David Droga looks back at one year as Accenture Song CEO

The sculpture by “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson is a 3D version of one of his comics depicting a pair of spiders monitoring a web at the foot of a playground slide. “If we pull this off, we’ll eat like kings,” reads a ribbon on the bottom.

The artwork could be a metaphor for the outsized ambitions that Droga has brought to every step of his career: becoming partner and executive creative director in his native Australia at Omon at the age of 22; leading Saatchi in Asia and London; moving to the U.S. in 2003 in his early 30s to become the worldwide chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe; and then opening the doors of his own agency, Droga5, three years later. 

“A flaw of my personality is I like the pressure of things,” he said. “I like the challenge of trying to prove something.”

Which is why he couldn’t resist the offer Accenture CEO Julie Sweet surprised him with in August of last year—to become CEO and creative chairman of Accenture Interactive, the consulting giant’s digital agency arm that acquired his shop for upwards of $475 million just two years prior.

At first, Droga says, he told Sweet, “You don’t want a creative person in the CEO suite,” pointing out to her that “I’m not a linear thinker. I move at a different pace. I’m not about increments. I’m about leapfrogs. I’m not an operations person.”

Sweet promised that she would surround him with smart colleagues who would support him as needed, and in less than a month, Droga made the leap.

“The diverse level of deep intellect, sincerity and humility across Accenture is rather remarkable,” he said. “It helps to have a force like Julie Sweet at the helm. She could probably outthink or outwork anyone, but does it all with a calmness that's refreshing. And not a lot of other CEOs would have that sort of gumption or belief or faith to put a creative person in this position.”

Though he had fleeting reservations about stepping into the role, Droga passionately believes that creatives deserve a place at the top. 

“If you inject that at the highest chair in an organization, it changes the tone of conversations,” he said. “Not to eclipse those who have MBAs and the people who have very credible, seasoned opinions and skills, but we just add another dimension to it. I think the world needs that. I believed that when I was at Droga5, and now, I’ve got the backing of real tech know-how to build, run, scale, invent things—to innovate, as opposed to [just making] ideas that live in disposable mediums.”

His focus is on making all that marketing, technology, data and innovation firepower work together to optimize output for clients, who “are all operating at a different speed now, given the change in market and consumer behaviors,” he said. “Our primary role is no longer just helping with growth—it’s about growth and relevance.”

More considered pace

Since he accepted Sweet’s challenge, Droga has spent a lot of time “understanding and learning,” he said. He's also had to adjust to working at the more considered pace of a 710,000-person strong consulting behemoth.

Despite that change of tempo, within his last 12 months Droga managed to engineeer a massive brand overhaul that brought together 40-some agencies into a single entity called Accenture Song; hire a plethora of top-tier creatives who before may have spurned the idea of working for a consulting company; and brought creative muscle and Accenture acumen to bear for clients including Chamberlain Group and Ikea. He also gave doubters something to think about with an Accenture-created Super Bowl ad that broke the internet. 

One of the most significant moves of his first year was the rebranding of the very corporate-sounding “Accenture Interactive” to the fresher, more modern “Accenture Song.” The move rallied under a single banner the organization's dozens of agencies and design firms including the U.K.’s Karmarama, Bow & Arrow and Fjord; King James in South Africa; Australia’s The Monkeys and Spain-based Shackleton—save for Droga's namesake agency, Droga5, which continues to operate under its own name.

It put the focus on two powerful brands: Accenture, which has cachet in the c-suite, and Droga5, which carries clout in creative circles. According to Droga, the name “Song” brings “soul” to the company while encapsulating the “combination of humanity and technology” that it offers. Droga reasoned that keeping the Droga5 name, the only global brand in the group, will help to address client conflicts. 

While large consulting companies like Accenture are already set up with firewalls for that, Droga noted that conflict still remains an issue when it comes to marketing. “In operations and technology, having multiple clients or brands in one space is considered a specialty, whereas in advertising, it’s not,” he said. 

The fact that it’s the only brand that happens to bear his name might lead observers to think that ego also played a part.

“Maybe if I had a therapist, they’d tell me it was,” Droga laughed. Joking aside, he explained it was “a rational decision” that came out of an audit of the Song agency brands. “If Song becomes what I think it should become, maybe Droga5 can and should roll up into that. My ambition is about where Song is going. As long as I can keep my surname, I’m happy.”

Digital business

As Droga5 remains, it has grown, with new offices in Tokyo, Brazil and Ireland, the last through a rebrand of existing Song agency Rothco. 

And the agency continues to make the most of the bigger tool kit it now has, thanks to Song. Last month, for example, Chamberlain Group, the company that owns garage door brands and openers including LiftMaster, Merlin, MyQ and Chamberlain, hired Droga5 as its agency of record but also leveraged the offerings of the broader Song group as it looks to “shift from a mechanical engineering company to a software company—a full business transformation model,” said Susie Nam, Droga5 CEO of the Americas. Droga5 will be leading the branding and creativity, while design minds at Song are “key to building out experiences and platforms for consumers to engage,” she added. The combined efforts ultimately will entail “everything from brand purpose and identity, creative platform and comms work to product architecture, experience growth and business design.”

Under Droga’s watch, Accenture Song also brought more companies into the fold: e-commerce agencies The Stable, based in Minneapolis, Tokyo’s Tambourine, Glamit in Argentina, Brazil’s Experity; as well as brand and experience agency Romp, based in Jakarta, and King James, one of the largest independent agencies in South Africa. 

The e-commerce acquisitions in particular are key because “that’s such an important part of where all our clients are going,” Droga said. “No matter how you frame it, every business is a digital business so we have to be leaders in that space.” 

Recruiting talent

Droga's creative connections also paid off for Accenture Song in his first year, as he recruited some trusted lieutenants who helped him to build Droga5 and lured in other bold-faced names. In December, Neil Heymann, the former global chief creative officer of Droga5 who left to start up Publicis’ LeTruc, returned to become Song's global chief creative officer, while DDB Chief Data Officer Jatinder Singh joined as global head of data and analytics. 

Two months later, he elevated Droga5 Global CEO Sarah Thompson to the company’s global lead for communications and content. At the same time, he brought over Nick Law, formerly Apple’s former VP of marcom integration and R/GA global chief creative officer, to become global head of design and creative technology.

“I found it richly ironic that the one company the advertising holding companies would call not creative had the balls to put a creative person in the CEO seat,” Law said about what compelled him to join. “It said something to me about Accenture’s intentions and ambitions, and I know David well enough to know that he doesn’t take a job on unless he thinks he can turn it into the best in the world.”

In his own role so far, “the way that I'm looking at the design discipline is, we're all about deep simplicity,” Law said. “We're not making a choice between depth, expertise, and industry knowledge—and simple human solutions. It's 'deep simplicity' because we're going to get to a very human place, but we're going to get there by understanding the complexity—and then synthesizing it into something simple.” 

As an example of such “deep simplicity,” Law points to a business growth and transformation project that pre-dated his arrival, for Accenture's longtime client, Japanese banking organization Fukuoka Financial Group. The company wanted to be able to evolve for modern consumers, and with Accenture it created Minna Bank, Japan’s first-ever digital bank, which operates fully in the cloud. It was designed specifically for “digital natives” who have no desire to step into a brick-and-mortar institution and features a simple black-and-white interface with friendly iconography.

Kenichi Nagayoshi, president and CEO of Minna Bank, said his company worked with groups across all of Accenture, including Song, on the project. Accenture’s strategy arm helped with business design, the consulting arm was involved in developing the banking services architecture and Accenture’s technology group was instrumental in building and designing the overall system. Song, he said, was behind a “very important [aspect], which was to help us understand what our customer profile might look like, which is the very start of building up the business.” It also helped to build the Minna Bank application.

Within the first year after the bank’s May 2021 launch, it attracted more than 1 million downloads, and 400,000 customers opened accounts. 

Thompson said the big draw for her to move up, outside of Droga himself, has been the exciting talent she has met throughout the network—leaders at agencies like Karmarama, Shackleton, Bow & Arrow, The Monkeys and others—and the prospect of bringing everyone together as one.

“This is a human business, and I’m such a strong believer in a collective,” she said. “That’s how we made Droga5 so strong over all these years. Can you imagine the power if we integrated, if we really made creativity the core of everything that we do? It wasn’t like I had to convince anyone. The ambition is there.”

Scott Nowell, co-founder of Australia's The Monkeys, one of the more prominent creative agency brands that Song acquired, said that “a big reason we thought partnering with Accenture Song was so interesting is that it creates a new way forward for the industry and the people in it. Of course there are challenges—wider Accenture getting used to how a bunch of independent-minded misfits work, for example. But the advantages are big."

While declining to offer specifics citing client confidentiality, he said, "I look at the type and caliber of creative work going through now and see our creativity is starting to have a much wider impact in the world, like the opportunity to build immersive experiences to help a Pacific nation tell its climate change story, or creating a tech platform to radically improve dementia treatment. There's no way we would be doing some of these things without the access to the opportunities and range of expertise that we're now part of."

Super Bowl touchdown

In February, Droga also hired Wieden+Kennedy vet Jason Kreher, known for his breakthrough ideas for brands such as KFC, Old Spice and more, to become North America chief creative officer. The announcement came right after Kreher had worked with Accenture Song, then still Interactive, to create its pirate Super Bowl move for Coinbase–the lo-fi ad featuring nothing but a bouncing QR code.

The spot was one of the buzziest of the game and directed more than 20 million hits to the company’s landing page in a minute. Though it temporarily crashed the site, the move paid off, leading to more than 14 billion media impressions and more than 445 million signups, not to mention a Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Direct by unanimous jury decision.

“I loved being able to tell my daughters that commercial was done by Accenture,” said Sweet during an investor and analyst conference last April. “Hopefully, the video gave you a sense of our truly unmatched depth, breadth and excellence across so many industries.”

That the Coinbase ad came from Accenture would have been surprising not so long ago; it helped to bring the sexiness of big idea advertising to the consulting company’s fold.

“If we do a Super Bowl ad, I want it to be the best thing on the Super Bowl,” Droga said. Yet “that’s just one dimension of what we are capable of doing.”

Today, Droga seems more excited about the broader, more comprehensive capabilities Song brings to clients. Along with the aforementioned Minna and Liftmaster projects, he cited a Lion-winning campaign for Ikea, “Cirkulär,” an initiative tied to a Black Friday promotion encouraging customers to sell and purchase secondhand Ikea goods as part of the brand's continuing sustainability efforts. For client the H&M Foundation, the company conceived the virtual fashion line “The Billion Dollar Collection,” an inventive way to promote and lobby support for winners of the organization’s “Global Change Award,” which since 2015 has challenged the fashion industry to become more sustainable.

Droga aims to continue sustainability efforts through a dedicated group he established that now comprises about 30 people. In March, he also teamed with other another Accenture leader, Group Chief Executive-Technology and Chief Technology Officer Paul Daugherty, to launch the Accenture Metaverse Continuum, a business group that specializes in helping clients prepare for technologies such as extended reality, blockchain, digital twins and edge computing that are poised to shape the consumer experience going forward. 

Reception

According to Ad Age’s 2022 Agency Report, Accenture Song’s fiscal 2021 U.S. revenue rose 27% to $5.9 billion, double the overall U.S. growth rate for all agencies in the report. Worldwide revenue increased 17% to $12.5 billion in the fiscal year ended August 2021. Ad Age Datacenter ranked Accenture Song as the world’s fourth-largest agency company based on 2021 revenue—behind WPP, Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe. Accenture Song’s parent company, Ireland-based Accenture, had fiscal 2021 worldwide revenue of $50.5 billion.

During the April investor call, Sweet pointed out that “our interactive business [Song] is the clear market leader,” noting that projected revenue for the fiscal year ended 2022 is $14 billion—a figure that implies 12% growth. 

As for how Song is faring among the other offerings out there, Greg Paull, principal and co-founder of marketing consultancy R3, noted that Accenture Song has been involved in a number of the company’s reviews, including one that Droga himself attended last month. “Two things for sure are that it’s given Accenture the creative firepower that it could never grow organically, and it’s given Droga5 the global canvas that would have taken them years to build,” he said. “How those two elements interfuse with each other for the benefit of clients remains to be seen.”

Jonny Bauer, Droga5’s former global chief strategy officer who left the agency to join global investment management firm Blackstone, said he’s starting to see the pieces fall into place. Blackstone owns Chamberlain Group and Bauer brought his former agency into the company’s business transformation project.

“Since David and Sarah have gone in, there is a more integrated offering where you actually can't tell where a Droga5 person stops and an Accenture person starts,” Bauer observed. “There's a different level of openness and acceptance.” 

He described a project with an undisclosed client in which “they brought a data person, a design person or an experience person [to a meeting] and we discuss[ed] bigger strategic ideas that it does feel at least to me very integrated, when I think before it could have felt a little bit more of like, ‘Okay, now this is the Droga person's bit.'”

Paull suggested that “the big missing piece for Accenture [Song] is still media. While they are market leading in terms of tech, data ad analytics, linking that to paid media is a huge opportunity they will continue to evaluate.” 

Droga, however, sees it differently. “If your future is about how much money you can save, and efficiencies you can make just in the media buying and how much you can squeeze or people can discount, that’s not a business built for the future,” he said. “Media is changing, and it's still imperative, but how we show up is more than just that. That’s why holding companies give away their creative, give away everything, because they're playing the long game for the cents on the dollar on the media. I'd much rather help our clients navigate and become digital businesses from a technology and a strategy and a creative side than just on clipping coupons.”

On Droga5

While Droga's namesake agency remains, there’s been plenty of churn within its ranks as key team members have moved up or out. Prior to Thompson’s departure Nam, former global chief operating officer, stepped up to CEO of the Americas, taking up Thompson’s charge in New York and assuming oversight of the Brazil outpost. Both New York co-creative chiefs, Felix Richter and Tim Gordon left, the former to lead creative at Mother London and the latter Zulu Alpha Kilo New York.

Now, former Executive Creative Director Scott Bell, who led campaigns such as Newcastle's 2015 Super Bowl stunt asking other brands to join in on a Big Game ad, IHOP's “IHOB” and Petco's brand refresh as a pet "health and wellness” company, is at the helm. London Chief Creative Officer David Kolbusz also departed to become creative chief at Orchard, while Executive Creative Director Shelley Smoler stepped up.

“With David now running a $14 billion dollar business with tens of thousands of employees around the world, talking to me about ideas seems to be an easy part of his day,” said Bell. “We’ve got a dozen great new clients with ambitious briefs and now more than ever, David helps us bring in people that can expand our thinking and add to how our ideas can be influential in the world. From technologists to metaverse and sustainability experts, he continues to make our work about much more than advertising—and with a new, broader arsenal of talent.” 

Though he’s no longer at the agency, Kolbusz believes its reputation will stay strong because the company maintains its high standards, and those are embraced by parent Accenture. “I remember a very large pitch we were involved in, and there was a conscious decision to present good creative work, though the prevailing wisdom was that if we compromised our standard, we’d have a better shot of winning,” he said. 

Droga dismisses the departures as part of the agency’s natural cycle. Those in leadership positions have changed over the years, but the work, he insists, remains strong. Along with the upcoming Chamberlain overhaul, the agency’s “Skate Nation Ghana” ad for Facebook/Meta was nominated for an Emmy and the company just debuted a new campaign for Instacart at the MTV Video Music Awards that included a fantastical ad starring Lizzo and a designer dress worn by “Saturday Night Live” star Chloe Fineman that was filled with snacks.

“Droga5’s success has been because it’s always evolved,” Droga said. "In its 15 years, it’s been six different agencies. There are some great people that I love that have moved on, and I’m grateful for what they did and I have faith in the leadership now.”

The bigger story, he said, is what Song will do going forward. “Year two for me is about taking it up another notch. Unless our work is dominating and really solving for clients, I’m not going to be happy. But now we can solve in more ways than I ever knew possible, and that, for me as a creative person, is the most exciting part of this challenge. I have a toy chest and a vast array of talents, and there isn’t anything we can’t solve for any client anywhere. It’s on us to deliver that.”

Contributing: Bradley Johnson, Brian Bonilla, Judann Pollack