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The speed of technological innovation continues to accelerate. It seems like just yesterday we were fawning over the metaverse when ChatGPT bashed down the door as the next trend for agencies to utilize and monetize.
With technology overload, agencies need specialists who can keep up with these dizzying changes and can spot how best to employ them to help clients stay ahead of the curve. The chief technology officer is at the helm of those efforts, responsible for the strategy and execution of technological initiatives both internal and external to move companies forward and enhance the business.
Adweek talked with a group of agency CTOs about what the job entails and how a good chief technologist can help an agency connect with clients and consumers, and drive greater results.
Not every agency has a chief technology officer, but those that do use them to track the pulse of the latest trends and how best to translate technology into value for the agency. But agencies looking to have a technological edge must be willing to allocate dollars to a tech team and CTO, while following through on the adoption and implementation of that tech.
Responsibilities of the CTO include: shoring up tech risk exposure and compliance; explaining technological matters to non-tech folks; having a handle on the latest trends in client technology tools; and a thorough understanding of the infrastructure, software and hardware for efficiency, security and productivity.
“The modern CTO … requires having both a deep understanding of technology and the end-to-end business to help drive alignment between overall business objectives and strategy for the technology team,” Seth Dobbs, chief technology officer at Bounteous, told Adweek.
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Why have a CTO?
Being competitive in the current marketing environment requires the ability to make real-time decisions based on real-time data. The faster-growing companies are thinking about technology first, so a good CTO must be cross-functional: understanding sales, marketing and organizational needs, and combining them.
Modern agencies are looking to the cloud for communication, milestone tracking, cross-team collaboration, lead generation and customer success, and “in order to be competitive, it is important for agencies to be nimble and take advantage of how technology can improve efficiencies at all levels,” said Veronica Gilton, CTO at digital media company My Code. “Having a seasoned representative of technology at the top layer of leadership is vital.”
Dobbs added that platform vendors want Bounteous clients to implement platform vendor-centric solutions, but he finds that the agency needs to create client-centric solutions to truly enable a client’s business and experiences.
“Agencies that do not have this ability will be less competitive,” said Dobbs.
When organizations talk about ‘the art of the possible,’ it’s the CTO and team that provides a point of view on what is possible.
Seth Dobbs, chief technology officer, Bounteous
Better connecting with customers
Technology is only as good as the people making it and using it, and brands and agencies are looking to technology for several reasons, one being to connect better with consumers.
Every agency uses technology in some form, but a CTO can help facilitate the user with the technology.
“When I step in as a CTO, I can actually sit down with our customers and talk about what their goals are and expose the different technologies that they have available to them to actually achieve those goals,” David Dettmer, CTO at agency CourtAvenue, told Adweek. Dettmer is an MIT grad and veteran technology strategist who worked with startups and brands before going agency side.
He cites the agency’s work with clients like Taylor Guitars and Kia as ways to integrate technology into consumer-facing campaigns and tactics as a reason to employ a chief technology officer. With Taylor, he is looking for ways to leverage ChatGPT to allow guitar players to better interact with Taylor’s content.
Having a CTO makes integrating technology more of a partnership with a brand rather than a reaction to the latest shiny object. A technologist can see those trends and better strategize how to incorporate them, rather than wedging in a tech campaign that doesn’t fit the brand.
“When organizations talk about ‘the art of the possible,’ it’s the CTO and team that provides a point of view on what is possible. The CTO needs to bring a team of enablers that are wired to figure out ‘how,’” said Dobbs. “How can they enable a new business process? How can they create an industry-changing experience?”
Making the job easier
A CTO, along with a dedicated technology team, can also help the agency work more efficiently through planning software, new art and copy tools, and strategies for applying different technologies.
A good tech team can even help creatives by taking the mundane tasks off their shoulders with tools that can perform imaging, write mundane copy, and complete art tasks and testing so the creatives can continue to create.
Gilton said the CTO often provides support for creatives and media by understanding their processes and strategizing solutions to increase efficiencies thanks to reliable and timely data. “For example, if decisions require access to third-party data sources, the CTO can lead initiatives to automate the gathering of that data and feed it into the current pipeline of tools. This increases the reliability of the data and allows companies to do more with fewer resources,” she said.
Get close to the CFO
Getting aligned with the rest of the C-suite on technology issues is vital for the CTO, but Dettmer recommends that a good chief technology officer needs to understand the financial drivers of their business and therefore needs to “get as close to the CFO as possible.”
No matter what a company or agency is selling, technology must be leveraged. But in order to do that, the CTO must understand how to create more revenue and efficiencies for the organization, which involves working closely with the financial chief to get the backing for the right technology to be bought and implemented.
“You can’t just be guessing, you’ve got to make bets. And then you have to prove that those bets actually pan out,” which is where a good relationship with the CFO comes in, said Dettmer.
How to become a good CTO
To be a good CTO, said Scott Theisen, CTO at Chicago agency 50,000feet, one must have an understanding that humans and technology is a game where the rules always change and the field of play isn’t fixed.
“Whether its data, automation, collaboration, speed or security mitigation, embracing and encouraging an open mindset is healthy for the agency and its clients,” added Theisen.
Most CTOs start out as technologists, but as they grow into more senior roles they may spend less time interacting with that technology as meetings and conversations are with non-technical stakeholders. A good CTO must retain that technological know-how and develop an ease for dealing with non-tech people.
At My Code, Gilton’s technology team has two possible career paths—technical leadership or management. “The place where the career paths come back together is at the CTO level. I have seen principal engineers move into vp or CTO roles quite successfully,” she said.
Dobbs thinks the most important thing for a CTO is to have a perspective on what they need to accomplish and use that lens for narrowing down where to focus on understanding technology trends.
“There are so many changes going on in our industry [that] it’s all too easy to be buried by hype cycles, noise and the constant churn and miss the opportunities to move your company forward,” said Dobbs.
Technology is an enabler of good consumer and client experiences, and helps solve problems. Embracing technology is vital for agencies and brands, and a good CTO can help apply new technologies as well as adapt existing ones, and ultimately drive revenue.
