Droga: Advertising needs to change what it is

Australia’s most influential adman believes the industry needs to get back to the fundamentals of advertising arguing that “we are in the time business” and need to start rewarding consumers again.

Australian adman David Droga has stepped down from his role leading Accenture Song

Australian advertising leader David Droga will not launch another ad agency after he steps away from his role as CEO of one of the biggest tech-powered creative agencies, Accenture Song.

Mr Droga, who is recognised as one of the world’s most influential creative leaders and is best known for his award-winning agency Droga5, told The Australian his focus was on his remaining days at the helm followed by the challenge of his new vice chair role at Accenture.

“I’m still going to be CEO until September and then I’m going to enjoy being vice chairman and defining what that is and helping from a different perch. Then we’ll see, I haven’t really thought about it,” he said.

“I would never start another agency, I don’t have the ambition. If I was forced to start another company it wouldn’t be an advertising agency. It would have to be something that is a combination of creativity and technology, helping people. All I care about is that I use my mind, creativity and belief system to try and have as much positive impact as possible.”

Despite his reluctance to predict his next venture, Mr Droga confirmed his fire and passion for “creating beautiful things” remained as present as ever. “It’s wonderful to step into an environment and arena where you are challenged again, intimidated again, and excited again,” he said.

“I’m not a sit on a yacht and drink mojitos for the rest of my life type of person. I like working. I’m not checking out, just changing perch.”

That new perch at the top of one of world’s biggest consulting firms, is a significant achievement for the creative leader from Perisher, NSW. He told The Wall Street Journal, he was convinced to take the newly created role by Accenture CEO and chair Julie Sweet. It’s a sharp strategic move for Accenture, with Mr Droga serving as the face of what many viewed as one of the industry’s biggest experiments to merge the creative advertising world with the corporate consulting sector.

His continuing presence helps ensure that legacy and provide creative kudos to the firm’s tech credentials. It’s also a nice hat-tip to the statement Mr Droga made to Droga5 staff when he sold the agency to Accenture in 2019, stating, “We have bought Accenture”.

His words were indicative of his ambition, “That was my mindset, that we were going to have a big influence on them.” His prediction has proven fairly accurate.

At the time of the sale, ad agencies were being bought and rebadged by consultancies keen to wrap marketing and advertising services into their model. Droga5’s reputation for being cutting-edge and pushing boundaries seemed at odds with the corporate consulting environment, and rivals believed the move was doomed.

However, while most of these divisions within the Big 4 firms have significantly scaled back or folded completely, Accenture Song remains a successful model globally and its success is largely attributed to Mr Droga.

He assumed the chief executive role in 2021 and transformed what was then called Accenture Interactive, unifying the different agency brands such as design powerhouse Fjord, UK creative agency Karmarama and Aussie agency The Monkeys, to create Accenture Song. The model arranged the business as an integrated group with services in creativity, technology design, AI, strategy and data and a focus on providing end-to-end services to clients. Those clients include Gatorade, Mondelez and Prada, while locally there’s NRMA Insurance, Tourism Australia and Sydney Opera House. Under Mr Droga, Accenture Song became one of the largest tech-powered creative companies and grew revenue to $19bn in the year ending 31 August 2024.

Speaking about his time at Accenture Song, Mr Droga credits Ms Sweet with creating a “seismic role with real power and a real mandate” for him to drive genuine change.

“If you’re going to change something and redefine something, you have to be relentless and tenacious,” he said. “It’s easy to hold on to what works and a lot of people do that because they are not brave enough to explore what could happen.

“I was pushing up against the muscle memory of certain industries and conventions. I’m a fiercely creative person and I was fiercely protective and loved the independence that I had, but I didn’t want to be diminished or be the most redundant, independent person ever or the less relevant, independent, person.

“You’ve got to stay relevant, you’ve got to participate and you’ve got to influence,” he said.

“And to do that, you’ve go to put yourself in environments where you’re connected to things that matter. And you have to be confident and tenacious enough to believe in that.”

Accenture Song outgoing CEO David Droga has stepped down

He is also full of praise for the people within the business, particularly the team that will replace him. Accenture Song Americas lead Ndidi Oteh will step into his role in September, while another Aussie ex-pat Nick Law will become the creative strategy and experience lead for the agency.

“I’m very lucky to have a lot of good people that have joined and helped me. That’s important, the people you bring and who buy into what you want to do. And it’s more fun, too. It’s more fun to be relevant and to be invited to solve real problems. It’s great fun to be culturally influential and commercially viable.

“There’s always more we can do and we can do things better at certain times, so it’s not like someone’s job is ever done. But, if you can hand over the reins when it’s heading in the right direction and you feel like the people there will take it on and add their own thing to it as opposed to just perpetuate what you’ve done, I think that’s exciting. You’re judged not just by what you do but by what you allow others to do,” he said.

His departure comes at a difficult time for the wider advertising industry, and particularly the agency landscape which is experiencing waves of consolidation through agency acquisitions, mergers and closures as the ad business evolves beyond legacy structures within holding companies and adapts to automation and tech-driven change. While Mr Droga is cognisant of how much the industry has changed, he believes the fundamentals remain the same.

“I have this expression, ‘people hate advertising until they lose their cat’,” he explained. “And what I mean by that, is advertising is a burden until it’s useful to you. People have to remember that advertising, marketing and all these things serve a very valuable purpose. But it’s been exploited by people, by companies and it’s no wonder that people have been bombarded into submission.

“That was the idea with Droga5, I didn’t want to create advertising that was pollution. I wanted to create advertising that was enjoyable, rewarding, surprising, delightful, educational … And we need to get back to that.

“I can hit the skip button as fast as anybody, but I believe that advertising has to change what it is now. Sometimes it can just be story­telling, sometimes it might be a product, sometimes it might be an experience or an event, or it might be that you remove some of the clutter from their lives, it doesn’t always have to be this direct thing.

“Great brands will always be relevant, always. But lazy brands will not be.

“People need to put the human at the other side of (advertising) and then make the decisions from there,” he continued. “I always start at the end, which is ‘what do I want my audience to think and feel’. We’re in the time business, whether (the audience) are using an app or watching something or at an event – we’re asking something of their time, but are we adding to (that experience) or are we just trying to take it away from it? I’ve always said, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Mr Droga is an advocate for tech-powered creativity, however, he cautions the industry’s rush to embrace automation and tech-powered research and optimisation tools.

“A lot of people are caught up in the idea that I can make things faster with AI. And that is great, you can get ideas out of your head faster and you can experiment. But the speed, by and large, and the cost efficiencies, is a by-product. It’s a wonderful by-product, but it’s not the idea. And eventually, the way you made something and the cost and speed of that will be irrelevant because that will just be table stakes.

“There’s good insight to be taken from understanding and data points and some research, right? Of course there is. But if it was a game changer as much as they say it is, why is most of the stuff that’s researched garbage?

“The most researched political campaign in the history of American politics was the Kamala Harris campaign. How’d that work out for them? I’m not dismissing the need for information and inputs and understanding, of course that’s important, but everything still has to be seen from a distance, as well as up close. To examine what does it mean? What is the context to that? And what does that allow you to do? The problem is a lot of people use research as a safety net to say they didn’t do anything wrong, not to try and do something right.”

Mr Droga points to award-winning film made by Accenture Song’s creative agency The Monkeys (which has now been rebadged Droga5) for The Sydney Opera’s 50th birthday. The Play It Safe film, which features an all singing and dancing Tim Minchin accompanied by some of Australia’s best artists, attracted international recognition and plenty of awards for its clarion call for artists to swing for the fences.

“The point that work was trying to make, yes, it was a celebration of the Opera House, but also that point is still relevant for everybody now, which is, that if everyone just plays it down the middle and plays it safe, the Opera House would be a square box now.

“It took inspiration, tenacity and for people to not compromise and to stand their ground and to fight the naysayers. Research would never have said that’s what we should build. Imagine not having that Opera House.

“Create something that has meaning and context and story, that is beautiful and daring and takes your breath away, that is rewarding for those that see it, or are in it and that challenges conventions.”

Outgoing Accenture Song CEO David Droga encourages the industry to be daring, to push boundaries and, above all, to be entertaining