We’ve noticed that Accenture Interactive is taking over (bits of) the corporeal world, now it’s expanding its horizons to matters spiritual with the new task of launching Vatican News, described as “part of the Vatican reform aimed at finding new ways to communicate with and engage all people in today’s digital world.”
The assignment includes the design of the Vatican News; the creation of one multi-language editorial team able to work with a multimedia, multi-device and multi-cultural approach; and a strategy for content management and distribution.
As with other recent wins like Maserati this is flagged as the appointment of a “global experience agency.” Accenture also works on Vatican Media and Radio Vaticana Italiana.
Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications says: “We are launching the last part of the reform sought by Pope Francis. Each reform does not originate from a mistaken past but from a present that calls for a change: in this case, today’s cultural and digital convergence require the adoption of production processes that are different from traditional ones. Today, in fact, information production and dissemination happens through agnostic software, in multiple media formats.
“The collaboration with Accenture Interactive, thanks to their solid global experience, has allowed us to develop an extensive strategy capable of uniting various working groups, the diversification of formats and the strengthening of brand identity – all while maximising the value of our talented in-house professionals working in the Holy See media.”
Well good luck Accenture. Religion aside there are a couple of interesting aspects to this: one is the “experience agency” bit which seems to be the new term for what ad agencies and others did plus lots of tech. Hard for agencies of any stripe, even the big holding companies to compete with.
The second is access to these kinds of client. Increasingly the ad world is being taken over by a new breed of client. We’ve already noted the increasing dominance of the spending stakes by the big west coast tech companies (Amazon and Facebook in particular). Now institutions are joining in and they don’t come more venerable than the Vatican. Would an agency even get near a pitch for such a client? But that’s the benefit of having consultants dotted all over the globe.
So this world doesn’t appear to be dominated by Unilever and ads any more. It’s “experience” and tech.
