The CMO Podcast: Nick Law (Accenture Song) | "The Marketing Industry Needs More Freaks"

Date: April 8, 2026
Host: Jim Stengel
Guest: Nick Law, Creative Chairperson of Accenture Song

Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging and candid conversation between Jim Stengel and Nick Law — a creative leader whose career spans roles at R/GA, Apple, Publicis, and now leading creative strategy and experience at Accenture Song. The heart of the episode is about creativity in the marketing industry, the evolving role of CMOs, adapting organizations to seismic technological shifts (including AI), and why embracing “freaks” — unique, nonconforming thinkers — is more vital than ever. Nick shares personal stories, strategic wisdom, and reflections on leadership, company culture, and how to build teams (and companies) that thrive during periods of change.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nick Law’s Early Influences and Creative Roots

• First Brand to Make an Impact:

  • The South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby team: quirky branding (rabbit logo, red and green stripes), stood out on 70s color TV.
    Quote: “Their logo is so weird and quirky... on a color tv, it would make your eyes hurt because the red and green would vibrate like bad Christmas lights.” (00:46, Nick Law)
  • Apple as an enduring inspiration: admiration started before the Jobs era, always owned Apple products.

• Creative Beginnings:

  • Non-traditional education: trade school entry based on a drawing test, not academic scores.
  • First job in a small design firm focused on branding; always had a knack for drawing and creativity.
    Quote: “I had a feral childhood... the only thing I achieved was playing really good rugby. I didn’t really have the option to go to university.” (40:00, Nick Law)

2. The Transformation and Culture of R/GA

• 17 Years at R/GA:
  • Describes it as a “perfect storm” professionally — moving through design, advertising, and early internet.
  • R/GA embraced the internet’s potential early, structuring their agency around evolving technology, rather than clinging to old models.
  • Principles over Practices:
    Quote: “Be really clear about what your principles are — and be very flexible about your practices.” (07:48, Nick Law)
  • Systematic vs. Narrative Creatives:
    • Cultivated respect for both systematic/introvert thinkers and expressive/narrative ones.
    • Great creative teams are anchored in shared principles, but adapt their methods to the times. Quote: “It’s a zero sum game if you decide to do one or the other. The real power was in the overlap between systems and stories.” (10:14, Nick Law)

3. Nick’s Leap to Apple and Accenture Song

• From Agency to Brand - and Back to Services:

  • Brief stint at Publicis, then joined Apple (a lifelong aspiration) — admired Apple’s blend of technology and design.
  • Parallels between R/GA and Apple: Both balance “science and humanities”/systems and storytelling.

• Joining Accenture Song:

  • Attributed largely to relationship with David Droga (Droga5 founder, now CEO of Accenture Song). Quote: “What I would say is that it is interesting because it’s different… it’s a different enough world that you feel like you’re learning all the time.” (13:36, Nick Law)
  • Exposure to vast diversity of client problems reignited his passion for service-side creativity.

4. Leadership Style — David Droga’s Influence

• Enabling Ambition:

  • Law admires David’s “boundless ambition” that lifts up everyone around him:
    Quote: “He starts from a place of good faith, which for a creative person gives you oxygen.” (15:26, Nick Law)
  • Humility and emotional intelligence are key to David’s success and to building truly creative cultures.

• Australian Openness:

  • Both share a direct, egalitarian leadership style. Quote: “He doesn’t really give a f*** about what other people think, but he cares about the work… he’s brave enough to keep insisting on it.” (17:33, Nick Law)

5. Accenture Song — The $20 Billion Enigma

• Embracing the “Enigma” Label:

  • “We’re an enigma because you’re trying to find comparable companies and your pattern recognition gets a little bit off because it’s unusual.” (20:35, Nick Law)
  • Lifts the curtain on harmonizing marketing, design, service, and commerce at scale for clients — the challenge is unifying data and experiences across massive organizational silos.

• Growth Lessons:

  • Creative people can run massively successful companies.
  • Growth requires risk and creativity, not just efficiency; companies too often become “operationally obsessed” and lose customer focus. Quote: “There’s no risk in efficiency… but you have to be a lot braver to think about how to grow.” (22:52, Nick Law)

6. The Evolving Role — and Crisis — of the CMO

• What CMOs Get Wrong Today:

  • Too much focus on operational and system architecture, not enough on expressing and clarifying what makes a brand compelling.
  • Warns about the loss of empathy and expressive capabilities in modern marketing leadership. Quote: “Your primary role is to understand the customer… and if that means having balance on your team, then do that.” (25:16, Nick Law)
  • Criticizes “the ridiculous tribal war between performance and brand” which leads to ineffective structures and culture. Quote: “Brand marketers make beautiful things no one sees, performance marketers make ugly things everyone sees.” (28:32, Nick Law)

• His Model:

  • Service should be personal, brands should be communal.
  • The real work of marketing is integrating systems (how things work) and stories (why people should care), starting in the misunderstood “middle” — the understanding layer of customer experience.

7. The Need for More “Freaks” in Marketing

• Diversity of Thought Is Key:

  • Supporting and protecting difficult or unconventional people (“freaks”) is vital for creative progress. Quote: “Some of the people who create the most value are the most difficult to manage… to expect everyone to be a good corporate citizen is to engineer a company that is really mediocre.” (32:02, Nick Law)

• Protecting Uniqueness:

  • Law says “bringing your whole self to work” can be at odds with corporate conformity — managers must learn to manage and protect peculiarity, not stifle it.

8. Creativity and the Age of AI

• What Matters in the AI World:

  • Agency, ambition, and taste are the new success factors for creative leaders in an AI-driven environment. Quote: “You’re basically solving for the how with these new tools, but only a human can solve for the why (ambition) and the what (taste).” (33:46, Nick Law)

• Can You Teach Ambition and Taste?

  • Ambition can be encouraged, but taste — like any skill — is built through exposure and disciplined cultivation, not innate genius. Quote: “Taste is a muscle… good creatives take a lifetime… there’s a Gladwellian 10,000 hours that go into becoming really good at this stuff, and it should be respected as such.” (35:01, Nick Law)
  • Warns against surrendering judgment to technology — especially as organizational design and the “art and copy” creative team model are outdated in the AI era.

9. Briefs, Brands & Career Reflection

• Most Impactful Work:

  • Nike+ (blending tech, music, and fitness) and Beats by Dre (combining product and storytelling, “game before the game” campaign). Quote: “We uniquely created great digital product and great storytelling for one brand.” (43:40, Nick Law)

• Most Influential Figures:

  • Early design boss (Oscar Wilde’s “Nothing succeeds like excess”), and Bob Greenberg of R/GA — taught importance of not clinging to one creative reputation or skill but always adapting to context and new technology. Quote: “You can't be creative without technology. To make something, you need a medium, and all mediums are a technology.” (45:56, Nick Law)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “The first act of a creative company is to design yourself.”
  (07:48 — Nick Law)

• “The systems thinkers and the storytellers have to work together, structurally, to create something new.”
  (09:00 — Nick Law)

• “People with creative backgrounds can run successful companies.”
  (22:52 — Nick Law)

• “If your job as CMO is to make your company interesting, then you have to have a theory of mind about your customer.”
  (25:16 — Nick Law)

• “Some of the people who create the most value are the most difficult to manage... to expect everyone to be a good corporate citizen is to engineer a company that is really mediocre.”
  (32:02 — Nick Law)

• “You’re basically solving for the how with these new tools, but only a human can solve for the why, which is your ambition, and the what, which is where taste comes in.”
  (33:46 — Nick Law)

• “Taste is a muscle... good creatives take a lifetime... and it should be respected as such.”
  (35:01 — Nick Law)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:46 — Childhood brand influences: South Sydney Rabbitohs, Apple
• 04:27 — Reflections on R/GA, agency transformation
• 07:48 — Principles vs. practices, organizational change
• 11:15 — Shifting from agency to Apple and Accenture
• 15:26 — Working with David Droga, leadership insights
• 18:33 — Assembling and managing creative teams at scale
• 20:35 — Accenture Song as an “enigma”
• 22:52 — Creativity and growth in business
• 24:38 – 28:32 — The crisis in CMO roles: brand vs. performance
• 32:02 — “The industry needs more freaks”
• 33:46 — “Agency, ambition, and taste” in the age of AI
• 36:59 — Why marketing org design still lags behind technology
• 40:00 — Nick’s trade school background
• 43:40 — Most meaningful work: Nike+, Beats by Dre
• 45:56 — Influence of mentors, importance of technology in creativity

Tone and Language

The conversation is reflective, direct, and shot through with creative candor (often with humor and frankness). Nick’s language is accessible but sharp-edged, using analogies and personal anecdotes to illustrate big ideas. Both host and guest share an energetic, genuine rapport.

Summary Takeaways

• Creative companies must constantly redesign themselves around new realities, not just add-on slides to old decks.
• Principles are an organization’s true anchor; practices can and must change.
• CMOs are losing their customer empathy and expressive power by becoming too operational; balance must be restored.
• Innovation requires “freaks”: companies must both recruit and protect unconventional thinkers.
• In the AI era, agency, ambition, and taste — cultivated through experience and encouragement — are essential distinguishing traits.
• Growth and cohesion rely on integrating both the systematic and narrative aspects of creativity.
• Adaptation, open leadership, and perpetual curiosity are the foundations for success in modern marketing.

This richly textured episode is essential listening for marketing leaders, creatives, and anyone interested in how organizations can stay relevant, brave, and human in a time of relentless technological and cultural change.