Christopher Graves is stepping down from his role as chairman of Ogilvy PR to become the President and Founder of the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science, effective immediately, according to an announcement on Jan 26. The center, which will launch in the first quarter of 2017, aims to focus on establishing a new system to define how audiences think, feel and behave to improve marketing and communications effectiveness, across the Ogilvy group.
Graves will work with Carla Hendra, Global Chairman, OgilvyRED and Vice Chairman, Ogilvy Worldwide Board.
“Behavioral science will create a real edge for us in the marketplace,” said Carla Hendra, Global Chairman, OgilvyRED and Vice Chairman, Ogilvy Worldwide Board, in a statement. “We are thrilled that Chris has agreed to take on this new role as he is one of the industry’s most recognized experts in the field and will help us to transform the way we understand and move people on behalf of our clients.”
To help clients identify the levers most likely to shift behaviors and change attitudes, Graves and the team have created a new navigation tool called AMOS, named in honor of one of the founding fathers of behavioral economics, Amos Tversky.
“We are leveraging deep and in some cases emerging science to make a big shift. Marketing and communications has always been about targeting prey. Even the terminology used — terms like “target” and “track” and “acquire” and war-like “campaigns”,” Christopher Graves, President and Founder of Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science told DIVERGE. “We are shifting to an empathy approach through using science to more deeply understand individuals and groups and how they view the world. Ultimately this is more respectful and values cognitive diversity.”
Graves also noted that behavioral scientists have shown that instead of targeting people, understanding them works better, which leads to creating far more effective ways to help clients achieve better outcomes.
The Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science will not only help clients achieve better outcomes, it will also offer a comprehensive, new approach to achieving client goals by combining the legendary Ogilvy expertise in brands, with new cognitive and behavioral insights. The approach is called “B4” due to its focus on Brand, Brain, Behavior, and Bias, the release explained.
Graves said he spent eight years finding, digesting and sorting research, but the key was creating a way for non-scientists to use the findings in practical ways.
“This is not a niche,” cautioned Graves, in the release, “It drives big increases in effectiveness for everything from health and wellbeing, the environment, personal finance, social issues, politics, crisis management, employee engagement, and sales of products and services.”
The Center will also appoint a board of scientific advisors as well as partner with and build on the groundbreaking work of the behavioral expert practice group, Ogilvy Change, based out of London and Washington, DC — led in the UK by Vice Chair Rory Sutherland and Managing Director, Mark Lainas, and led in Washington, DC by Executive Vice President, Tony Silva — with further centers in Paris, Sydney, Milan, Madrid, Wellington and Johannesburg.
Additionally, the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science will partner with other behavior change specialists such as research giant WPP’s Kantar to create new cognitive insights, and with WPP Government to help in large-scale population behavior change for quality of life improvement.
