Media agency PHD turns planning into global game
Video: Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes discusses the launch of Source with PHD’s Chris Stephenson
Media agency PHD has launched a global planning and operating system aimed at putting gamification at the heart of its company culture.
The new system – two years in the making – is the brain child of PHD’s worldwide strategy and planning director Mark Holden who began developing it when he was running strategy for PHD in Australia.
The system, which is called Source, is based on game mechanics. Agency staff score points for various activities and can see how they compare on global and local leader boards. They can see how they score based on criteria including: Thoughtleader, Innovator, Optimiser, Editor and Producer.
PHD, which is part of Omnicom Media Group, says the use of game mechanics are designed to turn the agency’s collaboration culture into a massively mulitplayer online game
Holden said: “Source has been in development for close to two years. It is our attempt to allow everyone within PHD to be able to tap into the PHD mind. We have so many brilliant thinkers across the world, now they can innovate across many other briefs and be celebrated for this. By 1st of January 2013, anyone that joins PHD is also joining an MMO – a ‘massively multiplayer online game’.”
Mike Cooper, worldwide CEO of PHD said, “Implementing a gamified system is of huge benefit to our clients, with the best thinking rising to the top. It also fosters strategic planning and promotes the function by implementing it into daily activity”.
Not sure I want my media agency playing games with my budget!
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The great thing about “an MMO” is all the data that you capture.
In the short term, I hear that annual bonuses will be directly linked to “the best players on the Sauce”. Big bonuses to incentivise more gaming out of office hours, on the commute home, before falling asleep, with breakfast. It’ll become like a drug.
All the while, little do they know that Sauce is a learning and optimisation supercomputer …and soon all the PHD planners will be replaced with robots.
Scary times.
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Apologies for behaving like a Troll, but seriously, truly BRILLIANT THINKERS don’t work for Media Agencies, anywhere in the World. Not for long anyway. Any chance we can cap the description down to say, Clever?
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@ super mario – surely its better your media agency than your creative shop – media agencies are usually the ones reporting on the business outcomes.
I think its novel way of sharing work across the network, for that they deserve credit its easier than it sounds to do that.
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