Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for another episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at this intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We hope to introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know. 

Through our thought-provoking conversations, we will unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing.

Our special episodes have been recorded live in Chicago at Deloitte Digital’s Innovation Space. So it’s fitting that our last guest for this evening is none other than our friend Matt Witt. Matt is the digital innovation and creative executive at Deloitte Digital, specializing in driving design-led innovation and leveraging AI to enhance our impact in the market and world.

As a leader, focuses on this integration of creativity with advanced technology solutions and strategic business insights, delivering impactful, award-winning customer experiences that generate not just current value, but future value and empower clients to thrive in our 21st century global marketplace. Matt currently serves as the national leader for digital experience capabilities for Deloitte Digital.a global creative consultancy. Matt, welcome to our podcast.

Matt Witt

Well thank you, it’s my pleasure.

Bennie

Well, I love that we get a chance to have a conversation in this really innovation space that brings together all these worlds that we love, like business strategy, design excellence, and marketing. Talk a bit about what led you to kind of work with a team that brings all those worlds together in such a dynamic way.

Matt 

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question, Bennie. I’ve served many roles throughout my career. I’ve been with various agencies, now with, obviously, global consultancy. I’ve been at startups, been at small boutique ad agencies. I’ve been with holding company, large global firms. But through it all, my passion has always been the intersection of three things. And that is creativity, unleashing the imagination and unbridled new thoughts and novel ideas. Technical innovation, like how do we enable these new ideas and drive change and real impact. And then business strategy. So how do we tether all that to a plan and make sure that we’re making the most impact for clients’ businesses. That’s always been really my focus. when I first came to Deloitte, one of the things that attracted me beyond the people, because there’s such smart, intelligent people here I have the chance to work with is the fact that we’re not just in our Deloitte digital practice creating ad campaigns or marketing excellence. We’re doing these kinds of things and activating the market for clients, but we’re building digital products. We’re building innovative new experiences. We’re building consumer facing digital touch points, but we’re also building digital touch points that are internal, that are helping employees do their jobs more effectively and more impactfully.

So we’re really looking at our clients’ businesses and helping them understand how they can redesign themselves from the inside out to continue to change and adapt to what is obviously a very dynamic marketplace in today’s world. So that’s what really attracted me here is the chance to kind of bring these different disciplines together and unleash new innovation that’s really going to make an impact for our clients’ businesses.

Bennie

So I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the actual physical space here. Which is kind of like an additional team member for you when you think about this. This is a space that you got a chance to be a part of taking that vision from what attracted you these three moments and really have it writ large as a physical space. Talk a bit about the power of creating a home for this type of innovation.

Matt 

Indeed.

Yes, absolutely. So Deloitte is a hybrid based talent model right now. We spend a lot of time at our clients sites and working directly with them. Sometimes we’re remote, but what the firm has really done is kind of adapt to how can we make co-location coming together physically really make the most impact. And so we have six studios, we have more offices than that, but six studios for Deloitte Digital across the U.S. Chicago being obviously my home.

The general manager of this studio and the team here. And we had the chance to redesign this coming out of COVID. And when myself and the team and the architects supporting this new design effort started talking about the charter and the vision for what we wanted to create, it wasn’t, hey, let’s design a cool space where we get together nine to five Monday through Friday. was no longer the mandate of like, let’s have a space that we just like work together heads down and working on our laptops, it was more about how do we create an environment that’s going to inspire, that’s going to kind of provoke creativity, that’s going to drive collaboration, and it’s going to be a great working environment, not just for ourselves, but really for our clients as well. So it’s almost kind of a we work in a way where we kind of bring together the various disciplines and talents that we have at the firm, but also our clients and great partners like the AMA to have discussions like this, to have workshops, to start you know, thinking through what does success look like and how do we get there. So it was really the kind of design of spaces like this Chicago studio and the vision to create a place that inspired this great collaboration and the great synthesis of those different talents.

Bennie 

You know, I think it’s wonderful. I this space is not only a metaphor for that, but it’s also the practical platform. Yes, absolutely. It allows you to do that as well. So, you know, when you think about the work you’re doing, it’s constantly like pushing these boundaries of innovation and design. Do you find that our world and the work world is ready for that today?

Matt 

I think the work world has to be ready for that today. I think, you know, when you think about change and continuous adaptation, there are of course, legendary stories of brands that reinvented themselves and really pivoted. You look at like the legendary stories like Play-Doh was created as a wallpaper cleanser. And then the marketers realized like, no, there’s more impact and possibility for this to be marketed as a child’s toy. And of course now we have this, you know, great legacy brand. Same thing with Weber Grills based here in Chicago, Illinois. That company was originally creating buoys, manufacturing them for Lake Michigan. One of the owners, according to legend, sliced one of the buoys in half, turned it into a grill and that kind of caught on and realized, hey, I’ve got something far more potent here as a product to sell. So those are the legendary stories like that, that I’m really mesmerized by. But I think more importantly, what really matters and resonates with our clients is how do you operationalize change within the organization? How do you not be so entrenched and how do you become agile enough? And that’s where design thinking for me is really important. Because really, I mean, if you talk to pundits about this, they’ll say, oh, well, change is necessary, but you’ve got to look at big data and you’ve got to be agile and you’ve got to develop this framework. And I think it really boils down to three simple things. It’s pay attention.

Bennie

Right?

Matt 

Do something and then learn. And so, I mean, obviously, you know, a little tongue in cheek there, but those are really the principles that I think go into design thinking. And what I counsel my clients on is design thinking should be applied in a way that you design like a scientist. So you observe the world and you learn about your customers. You learn what friction points may exist for them, what opportunities may exist to build a better connection with them and develop these rich insights so you pay attention 

Bennie

Right, right.

Which is so important. Yeah, our customers and clients don’t pay attention to them. Sure And it’s having that objective space in there. It’s like the conversations where you see somebody having a hard time with something. it’s easy to use. Yes. Yes, which you watch them struggle. Yeah again and again So being aware and having that insight

Matt

That’s very true. Very true.

Absolutely. And then from there, you do something. So you develop a hypothesis, you develop a concept, and you act on that and put something into the market that you can then learn from. So it comes down to really the scientific method of creating observations that lead to hypotheses. And those hypotheses get validated or refined based on, you know, the impact that you’re seeing in the market and from the feedback that you’re getting in the market. it’s really like instilling that as an operationalized endeavor where you’re continuing to learn about that market, continuing to learn about dynamic shifts and it’s not easy because it’s it’s very different from the kind of industrialized, scaled world of corporate America in the 20th century but I think that’s where we need to adapt to and where I see the clients who are most successful are learning how to bring that into the very DNA

Bennie

I want to ask you about that, right, about the clients that are becoming most successful with this. Because, you know, there’s often the old adage that everyone wants change until it happens. Right? That’s kind of a… that’s what brands need to do. And then you ask yourself your question. So this space in and of itself is a very much a change for Deloitte. You know, how have you found kind of navigating your own world in terms of change? You’re talking about new ideas for people who are used to new ideas.

Matt

Yeah, I will say, you know Deloitte as a firm is nearly two centuries old. So we’ve done a lot of growing a lot of evolving. Going back to our legacy accounting practice but for Deloitte, it’s really we listen right we we pay attention we look at the market and so we’re constantly Building and nurturing relationships with our clients to understand what’s keeping you up at night. What does success look like? How do we help build?

Your roadmap to the future in a way that’s going to unleash your continued potential. So it’s really about how do we continue to nurture those relationships and how do we see maybe white spaces out there in the market that we can continually adapt to.

Bennie

And I think it’s powerful for you to have applied this to yourself as a model, an example of applying it to other spaces. So we think about our innovation today. We’d be remiss if we didn’t have a conversation about two little letters that drive all of our conversations, which are, how is AI showing up in your world? This nexus of innovation, design, marketing, and strategy. How are you thinking about AI broadly and hyper specifically in this moment?

Matt 

AI is a topic in nearly every conversation that I’m having, either internally or with clients right now, which is probably not surprising, right?

Bennie 

And full disclosure, we said we would talk about AI. We did, We we would do it. Because we were talking about it. It comes up in conversations, even when you don’t think the conversation is going to be about AI.

Matt 

But because the potential impact from…AI across every single sector is really significant. It’s just mesmerizing for me to think about what does that future look like and even just half a decade from now as you know, generative AI gives way to agentic AI and as we move to this, you know, general AI future and this point of singularity, I think there’s a tremendous amount of disruption coming. Our clients are aware of that. And so for our clients is how do we leverage AI in a way that we’re ahead of the curve adapting for inevitable change. And we see clients using AI through so many different use cases. And I won’t go into the details of those, it’s really about, I think the charter is a new wave of digital transformation where AI is being used to reimagine and redesign our clients’ companies from foundation to ceiling.

Bennie

I was going to ask you about that, right? Because that gets us beyond AI as a novelty trick. AI as a look what I put in, I got something out, to really having AI shape your new business model.

Matt 

Yeah, absolutely. And for me, what I think what’s most interesting when it comes to AI or really any emerging technology is not to look at here’s a shiny new object, how do I apply it? But to think I can be unbridled in terms of that nexus of creativity, technical innovation, business strategy, right? So let’s imagine great new things. And the exciting thing for me as I’m working through various client projects is we are reimagining the customer experience in ways that we’re not possible just a couple of years ago. And AI is becoming an enabling force to that. But all those conversations start not from like, we have generative AI platforms and LLMs and AI agents. What can we do with these? It’s more about what is the change we want to see in the world when it comes to our customer experience? How do we craft that in a way that’s going to be impactful for our customers and drive real change and growth for ourselves? And then how do we enable it?

Bennie 

So how are you keeping up with the change, not just in the business model, but in the customer expectations? The experience. As we kind of deal with tools and spaces in there, we’re simultaneously business leaders, but consumers ourselves. How are you dealing with the changeover in the world? We talked a bit earlier about Google and just the change of Gemini in the last six months. It’s changed the way we think about search.

Matt 

Absolutely, yeah.

It has and just I’d say three years ago I don’t know if anyone would have imagined search changing in such a phenomenal way as it has but Google is obviously adapted to that with the creation of the Gemini LLM and you know other products that they’re developing as we heard from Kevin. But so for me I’d say at an individual level I have continually looked at my career in terms of how do I reinvent myself? How do I continue to adapt?

I started my career as a screenwriter in Hollywood. I say that kind of laughingly because that will require a different podcast to go into those stories.

Bennie 

We’ll sign you up for that.

Matt 

I was a storyteller. I was writer and I optioned a couple of screenplays and I took a job at an ad agency because I needed to pay back my student loans, but I became quickly fascinated with how agencies were using storytelling to help their clients solve real business problems, help them market their products and services. And so I started writing and developing commercials and then longer form videos. And then I saw a white space opportunity for how agencies were struggling with this emerging digital world, what to do with Web 2.0 and the rise of social media. And so I made that my specialty. And then later on, I saw agencies were struggling to understand digital products and how do we bring together the necessary tools and talents to create these more sophisticated digital touch points and kind of adapted to that. And so for me, it’s been constantly looking at what’s the white space opportunity that’s going to make me valuable in terms of the change that I can create for employers and for our clients and how do I continue to grow and adapt? Not just to make me more valuable in the marketplace as an employee, but to make life more interesting and to bring new challenges and opportunities into my career. 

And I think that’s the, as a kind of culture here at Deloitte, that’s the kind of thesis that I think all of us have. all curious, we’re all not just technologists at heart, but storytellers and curious scientists and designers. And so we all have this desire for constant knowledge. And I think that’s just culturally very alive here.

Bennie

And I think that’s powerful because that’s the only title that matters, right? Is that you’re curious because all these other lines go and fade away, right? Are you a technologist? Are you a strategist or a thinker? If I’m in design, if I’m in marketing, it’s yes and. All of those spaces. I, I come, we talk a bit about this and I’ve always think about, you know, marketers and being successful in the contemporary way. You’re not a painter or a photographer or a sculptor, right? You’re more of a conceptual artist, which means you use whichever of those tools or devices that gets you to where you need to be. So sometimes it’s the photography and it’s the storytelling that gets you to the answer. Other times it’s the technical interface that gets you to the answer. But you’re always going for what can I do to get to the answer. I love that you share that story because we know that so many of our listeners are navigating their own career spaces. And that’s kind of incredible advice. I want to put a pin in that to kind of find spaces that you value, that get you excited, that are this white space or the undefined find space to give you that opportunity. Yeah, I like that. you know, you should talk to me all the time. 

But, you know, what, when you think about clients and spaces in there and, you know, so let’s say they’re all in on change. Okay. They understand that their world is changing in there. What guidance do you give?

Matt 

Definitely

Bennie

For brands to help navigate this next wave of innovation. Things are fast and furious. It’s not for the faint of heart.

Matt 

Yeah, absolutely. So obviously it’s important to be strategic about change and about investment because any company has a finite amount of resources, of talent, of time, budgetary resources that they can invest in any endeavor. So no company out there can say, let’s just do everything and do everything immediately. That’s not change. That’s just reactionary panic.

Bennie

It’s throwing a lot of stuff in the air.

Matt 

Exactly. So it’s important to, like I said, be strategic and…Sacrifice is really the heart of strategy. So clients have to learn and go through a process of understanding what to prioritize and really focus on and what to deprioritize given those finite resources that exist in any company. And so we oftentimes really help our clients not just imagine what’s possible, but prioritize what really needs to be invested in that’s going to be most impactful for their business priorities.

Bennie

So how do you frame new investment? I guess it’s interesting, right? Because if you come in and I buy into, OK, I need to make decisions. I need to have an investment in there. But we talked about a few minutes ago this radical idea that through AI, your business could be completely different. So how would you counsel me if I am used to making investment this way, but this new business is completely different?

Matt 

That’s true. It is a reinvention, but I think we go back to some of the fundamental tools we’ve used in the past, such as design thinking. One of the critical elements in design thinking is what I call the DVF framework, desirability, viability, and feasibility. So we look at how desirable is this change in the market? Are our customers asking for it? Do we see that demand there? Is it something that we think really is just cool or we’re really seeing empirical evidence of demand in the market for this? Viability, is this really going to drive the necessary business levers that are crucial for our continued financial growth and success. And then feasibility, what is the level of effort, technically and otherwise, what is the investment necessary to put into this? And so we can think through those dimensions, if you will, to understand how to prioritize any given endeavor and then help our clients create a roadmap so that they can see not just what they’re going to do tomorrow or the next day, but really what is the long-term horizon that they can continue to adapt towards. They have a plan in place.

Bennie 

So when I say the word curiosity, what’s the first thing that comes in mind for you?

Matt 

I think of myself as a little kid, curious about the world, wanting to explore it, growing up in Indiana, but wanting to, you know. See the horizon and explore what’s beyond that. That’s what I think of immediately when I think of curiosity. And I think that’s a romantic notion maybe, but I think that same spirit in our most successful brands out there, that same spirit is very much alive in how those brands are nurtured and driven and evolved.

Bennie

It’s romantic, but it’s storytelling. It’s the power that you shape the narrative and set the visual for us. Even in this audio platform, we can see the kid growing up and seeing the opportunities. I think that’s that romantic notion is a great way to end our podcast. We think about change in the future, right? Thinking about how we’re curious and how we find and build new spaces at this intersection of creativity, strategy and business impact.

Matt 

Absolutely, and I’d add maybe then what is ultimately the humanity in that change because that’s something that we have to remain connected to always.

Bennie

Very much so. That’s the heart of the story. Matt, thank you again and thank you Deloitte Digital for hosting us for this podcast series. Once again, this has been an incredible episode and series of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host again, AMA CEO, Bennie Johnson. Matt, thank you and the team for having us here. We encourage you to explore more of the work of Deloitte Digital and explore more of the resources from the American Marketing Association at AMA.org. 

Thank you.

Matt

Thank you, Bennie.