Chris Graves, Chairman of Ogilvy PR, to Head Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science
Chris Graves is stepping down as chairman of Ogilvy PR to become president and founder of the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science, reports the Holmes Report, which added: “Graves will work with Carla Hendra, global chairman of OglivyRED and vice chairman of Ogilvy. The Center for Behavioral Science will include the existing Ogilvy Change practice, led by vice chair Rory Sutherland in the UK and EVP Tony Silva in Washington DC, which has been working for several years to create marketing that changes behavior. And it will involve Ogilvy Washington’s social marketing efforts.
“”In addition, the new Center will feature an app called AMOS (after behavioral economics pioneer Amos Tversky), that Graves and OgilvyRed have developed to help marketers understand the cognitive barriers to their marketing goals. The Center will also appoint a board of scientific advisors and will have access to Kantar Research’s consumer data.
“”Graves told the Holmes Report that understanding behavioral triggers is more important than ever at a time when traditional demographic research failed to predict such events as the Trump election victory and Brexit vote.
“”Marketing and communications has been getting better and better at targeting its prey,” said Graves. “Instead we need to move into a more empathy based approach of understanding. We know from Trump and Brexit that the traditional measures will fail time and time again.””
(Picture above is of Graves at Capitol Communicator’s PR Summit DC, where Graves was keynote speaker in 2016.)
