New Community Table Podcast Episode with Accenture Song/Droga5 : Strategy, Craft, and Creative Nerve in a Hesitant Market
Link here to listen to The Community Table with producers from Accenture Song/Droga5 on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
The latest episode of Community Table takes us inside the walls of Accenture Song and Droga5. I, Heather Elder, along with my co-host Kelly Montez of Apostrophe Reps, sit down with Executive Producer and Studio Manager Jeremy Fox, Director of Art Production Cliff Lewis, Executive Producer Dave Stephenson and Senior Art Producer Caroline Fahey for a grounded, wide-angle look at how one of the industry’s most influential agencies is operating in a year defined by flux.
From politics and economics to AI and influencer culture, the conversation surfaces a recurring theme: the work is changing fast, but the fundamentals, idea, craft, and strategic rigor are still the anchor.
Highlights From the Table
Ideas still lead. Strategy and execution are of equal weight.
The Droga team echoed a familiar ethos: the idea drives everything. Strategy rigor and thoughtful execution aren’t optional, they’re part of the brand’s DNA. Even with budgets and asks shifting, the standard for the work hasn’t lowered.
Caution and complexity in a tense climate.
With political pressure, economic uncertainty, and social backlash risk, clients are more hesitant, which means more pressure on strategy, language, and tone before creative ever reaches production.
Testing and targeting are shaping the creative process.
Nearly all work is now pressure-tested against data, localized placements, and media performance. A six-second social cut gets as much scrutiny as a :30 spot. Sometimes more.
Influencer work isn’t “cheap", it changed expectations.
Influencers bring audiences and efficiency, but they also shifted what clients think production should cost and how fast it should move. The team framed influencers as another tool, not a replacement for craft.
AI is in the room but not in the output (yet).
AI is showing up in comps, research and proof-of-concept, but with heavy caution around IP, fidelity, and false expectation setting. The fear isn’t that AI replaces people, it’s that AI sets client expectations impossibly high.
The photographer-to-director leap is real and evaluated carefully.
The team is open to photographers directing, especially when stills and short-form motion are bundled, but trust in production partners and evidence of pre-production readiness are what tip the scales.
By the end of the conversation, one message rang loudest: there may be fewer at-bats, but every at-bat has to be exceptional. In an unpredictable year, excellence, not volume, becomes the thing that moves brands and careers forward.