Is Sir Martin Sorrell the brainiest man in advertising? Just watching the head of the world’s largest communications group giving his insights to Cannes Lions TV doesn’t really give you much of a feeling for it.
Everything seems so simple and intuitive. And perhaps that is his strength.
I mean, unless you’ve been living under a rock for ten years, it's not difficult to see that the future of the business is shifting from the US being the dominant force to the rise of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
Sure, clients are too focused on cost, and procurement has too much power. But it was his other insights on the US$1 trillion communication business – of which mainstream media represents about half - that really struck me.
And it fits in with the three technological innovations that have changed his life in recent years – first the mobile phone, then the Blackberry and now the iPad, which he says is a game changing technology.
He says that WPP will employ more software engineers and more PHDs in the future and the company will be more involved in the analysis of information (the gathering of which is pretty much free).
The future is, in addition to big ideas, about technology and applications. It’s no longer about the medium and the message. But it’s about tweaking and engineering the medium.
It’s so obvious. But missed by so many of us.