How do Brand Agencies Keep Ahead of the Innovation Curve?

Before he shares his thoughts on “Drinking the Innovation Kool-Aid” at the Digital Marketing Show 2015, we grabbed 5 minutes with Mark Lainas, Chief Innovation Officer at Ogilvy & Mather, to ask him the important questions about innovation in the digital space!

DMS: Should your job title of Chief Innovation Officer be added to the long list of ridiculous job titles?

ML: Well, there was a time, not that long ago, when a lot of people would say yes to that question but actually now I believe it’s really vital that a lot of big organisations have a Chief Innovation Officer. If you’re going to compete in the harder and harder market context that we live in, then having a dedicated resource focused on innovation is really important.

DMS: How would you define innovation?

ML: So, in my eyes innovation is the process of translating ideas or inventions into products or services that add some form of value to the world and to society. There’s two types of innovation: revolutionary innovation such as the internal combustion engine, and then there’s evolutionary innovations which would be the fuel injector in the internal combustion engine, for example.