During my interview process at Sapient, I learnt about ‘the power of one’. It was something that would set our group apart. But so far, the idea of having sister agencies coming together to solve a complex client problem was just only that, an idea.
During Innovation Day 2022 I had the opportunity not only to experience the magic that the Publicis Groupe brings to our clients when we work together, but to be an active participant tackling a complex problem.
But I think I’m getting ahead of myself.
Couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have joined Innovation Day, the flagship event created 10 years ago by Salterbaxter, a mission-driven creative consultancy at the service of sustainability.For the big day, we had colleagues from several Publicis agencies come together to help multiple social enterprises with challenges ranging from branding, to customer acquisition & retention, to best in class communication channels.
These amazing group of social entrepreneurs we were working with, are also funded by UnLtd a charity whose mission is to reach out and unleash the energies of people who can transform the world in which they live.
The day of the event – the first in-person event for many of us after COVID – we could feel the excitement in the air. We all gathered in Publicis Sapient’s Gallery and were eager to get to work with our chosen charities. Overall, we had 11 social entrepreneurs and over 50 people from across the Groupe.
I had the opportunity of working with Black Leaders a charity that aims to become a motivating power in reducing healthcare inequalities for Black and other minority ethnic groups. My group was formed of sustainability consultants, branding experts, a frontend dev and me, a Sr Product Manager. Our ask was to work around expanding the customer base, improve acquisition and create an effective communication channel.
Our morning session was really powerful as we all worked our way through a ‘brand house’ exercise, in which we re-imagined the mission, belief, proposition, tension and character of the brand.
To me, it was amazing to see the power of a very diverse group of people discussing ‘what would the obituary of the brand say’ or identifying ‘the enemies we face to achieve our goal state’.In the afternoon, we were split into 2 groups, one to address the memberships scheme and the other one to analyse the current website and its user acquisition funnel. By the end of the day, I had a completely different awareness about the challenges that black people and other minority ethnic groups faced, I connected with the mission that Juliana – Black Leader’s Founder – is building and I learnt tons on how the brand helps connect people.
Even though it was just one day, I can’t recommend and endorse Innovation Day enough. Not only because we put our knowledge at the service of really strong founders, but also to discover what are we capable of when working as one.
