The internal ad-making process comprised five teams of five Rowse employees each coming together to work on the brief, share ideas, determine their favourite and then shoot it on the day of the company picnic.
Each team was made up of a cross-section of employees drawn from all aspects of the Rowse operation. And the comment we heard the most throughout the process, from senior manager to line worker alike, was how refreshing and enjoyable it was to be able for once to put aside the usual distinctions of function and rank and all muck in together, on the same terms.
Which has led us to wonder whether this process could be rolled out across more companies as much as a corporate team-building exercise as a way of arriving at unusual advertising?
After all, the problem with the typical ‘company bonding weekend’ is that it is clearly divorced from the actual operations of the company itself, so all the participants know deep down that it is not ‘real’ – after it’s finished, everyone and everything will go back to what and where they were before.
Here, everyone knew it was for real – the output would form the company’s national TV campaign and the most popular staff ad would air on TV. And the process for getting there was genuinely democratic – no opinion could trump anyone else’s based on seniority or title.
So often these days, companies (and governments?) talk about ‘teamwork‘ and ‘being all in it together‘ while supporting systems guaranteed to keep us apart. Here, the Rowse internal ad teams really were all in it together – and seemed to enjoy the feeling.
