How To Make It In Marketing #10: S4 Capital / Sir Martin Sorrell / Executive Chairman and Founder
How To Make It In Marketing #10: S4 Capital / Sir Martin Sorrell / Executive Chairman and Founder
Sir Martin Sorrell founded S4 Capital three years ago, after he left WPP, out of an interest in the development of digital advertising and a commitment to continuing to be active in the industry. His view on the future of marketing is that digital will lead the way and that is where the biggest growth potential is for all brands.
Throughout his career, Sir Martin has aligned his professional endeavours with what he perceived as the biggest and most important trends in society at the time. Working as CFO at Saatchi, he experienced globalisation; at WPP, he worked on a mix of globalisation and tech development; finally, at S4, he is embracing technology and digitalisation.
What is your advice about how to make it in marketing?
Have a simple vision and a simple structure to implement it.
How have you put this tip to good use?
Nothing is too complicated to explain. As Warren Buffett used to say, if you cannot explain something in one sheet of paper or a simple presentation, it means you don’t understand it yourself. So, this is why I always try to have a very simple, very clear vision and then build the structure to make it happen. This is how, at Saatchi, we aligned with globalisation, then at WPP with globalisation and tech. Now, with S4 Capital, I am focusing on digital and the growth of technology in all of our lives. But what’s really important is to have both structure and vision. There is no question of whether strategy or implementation is more important – they both are.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
We are still lumping the analogue and the digital worlds together. There are two worlds of advertising and they’re very different. Analogue is the “old world” where there is no or very little growth. But digital represents the new world, where the addressable market is constantly growing.
For marketers, aligning with digital and fully embracing it means understanding that they need to be active 24/7 and very agile. They need to take back control of advertising, either by embedding agencies within their organisations or by moving advertising in house. And that’s because without agility, control, and a 24/7 availability, they won’t be competitive in digital advertising.
Listen to more of Sir Martin’s views on the future of marketing, as well as his best tips and learnings from his career, on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Zlt3ZH9HbnUuPRwHGnNj5
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