On Thursday evening, June 19, I had the privilege of
presenting ideas for 'building new strategies for creative excellence' at the Cannes
Lions International Festival of Creativity. The session grew out of a
White Paper with the same title co-authored with my Berlin School of Creative
Leadership colleague, Professor Paul Verdin. Guiding both session and paper were a series of contrasts drawn between the strategic thinking of Harvard Professor Michael Porter and the strategy Paul and I identified in the words and work of advertising legend Chuck Porter. (The full paper is
downloadable here.)
The Executive Summary reads:
Strategy is changing amidst volatile markets, disruptive
technologies, and transformed customer and public relationships. Contrasting
some of the major tenets of traditional strategic thinking, an analysis of the
work and words of Chuck Porter enables the mapping of several key principles of
a new strategy of creative excellence. These include 1) forming an
adaptive commitment to strategic intent and ongoing public engagement, 2)
fostering communities of participation as part of generating a wider cultural
conversation of creative work, 3) building trust through imaginative, often
offbeat and interactive storytelling, and 4) moving beyond competition to
highlight the value emerging through creative breakthroughs or
community-building.
The following images give a further sense of the contrast we draw between the 'Five Forces' model of industry competition that shape firm strategy of Michael Porter and the emergent Forces that enable value creation we associate with Chuck Porter.
