Baiju Shah’s Post

Great to have Richard Parkinson, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at Prudential Financial, join our AKQA Global Town Hall. He was exactly what you want from a guest: smart, funny and willing to say what he actually thinks. We covered a lot, but a few things have stayed with me. First, taste. Richard’s view is that AI can give us extraordinary new capability, but it still struggles with taste. In a world where it becomes easier to make more things, the ability to make something distinctive, beautifully crafted and actually worth paying attention to becomes even more valuable. Second, one of the best things an agency can do is to know the client business deeply, not just the brief. As Richard put it, be interested in “the business of the business.” And then there was something Richard and I very much agree on: the importance of creating a culture of possibility. He told our team that one of the reasons he selected AKQA as their partner was that we imagined what their future could look like and showed them what's possible. That’s exactly what we mean when we talk about being a Frontier Agency. Imagine what’s next. Make what matters. Richard, thank you. You are a reminder that the best clients don’t just buy great work. They make the people around them better. A joy to have you with us. 👊🏽 Giles McCormack, Rosie Milton-Schönemann, Helder Santo, Peter Ammentorp Lund, Miriam Plon Sauer, Geoff Northcott, Arvind Singh, Ben Royce, Jonathan Bolden, Tim Devine, Maureen O'Neill Casteel, Quezia Soares, WPP