“The idea is to celebrate the culture. Assimilation is not the goal,” says Accenture Interactive North America’s Glen Hartman on Droga5 deal
Following Accenture Interactive’s acquisition of Droga5, Accenture Interactive’s Glenn Hartman talks to LBB’s Laura Swinton about acquisition strategy and the challenge of balancing culture and collaboration
When Accenture Interactive and industry darling Droga5 last week announced that they were getting together, adland Twitter erupted in a flurry of speculation about what the future might hold for the creative hotshop. On the one hand, consultancies like Accenture are viewed with suspicion by many from the more traditional set-ups – while others saw the blend of brand Droga and Accenture’s data and tech heft as opportunity for a creative evolution.
According to Glen Hartmann, Senior Managing Director, Accenture Interactive North America and Global Digital Marketing, there’s no intention to subsume the famous Droga5 brand, Borg-like. The strategy, he says, is to double down and invest in its culture.
“The idea is to celebrate the culture. Assimilation is not the goal,” he says. The mantra internally is that the organisation is a ‘culture of cultures’.
“We’re trying to maintain the thing that’s special about them [Droga5] as a top priority,” he continues. “Something we take pride in is doing acquisitions a little differently than other firms – we’ve done a lot of them so we’ve got some lessons learned in making sure that you can find a way to have our teams come together without taking away the unique culture and magic that they’re bringing to clients and are famous for.”