Jason Dooris
It’s time to get rid of departmental silos. Not just talk about it. Do it.
It’s time to get rid of departmental silos. Not just talk about it. Do it.
This is not a new concept. For years, the marketing industry, and by association the agencies that service it, have been moving in this direction. Marketers and agency heads speak of a world of open plan offices, where technologists and analysts sit next to content marketers and copywriters, where account managers develop creative ideas, where data and creativity are one and the same.
There are plenty of companies that seem to be doing this well. A prime example, unsurprisingly, is Google – the company’s offices are not only aesthetically cool, they provide the foundation for an underlying culture which champions the melding of ideas and technology. This is the money shot.
Which is why I am surprised to find that on agency side, so many top players are still caught up in traditional ways of thinking. The digital team sits at one end of the office, while the strategy people have another corner, and the space between them is like a No Man’s Land. The extreme version of this is the specialist agency, which focuses purely on digital or design or production.
But the best results emerge when you put a data geek and a developer and a search specialist in the same room as a creative and a designer and a PR practitioner.
I’m not suggesting every person should be a Jack of all trades; far from it. But I am suggesting every agency should be combining as many different skillsets together as possible, preferably with as much diversity as possible too. This means people from different cultural backgrounds, different genders, different ages. You’d be surprised where the best ideas come from.
Recently, one of our content guys came up with a great creative concept for one of our clients involving a huge amount of PR and owned content. The idea was impressive, and he wanted to pitch it to the client. I told him to hold off, to speak with our search and data guys first. The result was a campaign that was creatively pleasing and which also fostered leads and return on investment.
No longer can creatives sit back and hope a ‘great idea’ translates into results – you need to leverage that idea across the appropriate channels, you need to reach the right audiences and find unique and creative ways to use data and generate conversions.
The media industry is changing so quickly, in line with consumers, and the specialist skillsets required of marketers are becoming increasingly disparate. It’s impossible for one individual to understand everything, and this is where collaboration comes to the fore. Bring everything under the same roof and watch the results flow, that’s my motto. Sometimes we aren’t even working in the traditional marketing space; sometimes we seem to be operating as a consultancy more than a media agency, but that’s fine with me.
The real trick is getting these different people to work together and produce truly innovative work. The challenge is getting a creative excited about data and analytics.
For instance, Atomic 212 recently teamed up with Salesforce division, Social.com, to develop an Australia-first Facebook tool which optimises creative advertising on Facebook according to which creative generates the most revenue. One of our data geeks developed a bespoke and incredibly complex code, and collaborated with one of our account directors, and they delivered gold.
I won’t even pretend to understand the complex technology and coding that went into this project, but that’s exactly my point: We don’t all need to be technological gurus to get results, we just need a diverse team with different skillsets.
About Jason Dooris
Jason Dooris was born in Ireland and grew up in Africa and Europe, spending his young adulthood in London. Jason Dooris then settled in Australia via New Zealand. To date its been quite an adventure for Dooris. Jason Dooris “I have enjoyed my roots-down travels that being that I’ve tried to spend long periods in most of the places that I’ve lived in, giving me time to absorb the culture, the people and the business community.”
Jason Dooris started a career in advertising in London in 1996. “It was a wonderful time and place to learn and Ogilvy & Mather were the ideal parents to kick start a global career. My experience is unusual in that it includes product development, marketing, media, creative and management consulting - if I was fond of cliches I could say its a true end to end, full cycle experience, which indeed it is.” Jason Dooris
To date Jason Dooris has been privileged to work for some great global organisations like MediaCom, Deloitte, Saatchi & Saatchi and Dentsu while Dooris represented a broad range of successful and challenger clients brands, many at quite exciting times in their development such as Nike going digital, Qantas going online and Emirates sponsoring Chelsea’s and SoftBank launching Pepper the Robot.
In 2010 Jason Dooris set up Atomic 212, a creative media business. Dooris sold the business 2018 a year after being named New Zealand & Australian Agency of the Year and with a. Roster of leading BlueChip clients.
A change of direction in 2018 saw Dooris focus on the growing sports technology category where he developed a range of products designed to aid injury recovery and assist peak performance athletes. “Now in use by some of Australia’s leading athletes, a natural extension, particular in todays world, was use by first responder services and the military to assist in battlefield injury recovery.” Jason Dooris. The research developed in the past year of two has by far been my most rewarding career years to date.
“Its been an exciting first half!” Jason Dooris