Advertising Age presented a podcast starring DDB North America CEO Wendy Clark and DDB North America Chief Creative Officer Ari Weiss. Full disclosure: MultiCultClassics didn’t bother listening, as Ad Age’s descriptor copy provided enough fodder to critique the DDB dynamic duo duet. Clark said, “If we’re going to have the right tension between the bottom line financially and creatively then we have to be side-by-side on these decisions. [Weiss] has to be as interested in the P&L and budget dialogue and discussions in what we do as I have to be on the creative agenda and the work.” Wow. Remember when the primary “tension” came from conflicts between left-brain thinkers and right-brain thinkers? Now it’s billable hours versus big ideas. Clark sounds like she ought to be the CFO, not the CEO. Responding to the recent rash of sexual harassment in the industry and society at large, Clark declared, “We’ve now seen the pervasiveness. Any of us can put up rhetoric. What are the actions you’re taking? What are you doing to demonstrably say this environment, this culture, will be better and intolerant of that?” Once again, Clark talks tough, and she can be expected to make eliminating sexual harassment her restless ambition for 2018. However, she’ll inevitably corroborate her own words—that is, Clark will show how she can “put up rhetoric” with the best of them.
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