Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Sari Heinilä is the CEO of McCann Helsinki since January 2017, after more than 15 years spent in the industry. Before joining the McCann agency operating within I&F McCann Grupa, she was in the management of Hasan & Partners and TBWA Helsinki. Sari’s career has been evolving from CRM to brand strategies and from marketing innovations to brand initiatives. It all makes her a crafty manager who works on giving brands a meaningful role in people’s lives. Her passion is transforming organizations into innovation hubs where everything is possible. As she likes to say, “Innovating is not rocket science – it’s re-thinking the way things are done and becoming smarter as we go. Common sense and simplicity over complexity.”
At the forthcoming Golden Drum – International Festival of Creativity, which will be held in Ljubljana from 18th to 20th October, Sari will give a presentation on building an organizational culture and leadership in the creative industry. We talked about her presentation and personal inspiration sources.
Introduce us to McCann Helsinki agency.
Sari Heinilä: McCann Helsinki is helping Finnish companies in going global. Key to growth is defining a brand’s role in people’s lives and creating brand behaviour that makes a true difference to its audiences. We believe in making brands’ own media as powerful as possible and in supporting own media with paid ones.
You are one of the lecturers at this year’s Golden Drum festival, can you tell us something about your topic? Just as a teaser? :)
Sari Heinilä: Sure! My speech will concentrate on sharing my thoughts on how to support a creative culture. In creative cultures it’s all about human interaction. And, in order to develop authentic connections you need to be vulnerable. Yet again, being vulnerable is actually much harder than acting like nothing affects you. All in all, I’ll simply try to make people open up to each other and to all the creative opportunities that will follow.
Advertising is, globally, one of those industries with high fluctuation and job mystification. Does it complicate creating an environment which stimulates enthusiasm and passion for great creative work?
Sari Heinilä: The first one, fluctuation, does absolutely not complicate creating an enthusiastic passionate environment. On the contrary, creative organizations need to see themselves as hubs for growing talent. And employers in this industry should be proud of everyone having been a part of an agency’s journey and welcome them back anytime. Understanding that people need to explore their talent in different places is actually a culture act as itself.
As for job mystification, it’s something I personally want to stay as far away as I ever can. In the end we aim at selling products and services by affecting people’s emotions and rational thinking. That’s highly valuable, but hardly rocket science. And I hate it if and when different professional groups within an agency don’t have respect for one another, but think that their work is more complex than others’. Every role counts and is a success factor in the entity.
What keeps you going? Where do you find your everyday inspiration?
Sari Heinilä: What keeps me going is the people. Genuinely. I just recently had a discussion with a former colleague on how much pressure I feel at times. She guessed it’s got something to do with the fact that I’m a woman among many men within CEOs. (No.) Then there was wondering if I’m just ambitious to show everyone. (No.). Am I mostly competing against myself? (No.)
My main goal is to provide an inspiring work place to everyone, resulting in successful work and profit – which makes it possible to be even more amazing together. Would be hard to take it if I couldn’t be an engine for a workplace that people will cherish even when looking back while sitting in their rocking chairs after retiring. So, the answer is people keep me going.
How do we keep things simple in a complicated world?
Sari Heinilä: By understanding that the world is after all not that complicated. In our industry, it’s eventually all about people. If you know who you need to reach out to and what to say to make things click, then you’ve cracked it. All the technology, data and different channels are there just to support in fine-tuning and spreading the solution you found.
Which challenges do you see for the future advertising?
Sari Heinilä: In the near future, I’m afraid that marketers are blinded by all that data and technology available as well as by all the emerging channels. A new technology or media is not an idea nor can you solve a problem with data only. It’s what you’ve got to say that matters. Hundreds of thousands spent on automated marketing do not matter if you’ve in the end got nothing to say that really moves the viewer, recipient or listener. In addition, brand behaviour is so much more powerful than mere stating. And it’s rather hard to really engage anyone to experience something with a brand if marketing is routine like.
See you all at the Golden Drum!