Charlotte Beers Case Study

Harvard Business School

9-495-031
Rev. October 12, 1999

Charlotte Beers at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide (A)
It was December 1993, and during the past year and a half, Charlotte Beers had found little time for reflection. Since taking over as CEO and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in 1992, Beers had focused all her efforts on charting a new course for the world’s sixth-largest advertising agency. The process of crafting a vision with her senior management team had been—by all accounts—painful, messy, and chaotic. Beers, however, was pleased with the results. Ogilvy & Mather was now committed to becoming “the agency most valued by those who most value brands.” During the past year, the agency had regained, expanded, or won several
In 1969, she moved to Chicago as an account executive with J. Walter Thompson. Once there, she cultivated success with clients Sears, Kraft, and Gillette, combining a Southern Texan charm with sharp business acumen. Beers rose quickly to senior vice president for Client Services. At Thompson, Beers was known for her passionate interest—unusual in account executives— in the philosophy of marketing. Commented Beers, “I try never to discuss with clients only the stuff of business. I focus on advertising as well—on the ideas.” Once described on a performance evaluation as “completely fearless,” Beers earned a reputation for her ability to win over clients. Colleagues retold the story of how Beers impressed a roomful of Sears executives in the early 1970s by taking apart, then reassembling, a Sears power drill without skipping a beat in her pitch for a new advertising campaign. In 1979, Beers became COO of the Chicago agency Tatham-Laird & Kudner. Her success in winning the mid-sized agency several new brands with Proctor & Gamble helped turn the firm around. Accounts with Ralston-Purina and Stouffer Foods followed. Beers was elected CEO in 1982 and chairman of the board in 1986. In 1987, she became the first woman ever named chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. One year later, she led TLK through a merger with the international agency
Two common values provided an initial glue: “We agreed to take no more baby steps. And it seemed clear that brands were what we were going to be about.” Beers asked Rod Wright, who had led the Asia/Pacific region through a vision formulation process, to organize and facilitate the meeting. Wright proposed a conceptual framework, based on the McKinsey “7-S” model,10 to guide discussion of the firm’s strengths and weaknesses. He also hoped to generate debate. “We don’t have passionate arguments in this company. We avoid conflict, and debates go off line. When you use a framework, it’s easier to depersonalize the discussion.” Reactions to the discussion ranged from confusion to disinterest. “It was theoretical mumbojumbo,” commented one participant, “I tend to be far more pragmatic and tactical.” Added another, “I don’t have much patience for the theoretical bent. I wanted to get on with it.” Wright admitted, “They rolled their eyes and said, ‘You mean we’ve got to do all that?’“ Beers agreed: “The B-school approach had to be translated.” As the discussion unfolded, the group discovered that their personalities, priorities, and views on specific action implications diverged widely. One debate concerned priorities for change. Shelly Lazarus diagnosed a firm-wide