McCann Worldgroup in late September surprised the industry by naming Nike marketing executive Alex Lopez as its president and global chief creative officer. The appointment was notable on several fronts: The industry had been buzzing for months about who would replace Rob Reilly as Worldgroup’s global creative chairman; Lopez was coming from the client side and was therefore not an agency insider; and the title was expanded with a broader remit. In its announcement, Worldgroup — whose clients include Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Microsoft — declared it was “redefining” the role of chief creative officer through Lopez.

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In this interview, Lopez, who begins his new post today, explains along with McCann Worldgroup Chairman-CEO Bill Kolb how the network is looking at creativity to solve client problems. They also outline how Lopez’s experience can help translate that vision to clients, winning buy-in and budgets for solutions that are normally far beyond the purview of traditional advertising. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

This is a big jump from Nike. What made you decide to do this?

Alex Lopez: It's certainly a change, but it's a change that I'm excited for. I was at Nike for 23 years, which is a lifetime. For me, I really enjoy getting a chance to learn the brand, learn the business, and really think deeply about that. But one of the things that I found myself wanting to do was to look to solve other problems and being able to think horizontally across different types of businesses and think about, ‘How do we solve those problems?’

You could have gone to another client. Why did you decide to move to an agency?

Lopez: One of the things that I've always taken pride in the way that I've worked with my agency partners is that I've never actually drawn a very hard distinction between who sits on one side and who sits on the other side. Being the steward of the 40-year relationship between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy, I think the power of that relationship is really in that the teams are joined at the hip and working together to solve those problems, and the type of work that we did together is only possible in doing that. Whether it's been with Wieden; whether it's been with R/GA, who's obviously part of the IPG family; or a host of other agency partners, I've always worked in that way.

Was there something in particular that drew you to McCann Worldgroup?

Lopez: One of the things that I really am excited about the opportunity of joining here is that this isn't a job of just overseeing the creative work and overseeing the creative teams. This is really about thinking ‘How does our entire organization really embrace creativity?’ Not just what we do, but the why and the how of how we do it. For me, that’s the power and I think that's what we were able to do at Nike, and my hope is that that's what we're able to do here. 

You're talking about this expansive idea of creativity. Can you explain what that actually means in terms of practice? 

Bill Kolb: One of the things we take stock of is, we've been 25 years of Worldgroup–what will the next 25 years look like? We very much as an industry have talked about creativity as a function within a group. We say a lot of platitudes and words around creativity is everybody's job. But what [McCann Worldgroup] really wants to do is start to be the irrefutable leader in the business of creativity. And to Alex's point, that horizontality also then allows us to have conversations about, ‘What does that mean in the sense of, what other businesses should we be in?’ Because our industry is fighting over share. We’re not fighting over growth. 

How specifically can you do that?

Kolb: The opportunity is to extend what we do. We are fabulous storytellers. That's what we do for a living in many cases. So why don't we have a film studio? I'm proposing that just as an example, but it kind of keeps us as a business from doing the same thing rather than evolving it. What we're talking about is over the next 25 years, what are our chances to not evolve it, but to revolutionize what we do as an industry? Alex's work that he did internally in one of the great companies that lives innovation day in and day out, that's the thinking we need to bring in. 

Are we talking about more ways of building agency out or building new disciplines, or is it more like trying to bring new creative solutions to your clients or both?

Kolb: All of the above. The other thing that Alex has is, because of the position he's had, he's driven integrated teams from the physical TV to print to digital. That horizontality across our current businesses is a huge value to drive integration, No. 1, to also drive and elevate what is currently our creative product and it brings a whole new pool of people that he knows that maybe we don't. That's really important as we look to build out Worldgroup for the next 25 years.

Lopez: We really sometimes narrow creativity to the creative product and not the way that we should do the work. Everyone focuses on the what, and what is that end product? But the why and the how is really the fuel that helps to drive that engine. If we're able to get everybody understanding that they are working together to really help to make that happen, I think that unlocks a lot of great potential. At Nike, every one of the 74,000 employees understood that we were there to make athletes better. Regardless of where you were at in the organization, you were there to either help to inspire or to innovate to help make athletes better. That mission statement of bringing innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world is something that every employee could tell you from the sales floor to the corporate suite. That idea of everyone understanding that we're here in service of creativity is vital. 

How do you execute that?

Lopez: My job is not isolated to a single thing, a single narrow vertical. My job is to solve complex brand and business problems in the most creative manner possible. Where that has led me over my career has been making great campaigns, but also integrating them across the business, also heading up functions like media planning and media buying and how are we really creative in that space? Brand experience, how do we show up in real life for the consumer? Social media, what is our strategy? Entertainment. Bill talked about, what if Worldgroup created a film studio? I led the creation of the film studio in Nike, Waffle Iron Entertainment. So, I've been really thinking holistically around how we show up is important and really understanding that there is a whole opportunity, a wide breadth of ways that we can be solving branding business problems creatively.

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Can you explain how that evolves the traditional chief creative officer role? 

Lopez: It's really taking a look beyond just the end product. A lot of times, we get caught up in the end product and how our copywriters and our art directors are bringing it to life and then how our producers who are making the work are bringing to life that end product. I've never focused so narrowly in that space. I've really been someone who has been connected to the business. What are the business needs? What are the business opportunities? What is our team looking to do? Where are the places where we can grow and where we can expand? And more importantly, where's the consumer and where's the culture?

A lot of times when we've focused solely on that end product, we do it in isolation and we forget all of those other parts. Part of what excited me about coming to Worldgroup is the units that we have—whether it's MRM, whether it's Momentum, whether it's Truth Central—are equipped to really unpack a lot of these things that sometimes get left to the side when all we think about is ‘Let's make a great Super Bowl ad.’ Yes, we want to make a great Super Bowl ad, and we want to drive a real powerful business and brand solution for our partners.

Kolb: One of our top strategic priorities is business transformation. Alex and I have had long conversations about it. This role has to be different. What we've done as an industry for the past 100 years is probably not going to get us to the next 100 years. So, we have a pretty good idea and alignment on what this is going to be. Alex and I and the team will evolve it. We'll morph it, and we'll continue to change because we have to. Like I said, we're continually fighting over share and we're doing the same thing. If you're the chief creative officer at Worldgroup, you're doing the same thing as the CCO at Ogilvy or a CCO at Wunderman Thompson. We're looking to change that because we're looking down the road. 

Lopez: Early on, I told Bill, if this is just about coming in and working on with the creative teams, I wasn't interested. Because I think that that shortchanges creativity, and I really am a strong believer that every single employee we have is here to serve through the lens of creativity. I’m in a unique position in that I've sat in the client chair. I've done the type of work that most of them probably want to do. I understand the hurdles that they go through inside. I understand the P&L sheets. I've had to lead, and I've had to oversee P&Ls. I've had to land our quarterly and annual budgets. I've had to do all those things that they've needed to do in the service of making this work. I also know on the other side how hard it is to make work that never actually comes to fruition and understanding how to make the best work in the world that actually is going to see the light of day and connect with consumers is something very unique.

You probably could've gone to any agency you wanted to. Why McCann over Wieden?

Lopez: Honestly, I wasn't looking to go to the agency side. I wanted to solve. I wanted to be able to think more holistically and really think from an organizational leadership at scale and really being able to expand my horizon across industries. As I started to look at that, the opportunity with Worldgroup really started to stand out. And then as I got to know the people, that's what brought me in. These are some really, really great people that we have, and every single person who I've had a chance to know is really interesting and compelling and everyone has a really sharp vision of what our opportunity is. So, yeah, I'm sure. If I was interested in that, I could have gone somewhere else, but the ability to unlock the power of our 20,000 plus employees is something that is really powerful.

Bill, you’ve been in your position for not quite a year. Recently there have been a lot of other changes. Devika Bulchandani left, Rob Reilly left. IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky is new in his role. So, how does this fit with your bigger vision? These are a lot of changes in a short period of time.

Kolb: Given any CEO transition, there's always a change. It's actually given freedom to execute on the strategy that I set out to the team in January, which is, we have five pillars of transformation. DE&I, creativity, operational and financial rigor, growth, and then business transformation and sustainability. Those are our five priorities. And having some opportunity to bring in somebody like Alex to replace Rob actually is in some ways very liberating because now I get to bring in new people buying into where we want to take [Worldgroup]. I love Rob. I love Dev, but it can be liberating to be able to make the changes that you want to make without any incumbents. It's been a great 10 months. It's been a very productive 10 months.

There's a presidential addition to Alex’s title. Does that mean he will have P&L responsibility as well?

Kolb: Absolutely. There's a reason that we did that because we're expanding the remit beyond just, I'm going to focus on the creative department. Alex brings to the organization a true global perspective that because of the breadth and depth and scale of Nike around the world, our true understanding of consumer experience and their requirement for consumer experience regardless of the product. That's a massive value to bring. 

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Lopez: For me, the role of the president is more important than the role of the chief creative officer. In an early conversation I had with Bill, I said, ‘Look, if you want me to just come on over and look at the creative, oversee the creative teams, I'm not interested.’ Because I think that really shortchanges the opportunity. And so, for us to really think holistically around, how are we driving this business? How are we thinking about the evolution of all of our opportunities? The first of the other five strategic opportunities that Bill mentioned was DE&I which is vitally important to me, not just personally because of who I am and my personal journey, but because of the power. And then I told Bill, I said, ‘Look, I'm not... I believe very firmly that we need to move from making diversity a metric to making diversity a superpower. If you're in on that, then let's continue the conversation.’

That's why I take a look holistically at not just the creative work team, but the entire organization and it's a view towards creativity. I'm excited to partner with [Chief Diversity and Engagement Officer] Singleton Beato on this type of work. I'm excited to partner with the rest of our organization on that. I think that's just one example of how when you take the broader purview of, what does the president of the organization want to do versus just overseeing the creative team.

Do you think we are seeing, industry-wide, an evolution of the chief creative officer role?

Kolb: Preliminary evidence would suggest it. There are a couple of other organizations that are beginning, maybe not the exact same journey as us, but as a different journey than they have been on in the traditional way. I haven't seen it quite as pervasive yet to say it's a trend, but there are others that are saying, ‘We're going to make a little left turn over here and try something a little bit different.’ I generally believe and I think all the holding companies are doing it in different ways.