‘Marketing no longer works the same way’: M+C Saatchi global CEO on power and creative glory
Zaid Al-Qassab took the reins at M+C Saatchi globally last year, coming from the UK’s Channel 4. This week Saatchi, the “world’s biggest independent agency”, is unveiling its new cultural power positioning and rebrand. Mumbrella sat down with Al-Qassab and Saatchi APAC CEO Justin Graham.
Zaid Al-Qassab is pretty clear on what works in adland.
“The only three things that matter in this business: hire brilliant creative people, generate amazing ideas, and build strong client relationships.”
Zaid Al-Qassab and Justin Graham
Despite the apparent simplicity of that formula, Saatchi’s big boss acknowledges that times have changed. So much so, his agency has had to undergo a makeover.
“The reason we’re doing this comes down to the fact that media has fragmented, digitization has made the world very complex, and most important of all, the algorithm has meant that what you are seeing on your feed or in your news is different from what I’m seeing, and the effect of that is that marketing, advertising no longer works the same way.”
The “this” Al-Qassab is referring to is Saatchi’s global rebrand as it positions to a “cultural power” strategy. The ampersand (“&”) from M&C Saatchi has been swapped for the more mathematical “+”, and there’s an emphasis on cultural forces. To put data behind the culture push, the agency says it has built an AI-driven software tool – “The Cultural Power Index” – that quantifies a brand’s cultural relevance and ranks it against competitors.
Asked whether the glory days of ad campaigns being able to shape culture are over – gone with the ability to “roadblock” consumers on truly mass media – Al-Qassab is pleasantly defiant.
“ I agree with your premise of how the world has changed. I just think the solution is to work out how your brands harness that cultural change.”
Understanding people and their differences, rather than dominating their attention, was key.
“I used to make something, if I was a brand, that tells you what I am, and then pay to shove that thing in front of you, and you couldn’t avoid it. Now, at its best, most creative, it didn’t feel like it was being shoved in front of you, but that’s what it was. And now [that’s changed] … you have to be a part of what people are interested in to even get to them.”
“So the whole point of cultural power is to harness what’s going on with culture and passions and people’s interests, and what really matters to people.”
Saatchi’s official cultural power branding
Saatchi APAC CEO Justin Graham says becoming part of what people are interested in involves curating rather than just creating.
“This idea of creating and curating cultural power – the articulation is new – but it’s something we’ve been doing for a long time … the curating around that piece is actually, I think, where there’s real power.”
“In the past, we could rely largely on broadcast media to go and drive what that relevance would look like … those roadblock moments, and there’s not many of those anymore – a concert, Superbowl, a film, a live sporting event in Australia – there’s not many of them and they’re expensive. [The question for Saatchi is] what is the combination of all the channels that we have to go and move that forward?”
The pair of CEOs believe that Saatchi is well-suited to the multi-channel world because of its history as an aggregation of specialist agencies.
“ I’m an optimist about this business, right?” Al-Qassab says. “Because however hard it might seem, we, this industry went through Covid. That was a near death experience for what we do in marketing services.”
That near-death experience is clearly illustrated if you examine Saatchi’s share price on the London Stock Exchange, which provides data stretching back 20 years.
Saatchi’s share price on the LSE 2005-2025
Al-Qassab laid down his consumer and brand roots at Procter & Gamble, where he worked for 20 years, before moving to UK telecom BT as CMO. After a stint in a startup, he moved to UK broadcaster Channel 4, where he handled both marketing and diversity.
He has long championed the idea of creative performance through disparate experience and says Saatchi will not be shrinking from its diversity commitment regardless of political winds.
“ Whatever language is used in different parts of the world, the idea of treating humans equally and fairly and wanting them to be a varied bunch of people who can therefore come together and spark off each other and do their best work … I don’t think that’s under question by anyone. [Changing what diversity initiatives are called] doesn’t really change what’s good for a business … doesn’t really change how we want people here to feel. It certainly doesn’t make a company like ours change our values. ”
AI is central to the vision of the agency as laid out by its leaders.
“We are already using AI in multiple areas at the start of the creative process, all the way through the deployment of assets and the measurement around that as well,” Graham says.
“Over the last 12 months, the focus has shifted from just efficiency to innovation—how we can continue to be either more efficient or more effective in that space. And that’s certainly what clients are asking of us.”
Al-Qassab describes AI as “a tool, and just like any tool, you learn how to use it and use it well, you’ll come out on top.”
“Just to give you an idea of the scale of it. Last year, 2024, we ran 20 different AI pilots around the M+C Saatchi world in order to decide which ones were adding the most value and ought to be rolled out to everyone, and which ones were not doing what they pretended to, or not doing the quality that we would require.”
The Oxford philosophy graduate says he “loves and enjoys every day” and that despite being in the global hot seat role for less than a year he “never felt like a newbie”.
“Partly because I love my job, partly because I had 30 years in the industry before I came to do this, I kind of know what goes on.”
I hate hearing things from agency bosses that make me go ‘oh no, they just dont get it’ in the first things they say. I want agencies to flourish with clear visions and reasons for being, and this isnt it
“The only three things that matter in this business: hire brilliant creative people, generate amazing ideas, and build strong client relationships.”
That will build you a tiny weeny little creative hot shop.
That has no vision or purpose.
That has no systems or processes that allow you to scale.
That has no point of view on the world.
Its completely limiting to the business. RIP M&C.
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From M&C (looked more elegant, easier to say) to M+C (looks worse, harder to say). Marginal shift in meaning – not a reset. Total disconnect between the cultural power “branding” and the master brand.
Pretty messy stuff.
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I eagerly look forward to seeing the impact and improvement in M&C’s creative output now that they have ‘Cultural Power’.
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Changing that ampersand to a plus symbol will make a huge difference.
Well overdue.
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