Interview Nathalie Diethelm

with Nathalie Diethelm

CEO Serviceplan Group Switzerland

Playbook of Innovation:

Can you answer this in one word? Innovation, for you, is…

Nathalie Diethelm:

Übercreativity.

This is one of our USPs. We have many good brands within the group. With übercreativity, we can leverage our way of thinking and collaboration and that matches well with innovation.

Playbook of Innovation:

Why is innovation important for you, your teams, your agency, clients, consumers, and the industry?

Nathalie Diethelm:

Innovation is a process that renews and updates our services and products through different applications. Innovation is embedded in processes, which is necessary for our team, the agency, and workflow. However, it’s also found in other sectors, like products. When we introduce new solutions for our clients, it represents innovation for the agency and industry.

Additionally, innovation can be present in social aspects, influencing how we communicate and share information.

So, innovation occurs on different layers, and depending on the layer, it doesn’t have the same importance. Sometimes it’s more of this or more of that.

Playbook of Innovation:

I agree, it’s individual for different layers.

Nathalie Diethelm:

Yes, innovation can be process, brand, or product-oriented, that’s what I mean by different layers. Depending on which layer you’re talking about, it affects my team, the agency, the client, the consumer, or, sometimes, the industry!

Playbook of Innovation:

We all agree that innovation is necessary for the agency to move and push the industry forward but why do you think innovation benefits our teams?

Nathalie Diethelm:

We need innovation to always be at the pulse. It’s crucial to have a balanced, happy, and joyful work environment filled with employees eager to drive innovation and make the agency flourish. Without innovation, an agency would be dead within months.

Playbook of Innovation:

How do you create an environment where innovation can flourish?

Nathalie Diethelm:

As a leader, I don’t create the environment. It’s the employees I hire who create the environment where innovation flourishes. We must be different to our colleagues, our work environment, and the way we communicate. It has to be a balanced, joyful team. One person cannot create a place that stands for excellence and innovation. It’s a team job.

Playbook of Innovation:

What I understand is you don’t do something externally, but you empower your employees so they can create the environment.

Nathalie Diethelm:

Yes, we provide our teams with the needed tools by sending them to workshops, in Munich, or designating a person to the Creative Collective for example, another innovative service we offer. All these elements empower our employees to be eager to create innovation, and by providing the right tools and clients, we ensure innovation is evident every day.

Playbook of Innovation:

What inspires you?

Nathalie Diethelm:

Our employees, the people surrounding me, the Serviceplan Group, our clients, and their passion inspire me.

Playbook of Innovation:

Would you like to dive deeper into that? How do our clients inspire you? What do they do that makes you feel inspired?

Nathalie Diethelm:

We work for BMW. Their setup includes a centralized location for conducting test drives called the “brand experience center”, which, while not entirely new, is a recent addition.

How they treat clients and make things feel like an event is inspiring. But the answer to your question depends on the client. In general, it tends to be the little things that I find innovative and leave me feeling inspired by a client’s capacity to create this unique moment.

Playbook of Innovation:

Is there a tool, service, or product inside your agency that you consider a great example of innovation?

Nathalie Diethelm:

Yes, the Creative Collective is both innovative and unique. It’s an excellent way to foster innovation. It’s not process-oriented or data-driven innovation, but rather a different way of looking at classical and modern media in a team comprised of creative people.

Playbook of Innovation:

In your opinion, what’s the most innovative thing about Mediaplus?

Nathalie Diethelm:

Several aspects make Mediaplus stand out, but one of the most innovative things is how we collaborate and engage across different teams and countries.

For example, take the Blue Room as one approach. In other companies, you get an email saying, “Do this, do that.” You don’t involve several countries, you don’t brainstorm, and you don’t have different work packages. Mediaplus takes a far richer approach.

Playbook of Innovation:

I love that you bring up the Blue Room because, even internally, many people don’t know what it is or how it works. Do you want to explain why you think this is innovative and a tool for innovation?

Nathalie Diethelm:

The Blue Room is where things are born — through brainstorming with a small group of people committed to bringing the group to a more international level. It’s an innovative approach that we don’t only work out of Munich on every task but instead, ask leaders across the globe to create new solutions.

Many people only see innovation as being creative, but it can also be how you talk to and motivate your employees. In some markets, you don’t have the money to hire employees with a big name, so you must be innovative in attracting those people. You must differentiate yourself as a company by offering something that isn’t only money but culture as a means of innovation.

So, you have to appreciate innovation depending on your role within a company; it’s different for everyone. If I were to ask the Creative Director what innovation is, they wouldn’t come up with what I did. As a CEO, innovation can also be how I attract new talent.

Playbook of Innovation:

Did your view of innovation change in the last years? If yes, why?

Nathalie Diethelm:

Yes, it changed within my role. A few years ago, if you’d asked me about innovation – back when I was a Media Planner – I would’ve said it involved creating inventive media plans or advertising methods.

Now, I appreciate that it relates to innovation and its processes. For example, in the way we work. Do we use a new way of working? Do we use AI to create more efficient media plans? This is something we do more with data analytics, which wasn’t possible a few years ago because we didn’t have the data. In this way, it changed.

Playbook of Innovation:

Thank you for sharing your insights, Nathalie. It’s fascinating to listen to your evolution in innovation. To wrap things up on a lighter note, let’s dive into a quick game starting with pineapple on pizza or not?

Nathalie Diethelm:

I’ve always loved the pineapple on pizza debate as it constantly comes up. People eat pasta with ketchup and get away with it, so I’ll out myself as someone who eats pineapple with pizza. But I’d never eat pasta with ketchup! I’m sure that if you add this to your interviews, you’ll find someone who admits to eating pasta with ketchup.