"Disruption, we did it first"- TBWA

Alas! The day has come, after a flight, 10-mile walk tour, and endless meeting and greeting; we took its first trip to meet with companies starting with Bank of Ireland and Cawley Nea/TBWA. After a great meeting with Bank of Ireland, we rushed to grab a quick lunch and catch a taxi to Cawley Nea/TBWA offices at 41A Blackberry Ln. We not only learned on site with companies, but even in the Taxi. We got a quick Gaelic lesson from our not so “American Friendly” cab driver on words I will refrain from repeating.

When we arrived to Cawley Nea/TBWA, we were ready for business. Dressed for success, we walked in the blue and white building with original mosaic glass windows, formerly know as the Kodak factory. Greeted by the Head of Planning, Mark Nolan, we stepped in the office to a not-so-traditional conference room. The room was in the shape of a large circle, completed with big, comfy sofa chairs and sitting blocks of many colors.

Mark Nolan seemed to be under the impression that he hadn’t prepared enough material to go over with us and was ready to wing some speech off the top of his head. However, his words of wisdom and experience were far from dry and completely crafted down to every small detail. I presume that what he meant by “I am making the slides now as you all introduce yourselves” was really code for, “I have been working on this presentation for a few days, to make sure your class walks out of here with lessons in marketing, culture, and life”. Indeed, his subliminal message was correct because he kept us engaged for all 130 slides.

First he talked about the path to his career, why he likes working at TBWA, and a background into what the company does. After studying communications at Blackrock University, a famous college in Ireland, he went on to pursue his Law degree. You could tell right off the bat that behind his humble words, he was an extremely intelligent marketer with a creative niche and business focused background. What Mark loves about TBWA is the Entrepreneurial spirit. Although his company is connected to 323 offices worldwide, the agency provides empowerment to him and the Dublin team allowing them to make their own decisions and use their creative minds. This office is a prototype Data Management platform that they are looking to sell across the platform of the agency. On the back end, TBWA is looking at the Dublin office as a potential Data hub.

TBWA is an advertising agency, creating campaigns for some of the largest companies across all industries by taking a vision and a convention and developing a Disruption. Using this method of Disruption, they have created a movement which other companies are jumping on and adding to their business model. We saw this in our presentation from Google the following day, when they used the concept of Disruption as an extremely important theme in the advertising world.