The "car guy" who's been to 128 countries
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I’ve known Ian since the FCB days. If you were to define Ian, you’d have to look at two key aspects. First, he is a world traveler. Ian has already been to 128 countries, which is an immense amount of travel. Second, Ian is truly a car guy. Not only does he like cars (he drives a brand new Supra) but he worked for Ford Australia twice, worked for Kia, and today is the CMO at AMCI, a global company that provides key insights and solutions for car manufacturers and retailers. In his free time, Ian volunteers at the Petersen Museum.
Defining Moment – I would say it was when I left Fort Australia and joined Saatchi & Saatchi advertising in Australia, and they just picked up the Toyota business and I was offered the opportunity to go to the United States to set up strategic planning at Saatchi & Saatchi in California on the Toyota business. Had two young children and a wife who'd never been outside the country, and I said yes and it was something I'd never considered.
I was going to a country, to a company, to a job that I had zero background in. So it was an enormous leap of faith.
The big change in your industry – I've been telling people for 20 years that electrification is where it's going to end up. So, I saw that coming. I think the thing that I hadn't seen coming really was this almost relentless drive for automated driving. I've always felt that there's a place for it, but the belief of so many OEMs that there is actually a business case for this. With the sort of technology that exists in it for people for everyday driving, I'm still struggling with.
And I also know that you've got people like Waymo and Cruise and all the rest playing around with the idea of autonomous driving as a business. none of them have got a business case that works yet.
And broadly, it's something I didn't see coming and I really haven't bought it yet. I can see the taxi piece, but I can't see why you want to pay eight grand to sit with the car, you know, and it drives itself. Why would you even bother?
How did he cope? – Several of the OEMs got way ahead of themselves in electrification. And the way I do that is give them data, because there's opinions and there's data. And I believe data informs opinions. But when you have uninformed opinions, for instance, when we're talking about AI, I tell people, I'm not frightened of AI. I'm frightened of human stupidity. That's what really frightens me. AI is fine.
The other thing is that there's not going to be one solution. There's going to be multiple solutions to this.
What I'm advising is you've got to be very nimble and it's hard in a very capital-intensive industry like automotive.
Other future-looking advice includes the AMCI “Miles/6 minutes” test and the notion that charging will have to be wireless because one can’t rewire old building.
Advice to the CEO or CMO – The first thing is it's not your genetic age, your actual age, it's how you think. And so you need to, when you're looking at someone, don't look at their biological age, think about their actual age. And then look at their mental flexibility because that is the key. You can find people in their 20s that aren't mentally flexible.
No business can afford to have people who don't have mental flexibility, regardless of age.
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