Ogilvy CCO talks The Drum Awards Festival tips and creativity’s collision with tech

Ultimately, she heeded her brother’s warning. A self-described “theater kid” who loved to act, paint, read and write, Taylor studied creative writing in undergraduate at University of Wisconsin-Madison. And, fatefully, her dorm room had been plastered with cool ads for the world’s biggest brands.

She realized that perhaps she could pursue a career in commercial creativity. After a lucky cold call, Taylor found herself standing in Leo Burnett’s offices in Chicago for a portfolio showcase event designed to scout new talent. Overwhelmed with inspiration, Taylor abandoned her law school ambitions and enrolled, instead, in Miami Ad School in Atlanta. Her first gig out of ad school was a copywriting position at J. Walter Thompson (JWT) in New York.

Less than two decades later, Taylor walked back through the doors of Leo Burnett – this time, as the firm’s global chief creative officer.

Today, she is global chief creative officer at Ogilvy, where she helms the storied agency alongside CEO Devika Bulchandani.

This year, Taylor is serving as jury president for the advertising category at The Drum Awards Festival. As the deadline for entering the Festival rapidly approaches, Taylor opens up about her journey in adland, what she’ll be looking for from Awards Festival entries and how she’s thinking about the technical, social and political forces shaping the industry today.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Drum: What have been some of the most significant milestones in your career so far?

Liz Taylor: One milestone, which is probably a negative, was when I got laid off. It was humiliating. I thought I was indispensable – like, I was at an executive creative director level. I didn’t fully understand the business side, so I took it very personally.

But it fueled me. It humbled me. I talk very openly about it, because it happens. And what you do with that next [is what matters]. I never wanted to experience that again. I wanted to come back stronger. Steve Martin has a quote: “Be so good they can't ignore you.” That’s always been my mantra. It was just like, ‘How can I be indispensable to more people, to clients, to the agency?’ That was a monumental moment.

Another monumental moment for me was probably on SC Johnson at Ogilvy, when we did the Museum of Feelings [campaign for Glade] … in my last stint [when] I was a creative director of digital and social. [The project, an installation that processed real-time data about weather, social sentiment, politics, traffic and more to change colors to reflect the ‘mood’ of New York City], was experiential, before that was kind of a thing.

To do something very different and to have a client believe in an experience – [for a brand you might] think of as your grandma’s candle – and then to get written up In Vogue, the New York Times and Wired magazine [was amazing]. It brought all my loves together: it had a big idea; it had technology; it was digital; it was experiential; it made pop culture and got people talking about it.

It really changed the trajectory of my career. It was something that put me on a bit of a bigger global stage. People noticed. It was the first time SC Johnson ever won awards. People who worked at Nike and R/GA were calling me about it, like, ‘How did you do that?’

TD: What has it been like to lead alongside another female executive like Devika Bulchandani?

LT: I won the partner lottery with Dev. Regardless of her gender, she is just a fierce, badass, smart, strategic champion of creative – and she’s obsessed with clients. The fact that you have two women leading the house that David [Ogilvy] built of the Mad Men era [is incredible]. We have a lot of love and admiration [for the legacy]. David built the foundation, and it’s never gone away. But I think there was an opportunity to consider how we create a new chapter, a new legacy, that builds on what he did.

We went to David’s retirement celebration. And as I was leaving, [Ogilvy’s wife] Herta whispered to me: ‘David would be so proud.’ I literally cried in the car afterward, because it’s amazing to think that we’re keeping his legacy alive, we’re changing things, we’re being a beacon of light to the industry. We’re showing brown girls in India that they could be the global CEO of one of the biggest advertising firms in the world. Maybe it’s not a Mad Men era right now.

Dev and I both lead with a lot of empathy and humanity. But we’re not pushovers – want to win. We want to work hard. We’re fierce champions and people of our clients’ business. And we're doing well – we’re winning business. We’re winning with clients. We’re winning at award shows. You know, it feels good.

We want to bring our whole team with us in the room with the success. You know, when we lose, we lose together, when we win, we win together. [The philosophy Dev and I developed for the agency is]: Do the right thing; do the best work of our lives; and do it together. It’s about doing greatness with goodness. And it’s gonna sound cheesy, but we have a lot of fun.

TD: As jury president of the advertising category at The Drum’s 2024 Awards Festival, what will you be looking for in this year’s entries? What makes award-winning work?

LT: Award-winning work always is built on an insight. It has a killer idea, flawlessly executed, that solves a business problem and has real impact – whether it’s a business impact or impact in the world. In an ideal world, it also has some scale, though I know it’s not always possible and I don’t want a small agency to not enter if they did something amazing locally.

And then, you have the ‘wish I did it’ factor. Like, am I so jealous of it? Do I wish I did it? You can’t really put a finger on that, but it is a factor when you’re looking for work. Sometimes it’s originality, sometimes it’s stopping power. Sometimes it’s a new way of doing something. But I always think that is the magic little element – like, is it a jealousy-inducing idea?

TD: Do you have any tips for The Drum Awards Festival entrants on ‘do’s and don'ts’? What kind of detail should they be sharing in their entry reports?

LT: Simplicity is always great. The judges are … well-seasoned advertising vets – they know how to evaluate work. So keep it simple. Keep it smart. What was the insight? What was the business problem? What was the impact that it had? Did it have scale? Is there a cultural context? Is there a nuance that we might not know as a jury? Is it something that’s happening in a certain region? Was there something in culture that was happening that we need to be aware of? Simple. Smart.

TD: What’s some great work you’ve seen lately that’s inspired you?

LT: As far as non-Ogilvy work goes, Xbox’s ‘The Everyday Tactician’ is an amazing piece. I love that a demo can be very creative. It was showing how digital skills can have real-life applications. I’m also a big fan of the Pedigree ‘Adoptable’ campaign. It’s true to their purpose, and it’s the right use of AI. [I like] the Orange ‘WoMen’s Football’ work [because it’s] shining a light on bias, and again, using tech in an interesting way.

At Ogilvy, I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done on Coke along with Open X, [WPP’s bespoke Coke team, launched in 2021]. Coke was a brand that maybe hadn’t done as good of work as they had done in the past. And this year, they are really putting a flag in the ground on creativity. I'm very proud of the ‘Recycle Me’ work that we did; [it encapsulates] the iconicity of Coke as a brand.

Also, the Michael Cera CeraVe campaign is one of my favorite pieces from our network. We had a very brave client who let us tell a lie about their brand, in order to tell the truth about their product. It was an amazing use of social and influencer [centered on] a guy who has no social media. It was never intended to win awards. It was intended to get the product across, break through in culture, be very modern and relevant to a new audience and get people talking. We never imagined in a million years that people globally would talk about it [like they have]. I love when things like that can happen.

TD: How do you see the role of creativity evolving in today’s advertising landscape, especially in light of macro trends like an increased focus on data and emerging tech, high inflation and a tense political climate ahead of the US presidential election?

LT: Creativity is always going to be the business multiplier. It is like a secret weapon. It’s the thing that can solve the biggest, hairiest problems – not just in a client’s business, but in the world. There was an interesting study that IBM did years ago that asked, ‘What is the number one trait that CEOs look for?’ And ‘creativity’ was number one – above integrity. That is never going to change. The ways in which we do it – whether it involves technology and data or whether it [aims to address] something new that’s happening in the world – may change.

Those are like tools we can work with that will help bring [an idea] to life, help take the mundane away, help personalize [a message], help get it to more people, help produce it. But at the end of the day, creativity is still the secret sauce.

There are things this year [that are a challenge to navigate] – the economic challenges, the election. But there’s also the Olympics [and more positive things]. There are always things that we have to take into mind. It’s important not to lose sight of humanity in those moments, not to lose sight of what’s happening in the world, the cultural context. When you’re in the midst of all that volatility – business or otherwise – it’s important to be calm in the storm, not lose your way.

[As far as our role is concerned,] we have to make sure that we’re not doing anything that would be damaging to our client’s reputation. A brand will always have a point of view and a purpose that’s right for the brand. It doesn't mean they should comment on something. It doesn’t mean they should take part in something. They just have to have a pulse on it.

TD: I want to home in on the tech and AI element, because it’s the buzz of the industry right now. Do you have an AI philosophy? How are you thinking about applying AI tools internally and in solutions for clients?

LT: We do have a strong point of view, and we have several interesting proprietary things in place, like I‘m sure everybody does. Some of [our solutions are] more business-driving, like, ‘How can AI help our clients do things easier, more efficiently, faster?’ These are intended to make our clients’ lives easier … and help them focus on, ‘How can we save money and spend money more correctly?’

We’re not against doing something creatively [with AI], but there’s just a lot in terms of production that’s wrong with AI – as simple as messing up clients’ logos. There are a lot of bad examples. I do think we’re a little bit ahead of the curve in [creative adoption of AI]. Three years ago, we did the Cadbury Shah Rukh Khan ad, [which used AI to develop over 500 personalized video ads]. That campaign was one of the first creative examples [of effective AI use].

I’m a big fan of AI. If you ignore it, you're gonna die. You can't ignore it. The more you lean in and try to understand it, to play with it, to experiment with it, the better. But I don’t believe it’s going to take away our jobs. I don’t believe that you should do it just to do it. If it can make an idea grow faster, if it can help in the way that we execute, if it can bring magic to an existing idea, then by all means. And I love when it’s invisible. If AI is invisible, it’s amazing. If the idea’s there, and it’s solving a problem – but you couldn’t have done it without AI – [that’s great].

As a creative space, our industry is very subjective. Sometimes it's easy to say, ‘I like it,’ or ‘I don't like it.’ But data can sometimes take out the subjectivity [for the better]. If I present a human insight, and there’s data behind it – if I told them 77% of people are doing X – then I had them at strategy, insight and data. And now the creative is so much easier to sell. Like, you can’t argue [with the facts], and so this is going to be the solve. Creatives [should] arm themselves with more knowledge on how data or technology could make their work better, make it easier to sell, make it easier to show why it worked.

TD: You mentioned the influence of politics and the election cycle earlier. Ad spend in the 2024 US general election is set to hit historic highs, reaching over $10bn by the end of election season, according to research conducted by AdImpact. How are you helping clients navigate social and political issues?

LT: The political climate anywhere [right now] is tricky. There are unknowns … and there’s a world divided right now. And there are wars going on. We have to talk about it with our clients, we have to figure out, guide them, listen to them. Our clients don’t [always] need to, nor should they, get involved in politics. But they should have a point of view.

And these days, brands are able to change policy more than the government. And people have more belief in brands than their own governments. And that gives us an amazing opportunity to do things with brands. It is like, we have changed laws. One of the things Dev and I want to do is to try to change three laws a year … and even if we get one, it’s amazing. [We worked with Dove to help pass] the Crown Act, [a California law making it illegal to discriminate based on hairstyle or hair texture]. In Honduras, women could not have the morning after pill. You would have a rapist serve less time in jail than somebody who took a morning after pill – it was insane. So we figured out that … if we took women out into [international waters off the coast], they could take the morning after pill. So with a local organization, we created that, put pressure [on policymakers] and we changed the law.

So when you talk about ‘politics,’ I don’t know that we want to get involved in that. I think we want to get involved in making the world a more equitable, amazing place, in a way that is right for our brands. If you have a brand like Powerade, what are we doing for athletes? If you have Dove, how are we changing the beauty standards? We will always look at, ‘What is the brand? What is their purpose? And what policy could we get involved in that makes sense for them?’

TD: Something we’ve been talking to lots of industry leaders about the notion that the shape of the traditional funnel is changing, or that performance is coming closer to brand. Is that something you’re seeing? How do you balance the need for impactful brand-level creative with demands for performance marketing and ROI?

LT: Creativity is what is going to drive impact. So how do you get it to work at every end of the funnel? If there is something that is [a powerful creative] idea, can it thread all the way through? Every consumer touchpoint is an opportunity to break through. You need the whole funnel to work [together].

Sometimes you can be the most creative in the mid- and lower funnel. I’ll give you the example of email marketing. Like, you have people who are raising their hands and saying, ‘I want to subscribe to this email.’ People are in; they want the brand. So are you just going to send off emails that have no creativity, no point of view? They’re just gonna get deleted. Why are you doing that when you have such an amazing opportunity? I’m a big believer in full-funnel creativity. [Any touchpoint] can certainly look exquisite, look beautiful, be smart and be another point to get someone to lean in.

TD: What advice would you offer to aspiring creatives or young people looking to break into the ad industry?

LT: Key to any success are resiliency and curiosity.

You get told ‘no’ a lot in this industry. You have to have a thick skin and remember that if people are criticizing the work, it’s the work, not you. It’s like, ‘If you’re gonna kill these 20 [iterations], the 21st better be the best, because that might be the one that sells.’ People should realize how much resiliency works.

I think curious souls do the best in this industry as well. It’s understanding performance marketing, understanding AI and the latest technology, understanding clients’ business. We need to know what’s happening with clients’ stocks, what’s keeping them up at night. That all falls into curiosity.

Curiosity, resiliency. And don’t be an asshole. That’s a good one.

TD: Any predictions for how commercial creativity will evolve in the next five years or so? What can we expect to see?

LT: I wish I had a crystal ball. I think [teams] will continue to [diversify] across different capabilities. It was the two-person team, then the three-legged stool – now, I feel like it’s nine-legged. You might find a writer, an art director, a social strategist, someone who’s a creative prompter, an editor. You’ll always need idea people, you’ll always need people who can find the insights and solve the business problems. But you’re going to find a lot more [demand for talent] in the social and influencer space … [especially as the media space becomes] more and more fragmented. You need more specialists on how ideas can hold together.

But I go back to the idea that creativity is always going to drive impact. It’s always going to be a competitive advantage, a business multiplier, even though the shape of that creativity may change. That’s the reason more and more categories have to keep coming up in awards shows: because the work is changing so much. The type of work will always change. What won’t change is [the need for] ideas based in an insight, solving a client’s problem – and using creativity as the competitive advantage.

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