The Curious Case of Tom Goodwin and What it Says About Agencies

Tom is or was until last week Head of Futures and Insight at Publicis Groupe Before that he was Head of Innovation at Zenith and way back when had a role responsible for Strategy and Innovation at Havas MediaLast week Publicis fired Tom following a series of Twitter posts about the Coronavirus pandemic Tom has for months been posting about how we have things all out of proportion or as he put itquotI find the total obsession with COVID deaths over all other deaths entirely gruesome 7500 Americans die every day but only the ones with this precise new virus matterquotI do follow Tom on Twitter I admit I find him deeply irritating in that he is forever complaining about this and that failure or inefficiency whilst rarely proposing any constructive solution Fair enough I yell at the screen so go and do something about it thenOn the few occasions when I39ve moved on from yelling to typing the answer I would get is that I have clearly overestimated the influence he has within the organisation that pays his wagesLike a lot of people Tom has made the fundamental mistake of believing his own publicity He worked for one of the largest holding companies in the business and before that for one of the biggest media agenciesOne reason not I grant you the only reason that anyone paid much attention to what he has to say is because of the position he heldHe has some interesting opinions but the difference between some old git of a blogger expressing a pointofview and the same view expressed by someone who is and I quote 39part of a team that helps build what a holding company should be with a focus on unleashing the power of culture diversity and technology39 is that one has a substantially larger platform and a far bigger megaphone than the otherSo Tom39s defence around his COVID views that he was merely expressing a personal opinion may be true but is irrelevant His public persona whether he likes it or not has been largely constructed around his role at Publicis if he really wanted to express his personal views then why not create an online alter egoBut whatever I may think of Tom and his views were Publicis right to fire himFirst up clearly they can fire who the heck they likeSecond during a time of largescale redundancies someone doing what Tom does or did must be vulnerable Was he indispensable to any client To the business as a whole Did he bring in direct revenueCertainly since the firing he has had a great deal of support from amongst his legion of followers but many senior ad people including one selfproclaimed Publicis client have stated that they felt the company did the right thingThe COVIDrelated fuss might have been a highly convenient excuseBut there is another angle to this Like him or not Tom has a pointofview and has not been backward in coming forward to express itThis is something rare not invisible but rare in the large agencies Whatever happened to the industry39s thought leaders the contrariansOddly and I would be happy to be corrected on this point I don39t recall Tom ever taking a stand on any of the huge issues faced by the ad and media industries over the last few yearsTransparency in media Tom would have been at Havas Media Zenith around then The holding companies held their tongues along with the tongues of their more garrulous employeesCambridge Analytica Facebook and the misuse of data Again he was in a media agency and as a technology geek you might have thought he would have had something valuable to sayThe Facebook boycott As a leader in one of the largest holding companies what was the Head of Futures view on the position of the platform giants towards hateful content I may have missed itThe PWC ISBA work on the online ad supply chain Zenith finally issued an incredibly bland comment along the lines of 39a thing happened39 when shamed into doing so by one of their large clients But Tom stayed silentThe largest media and ad agencies have been remarkably quiet as the industry crumbles around them When someone within the media agency world does stand up to be counted as Mat Baxter of Initiative did with a view on FB he was slapped down by his holding company CEOTom Goodwin has a voice and has diligently built an audience He39s now free to act on his own adviceAs to the past he could have used his position to address the many issues the industry is facing as opposed to getting sucked in to a controversy over a topic that is both hugely sensitive and selfevidently way outside his area of expertiseOr as the incomparable Bob Hoffman put it 39As if anyone in the real world gives 25 of a flying shit what some ad guy thinks about COVID39Click the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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The Curious Case of Tom Goodwin and What it Says About Agencies

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Brian Jacobs

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