B&T’s Podcast With Y&R Boss Pete Bosilkovski: “I’d Love To Bring Google & Facebook Even Closer To What We Do”

B&T’s Podcast With Y&R Boss Pete Bosilkovski: “I’d Love To Bring Google & Facebook Even Closer To What We Do”
B&T Magazine
By B&T Magazine



While the world, and particularly media, comes to grips with the effect Google and Facebook – otherwise known as the duopoly – are having on the industry, not all are approaching the tech giants with hysteria and caution.

Speaking to B&T on the latest episode of our Fast 30 industry podcast, Y&R ANZ chief executive Pete Bosilkovski admitted that despite the panic and warnings, any agency not including Facebook, Google and now Amazon into their media mix is incredibly behind the times.

“I think you’ve got to be absolutely naïve to not have Google and Facebook or now even Amazon as part of your arsenal,” Bosilkovski said.

“For me, I encourage that and I’d love to bring them even closer to what we do.”

For the Y&R boss, who has spent the last two decades at the helm of some of Australia’s most prolific creative agencies, the industry needs to face up to the reality that Google, Facebook and Amazon only have positive impacts to businesses.

“From my perspective, I think today, your business needs to be connected and it’s got to have this ecosystem view of how you manage brands, and you’ve got to have an operating system,” he said.

“I think it’s not necessarily ‘are they the enemy?’, ‘are they here to take business away from you?’

“It’s that they’ve got this thing called a customer, two billion of them in fact, and they know the motivations and behaviours and how people interact with those platforms.”

In terms of including the tech giants as part of your arsenal, Bosilkovski encouraged agencies to collaborate more with the likes of Google and Facebook through an “open-source model”.

“I think having an open source model with them where you collaborate on business ideas with them together, you’re going to get amazing outcomes,” he said.

“Because ultimately, two billion plus on their platforms, there’s a lot of influence there and you want to be collaborating and experimenting with those platforms.”

Asked whether the rise of tech giants was taking away from other media platforms, Bosilkovski argued any loss was unlikely due to consumers’ hunger to consume.

“I don’t think one channel is losing and the other is gaining because I don’t think consumers don’t see it like that, plus they consume a lot. I don’t think it’s a one or the other.

“I think the world we live in now is completely connected, so if you try and disconnect yourself from [Google and Facebook] then you’re really in trouble.”

Hear more of Bosilkovski’s thoughts about the state of media and creative agencies in the latest episode of B&T‘s Fast 30 podcast, which you can listen to on iTunes, Spotify and other podcast players.




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