The panelists had a candid chat about failure, discussing how relationships fall apart and what it takes to repair them. Sills suggested that partnerships begin to falter when agencies haven’t built the kind of relationship that allows them to challenge a client’s approach.
Laura Ness Owens, SVP and CMO of Doosan Bobcat, compared a fraying partnership to a strained marriage.
“When we stop listening to each other, that’s when we start directing each other,” Owens explained. “There is no mutual relationship. There is no two-way. That’s the point at which I’ve thought, ‘All right, we’ve got to step back, reacquaint ourselves, and rebuild that relationship.’”
Responding to Virguez’s anecdote about Horizon’s AI pilot, Ingeborn pointed to a burgeoning source of conflict: Agencies not being transparent about their use of AI. Their reticence comes from fear, she suggested, and while it’s understandable, it’s also self-defeating. “Who wants to have a relationship with someone who’s not honest with you?” Ingeborn asked.
Onboarding the ‘invisible partner’
The conversation turned periodically to AI, which the panelists see less as a threat than as a new player to manage.
Virguez predicted AI will put global agencies and boutiques on a level playing field, with a new premium on agility. Ingeborn stressed that the best products will maximize human creativity rather than replace it. And from an operational perspective, Sills described AI as “this weird invisible partner” whose role is still up in the air. Because most contracts don’t address AI governance or disclosure, he said, brands and agencies still need to align on how it should be used.
“How do we avoid the threat of its reputational risk if something goes wrong?” Sills asked. “How is it going to scale what we’re doing while maintaining the same quality of creative? Just having a shared, open conversation about how AI is going to be used will be a great step forward for building the next sort of strategic partnership.”
Featured Conversation Leaders
- Carolina Cespedes Virguez, General Manager, GoGo squeeZ U.S., Bel Group
- Caroline Ingeborn, Chief Operating Officer, Luma AI
- Laura Ness Owens, SVP and CMO, Doosan Bobcat
- Karen Pugliese, Global President, Weber Shandwick
- Sarah Reinecke, SVP, Salty Portfolio and Brand, Kellanova
- Niek de Rooij, Global Masterbrand Director, Knorr, Unilever
- Daniel Sills, VP, Brand Partnerships, NewtonX
- Rebecca Stewart, Brand Editor, ADWEEK
