Interview with the Deputy General Manager at MRM/McCann Worldwide

Erik Bertin is not only the general deputy manager at MRM // McCann Worldwide, he also teaches semiotics at Sciences Po and at Université Lyon II.

Anja Kouznetsova, a student at the Sciences Po School of Communication, met him in a café on Boulevard Saint Germain des Prés in Paris to talk about working in two different worlds, the key encounters that have shaped his career  and how communications’ role in society is changing.

• Anja: What are the challenges and the benefits of living between the worlds of academics and business?

EB: Living between the two worlds of academics and business was not only a conscious but also a very early decision. From the very beginning of my professional life I had the intention and the will to make a link between, let's say, the world of theory and the professional world of communication. I tried from the beginning, but back then I didn't necessarily have all the skills and resources to make it happen. However, I had some very influential encounters, which helped me and pushed me to really take things a step further. The key encounter for me was with Jean-Marie Floch in 1995. I started to attend his seminars on visual and applied semiotics and we built a relationship where he pushed me to learn, to try and use semiotics in the business world, to teach, to publish, to give presentations. For me it was the starting point of this parallel journey.

I decided to continue on this double path. Basically I couldn't do without it anymore since I can’t consider the business of communications as a goal in itself. Not just for personal and ethical reasons but mainly because the discipline of communications doesn’t only raise business questions. It is also closely related to issues and trends in society. For me it’s essential to have an angle on communications, that’s also a social sciences perspective, to question communications in order to raise critical issues and to be able to reflect on these issues. Therefore, to teach at Sciences Po, to be involved in research groups is like a breath of fresh air that I need not only for my personal satisfaction but to receive fresh input for my work as well. It also works the other way around: when I'm teaching I present my insights from the world of business to my students.

• A: Sounds like a productive synergy!

EB: Exactly, it is a productive synergy, but it can be also very difficult to build a bridge between those two worlds. It’s a demanding task. Not only in terms of time-keeping and agenda but also because those worlds are so different. Their temporalities are different, the goals are different, the values are different, the people working in each of the two environments are different and basically they never talk to each other except at special institutions like Sciences Po. It is very difficult to set up a dialogue between these two worlds. Especially in France they can barely work together. The business world of communication does not leverage the findings from the scientific community and the academic world knows the business world of communication in a very limited way. They barely manage to understand how the other world works, what is at stake and which processes are important.

• A: I was intrigued by the tagline of McCann, "Truth well told", since we're not used to thinking of advertising in terms of truth. Could you explain your personal vision of this tagline? How do you perceive the social role of communication and advertising companies?

EB: This is a good question. Actually it was the initial McCann tagline and I think when you read the whole logo you have the answer since it says: "McCann: Truth well told since 1912". It refers to the conditions within which this tagline was received at the time it was developed. At the very beginning, advertising was supposed to be neutral information given about a product. It was considered to be only mediation and it was supposed to represent the truth or at least the product’s reality. The tagline describes a vision of the relationship of advertising to reality, which is a very interesting topic. How does advertising deal with reality? The initial purpose of advertising is that it deals with a referent, which is the product, the service, the company or the organisation, and that referent’s relationship with reality, such as it is. Therefore, the tagline of McCann refers to a very specific stage in advertising history when according to consumer expectations advertising was supposed to represent the reality of the proposition, and of the product. Today, from a corporate standpoint, McCann has revisited the truth since we talk about truth by pointing to the fact that in every brand there is a truth. When we think of truth in terms of insights, we can say that an insight is a kind of universal truth. From this point of view truth definitely has a certain relevance but I think from the point of view of society this tagline can be quite misleading. As you’ve said, advertising is not perceived by society as a world where truth is a relevant value. It brings us to the question of the place advertising holds in our society today. We need to consider that now advertising represents only one facet of communications. Advertising emerged during a time where brands owned the communication space and communication was considered a top-to-bottom transmission.Today communication takes place on multiple levels and is much more intricate; it’s now about socializing, gaming, providing information, service, etc. The sphere of communication is now like an immense network of topics.

• A: I feel like nowadays the notion of authenticity is regaining importance in the world of communications. By being players in this multidimensional communication space, brands often have no choice but to be transparent and honest, since they feel that they cannot feed the consumer with wrong information or artificial campaigns anymore.

EB: That's right. I think one of the major challenges for brands today is to give up control. They are used to growing in a world where they can control the communication space, control the operations and set up some kind of artificial existence built on images. Today they have to deal with interaction, they have to learn how to read people and they have to get used to handling mistakes and to admitting when they have done something wrong. They were used to producing promises of an ideal world and now it is a real challenge for them to deal with a level of real human existence where you cannot always perform. In communications, you have to find a way to reframe even underperformance or dysfunction in a positive way.

• A: When you take into account what you’ve learned in your career, what would be your advice to your 20-year-old self?

EB: I think it would be to find a specific angle in what you're doing, to find out why you are interested in communications. It’s about trying to find a way to be in communications and to develop a critical point of view. Another bit of advice would be to get acquainted with technology. You have to know about technological developments when you're in communications nowadays, and you have to look at the technological dimension as key, not only for communications, but for people in general.

Interview by Anja Kouznetsova, Master communications

P.S.: Experience Erik Bertin balancing between semiotics and branding when he talks about how brands use color*here

Related link

• Sciences Po School of Communication