Breaking Boundaries: Is team diversity changing in ad agencies? An exploratory investigation

Advertising agency creativity is a product of team efforts where members interact to share knowledge, skills, and expertise to produce creative campaigns. Today, the advertising industry is in a state of flux, where the agency model is changing and evolving alongside todays fast paced digital environment. Different skills are required, different ways of working and perhaps a different mind set. This paper reviews the drivers of change in the advertising industry and discusses why team diversity is an important phenomenon to explore in this context. The study adopted a qualitative approach using a key informant strategy with 13 interviews with Creative Directors, CEO’s and Heads of planning and Account Directors. The sample included advertising agencies drawn from the top 100 UK agency rankings compiled by Nielsen for Campaign Live, using a combination of snowballing and convenience sampling. The findings suggest that agencies who embrace diversity within their teams will enhance the creative product and will improve the client/agency relationship