Tia Castagno re-joined Dentsu in November in the newly created role of president of global innovation. She had left the agency in 2021 to start her own consultancy, coaching leaders in tech, creative and media businesses.
She talks to MediaCat about why Dentsu is such a good place to proselytise innovation, and why the ad industry appeals to her inner masochist.
What keeps you interested in media and marketing? What made you come back to an agency?
The grass is always greener, right? While I was running my business, my clients were fundamentally agencies and tech companies, and some brands. So I kept close to that world. But I was missing the closeness to the action. It was like when you babysit and then you hand the baby over in the evening, and you start to think it might be nice to keep the baby for the night. That’s the kind of feeling I started to get.
What do you like about the media/marketing sector?
The opportunity to combine things. If you look at other industries, like fashion, craft drives it. In other industries, tech drives it. Media and marketing have probably done one of the best jobs at trying to bring craft and tech together.
The other thing that attracts me, and this is a bit masochistic, is that there’s so many things that are not working very well and need to be fixed. I want to try to solve some of those problems. I’m not sure I will manage to do that, but I’ll definitely try to make a contribution.
Your consultancy helped businesses scale. How did you do that?
I focused on the principle that you can’t get the ‘outer’ working, unless you work on the inner game of people. I did a lot of work helping individuals to understand that they can work differently, that they have more agency. That was the hardest part, that mindset shift. And the hardest part in advertising is exactly that. It feels very often like people have given up — this is how it works and how it will always work, and I’m not able to change it for myself.
Is that because the industry has deferred too much to technology?
I think there’s two parts. One is the burnout issue. It’s pretty much impossible to go to any agency and find that there is no burnout issue. And so when you are in that state, you’re in survival mode and you get used to the fact that that’s how life is. Not just in agencies, but also within the tech industry, I would say 80% of people that I’ve coached suffered from burnout to a degree.
Then there’s also what you describe. More than the advertising industry, I think the media industry has been chasing tech to its detriment. But I do see a bit of a shift right now. Since the end of last year there’s been much more talk about brands needing to have a differentiated media diet, which I think is helpful and healthy. The second thing, which I’ve seen lately and I’m really happy about, is that the tech platforms are also being held a bit more accountable. It’s a bit of a shame we haven’t been the ones, as agencies and brands, to hold them accountable, though.
Why is the advertising industry so susceptible to burnout?
The business model. All agencies are trying to reinvent that model but it’s still based on very similar principles to what it was 20 years ago. And it’s because of these crazy pitch processes that become a race to the bottom. You end up in a scenario where you always have to deliver more for less. I was talking to some colleagues yesterday about the fact that before, if you were an account lead for instance, you could be quite horizontal. The classic suit didn’t need to know much about every vertical. They could just bring someone in as the expert. They just needed to be 10% knowledgeable about many things. Now, you need to be at least 30-40% knowledgeable about many many things.
Plus, you have to deliver that work with less resources and less money, generally. And this all exacerbates the burnout problem, which is not going to be solved tomorrow by AI, that’s for sure.
You’ve come back to Dentsu as global president of innovation. What kind of innovation will you be presiding over?
The way I define it, to help my colleagues understand when to bring me into something, is the vision of innovation that we want to have, both from a client perspective — helping them with what innovation is for them — and then supporting on the media creativity and the activation side. But it’s much more around that long-term approach to innovation. Then, of course, the AI stream comes into it. But I try to keep it as non-dry as possible.
It’s quite an intimidating job title. How is your performance measured?
I sit in what we call integrated solutions. Dentsu has the media practice, creative, and Merkle, and then we have integrated solutions, which are what I would define as anything that goes beyond traditional advertising. Gaming sits in there, retail media, sponsorship, and also social and creator.
The hard numbers and objectives are on how much growth we bring in those areas and how much innovation we can bring in those areas.
On some clients we have an innovation centre of excellence, where we decide on deliverables for the year and then we track those, and I oversee that. And then the third aspect is my contribution to pitches.
How do you go about instilling a culture of innovation within an agency?
People ask, ‘Why did you go back to Dentsu? Why not another partner?’ And I think Dentsu has two very attractive features that are a huge contributor to the role that I do. One is the culture. Everyone will tell you that culture is different in their agency but I worked with many when I was running my consultancy. So I know the difference. And people are extremely collaborative and non-back-stabbing, generally, at Dentsu. I know that sounds like quite a low bar, but there’s a lot of stress in agencies, and people maybe don’t even do it on purpose but they step on each other’s toes. Dentsu does a great job at not doing that.
And if you speak to many of our big tech partners they will tell you we’re always the first to take on any new pilot and innovation that they put forward. They actually come to us first because they know that we will say yes. So there’s a mindset of just trying things. I think those are the two big contributing factors to building a culture of innovation.
Are you also a trained yoga teacher?
Yes. Well spotted. I always define myself as a polymath, but a much less successful one than Leonardo da Vinci. What is the saying? A jack of all trades, master of none? I really disagree with that. You can be horizontal but then also have lots of little verticals that you get engaged with. I got quite serious about eastern philosophy, and I’ve taught at quite advanced levels both yoga and meditation, on the side. I’ve integrated it into my leadership programs — to get people to understand how they can get more agency, like we talked about earlier.
I think the full saying ends with ‘oftentimes better than a master of one’, so the phrase is on your side.
Well, that’s good. I’m going to start referring to that.
What’s the most potentially transformative technology or innovation that isn’t AI?
Assuming we’re talking about marketing and advertising, there’s two things. Retail media has compressed the funnel and brought a completely different dimension to lots of advertisers in all sectors, and I think that is making a huge difference.
And the one that I get even more excited about is out of home. It’s the only touchpoint that I truly feel engaged with and amazed by. If I’m out and about on the tube and I see installations, I’m just fascinated by the amount of creativity that you can bring into that.
Is there a particular philosophy of marketing and advertising that you subscribe to?
Maybe because I’ve always been in the less traditional parts of advertising, I always felt that interruption is definitely not part of my philosophy.
For me, everything should be geared to be part of culture and I think out of home does a great job at that. And even though it’s not a mode, humour is part of my philosophy for advertising. I don’t listen to radio much but the ads can be so creative.
