Meet Simon Mulcahy. He is Director of Strategy at Salesforce. On the face of it, he's pretty unassuming. A sports jacket and slacks kind of guy. But rip those off him (sorry Simon) and you may just reveal the saviour of the ad industry. How do I know? Well, the Interactive Mission just spent lunch with a Superhero.
We have met with some awesome (well we are in California) companies over the last two days but you know they are secretly pretty scary. The Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters et al that are all frighteningly successful. And they are going to continue to be successful with or without Agencies. Ultimately they are after our clients' money and to coin the phrase they absolutely will not stop ever, until you are dead.
Which brings us back to Clark Kent, sorry Simon Mulcahy. He is reaching out to Agencies. He's begging for it. He wants to play with us, not play with us if you follow. This is because he wants our help. And it is not so that he can pinch our clients' wallets but because his company Salesforce has landed a compelling concept called the Social Enterprise. However, bland their tag line and dodgy the logo it kinda captures it - the Social Enterprise connects to employees and customers like never before.
Simon has the Platform and Tools. Simon has the Scrum and the Agile methodologies to make things happen. But Simon is looking for the Vision thing, the Strategy thing, the Idea thing, the Experience Design thing. And he see this as the domain of Agencies. Simon is so sweet.
So this then is the start of a potentially beautiful relationship. Forgive the horrible management speak but Agencies can and should be all about doing the right thing and Salesforce is about doing that thing right.
And together the geeky guy (Simon) and the sexy chick (Agencies) give birth to a genius little offspring named Value.
And so rather than getting in an ugly fight with some 800lb gorillas for the few remaining $$$ that our clients have left, we create Value. And Value goes and transforms relationships between clients and their bands and the people and their customers and their consumers.
And it all ends happily ever after.
And it is based on a true story.
Here what other IPA delegates think about the Interactive Mission at