go back to that desire path analogy. Because generally, if we've designed something, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, that comes right into play here. Because when people get busy, testing and learning tends to fall on the back burner. And agency life is rarely without its busyness. So if we see that there is a process we're trying to push, or maybe it's an established process that's just no longer serving people, human behavior is going to be the indicator that we need to revisit something. So sometimes you do work in that good enough framework, and maybe that's something where we can set those intentional goals to kind of push a little bit of incremental change, a little bit of improvement down the line. But generally what we're really prioritizing is just how do we make people's lives easier? So if they're actively not doing something, if they're walking their own path, that's generally a sign that we need to put our egos aside and say, okay, what do our people actually need to do their jobs more effectively?
- [14:05]
B
I'm going to shift our chat into some talking points around organizational change and change management. So much of what we've talked about has also focused on what you and people who are focused on innovative work can do for your end client. But there's a lot of other people who are impacted in association with your agency to make that actually all come into existence. So how do you handle resistance to change when your agency is trying to introduce new ways to work that you're proposing, but somebody else is activating?
- [14:39]
C
So generally resistance is going to come from a really human place of I don't have time to learn something new or I don't want to revisit this process. It's working good enough. Generally speaking, if we can find those really strong test opportunities or those client opportunities where we need to refresh a relationship, bring them something new, have something to celebrate at the end of the day, finding that way to incentivize people to see. Yes, we're going to have some temporary discomfort while we push through some changes, but at the end of the day, you're going to see the results and you are going to get the credit for it. My team really never needs the credit. We're very happy to just be the fingerprints along the path to change. We want to make sure it's our clients and our teams that are really feeling celebrated and really seeing the impacts in their own day to day.
- [15:29]
B
Once a plan is in motion, like we've come to terms of agreement, we've decided we're going to move forward. At what point in the process do you start to assess and say, okay, the innovation we brought to the table is in fact effectively happening in the way that we intended. What does that evaluation process look like?
- [15:47]
C
Well, generally we should have planned some sort of goalpost in the very beginning. We're big fans of that classic okr, those objectives and key results planning style. But we also want to make sure that we've built in some more qualitative goals along the way as well. So that we're not just talking about adoption rates or ROI or margin, but we're also talking about, hey, our client has called me three times this week. Compared to the radio silence we used to get, hey, this relationship is getting better. Hey, we want to submit for an award together as an agency and a client. Those small indicators along the way are things that we also document so that we know okay, not only are we hitting the numbers we wanted to hit, but we're also seeing the actual relationship building effect.
- [16:32]
B
Want to ask you something? That's double clicking further into the intersection between where innovation is, where the agency is at, and then also maybe a little bit of ad tech talk. Many agencies are using a lot of the same platforms and tools. From your perspective, what really separates agencies that are merely using ad tech versus the ones that are actually innovating with it?
- [16:56]
C
Ooh, that one is fun. Because I have more of a spicy answer. In my day to day life, I like to challenge the norms that you see. So yes, maybe we're all using the same tools, but are you just sort of following the best practices, following the guidance that's written into those tools, websites or their FAQs, and not trying to put your own spin on it? What we really want to see is some sort of independent critique of what those norms may be and then trying to find opportunities to zig and zag, essentially. Like, let's meet the best practices. Yes. But let's also build in some of our own experiments that maybe the metas are the Googles of the world wouldn't want us to be experimenting with.
- [17:39]
B
How often do you find that is actually occurring? I do think there's this presumption that if it's from the Facebooks and the metas of the world that they're going to have something that's state of the art, that it's turnkey. How often are you able to bring something to the table that is comparatively really adding more value and the client is really impressed and they can see that what you offer is really truly distinguished from maybe what some of these other ad tech players are bringing to the table?
- [18:04]
C
Well, that's where the value of the agency comes in. When you've built that relationship, you have that trust. You're not taking the sort of set it and forget it approach to your campaigns and you're not just throwing the keys fully over to the ad tech, having those conversations and sometimes educating our own clients as well, whether they're brands or agency people. On yes, you know, they claim that this is going to be, you know, an easy button, essentially. Maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't. But here are the four or five ideas we would like to just carve out little test budgets to experiment with and we can always quickly pivot if we're not seeing the results that we expected to.
- [18:42]
B
What is the ongoing evaluation process for you? I know we talked about signals at the top of this conversation, but when you are looking at actual ad tech and there is variation, but there's also a lot of similarity out there, how do you divert from the sea of sameness and truly identify technology that is going to bring something new to your growth, but also to your clients and the success they're seeking to achieve?
- [19:07]
C
Well, that's where I think you have to broaden your horizons a little bit, maybe tap into some of that journalism background that a lot of people at our agency originally had. Take a look at what's going on not just in technology, but also in university labs. Right? Like what innovation is coming from academia that maybe we haven't seen be turned into a business just yet, but we can expect to see in the next three to five years. Where can we start planting those seeds now? Similarly, maybe where can we work with startups? Like if someone's just got a really strong Series A, Series B. If we have a good client fit, if it's a good tech fit, if it fits with our agency's mission and values, maybe we test a pilot with them as well. Whether it's with our own marketing or with one of those brave clients that is truly hungry for change and innovation. A lot of challenger brands will raise their hands for stuff like that. So it's an exciting world to play in.
- [20:01]
B
As we're moving into the next couple of years and we're anticipating so much change. I know we didn't specifically delve into the future of automation and AI, but there is going to be dramatic seismic change. What are the expectations that you are setting with clients so that they can be brought along on a journey that's going to require them to accelerate the pace with which they're working on new opportunities? What, what is that looking like for you today to get people to the right place in a very short future?
- [20:31]
C
Well, and that's where we go back to those innovation pillars again. So a lot of people are looking at AI as a totally additive thing. It's new to them. Whether it's machine learning that maybe they previously haven't tapped into in the past 10 years, or if it's true Gen AI or Agentix solutions, they primarily look at it through that additive lens. It's our team's job to prepare them for success by pulling in more of that incremental step, pulling in more of that subtractive step, because automation is only going to be as strong as your existing processes and inputs. Maybe the technology isn't fully 100% there today, but that doesn't mean we can't be reevaluating our current approaches using those other two innovative lenses to help prepare clients along the way. Again, with subtractive innovation. Okay, what are our processes that are maybe a little bit out of date? Do we have any of those sort of legacy activities that we're doing just because everyone's comfortable with them? What would it look like today with the tech that we have to start tweaking that a little bit and then when the tech is in a truly autonomous state, we'll be that much stronger, they'll be that much faster.
- [21:36]
B
Well, I love the sophistication that Koegi is bringing to consider innovation and really the processes around it too. So I'm anticipating a lot of fast moving change and we'll just have to continue the conversation as this evolution continues.
- [21:50]
C
We're all in this together, we're all doing our best every day.
- [21:53]
B
Well, thanks. Thanks for the time.
- [21:54]
C
Thanks Norm.
- [21:55]
A
Thanks to Savannah Westbrock, head of Agency Solutions at Radar analytics, for sharing such thoughtful perspective on what crafting innovation can
- [22:02]
B
look like at agencies today.
- [22:03]
A
From building trust with clients to creating feedback feedback loops to challenging the set it and forget it mindset of some technologies, I love the reminder that real innovation isn't always additive. Sometimes it's about refining, removing barriers, and listening closely to the paths people naturally take. If you enjoyed this conversation, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the episode with someone who might enjoy it. Until next time, I'm Noor Nasir for Adtech Unfiltered. Another episode out real soon.