How do you get a consumer to stop scrolling through Twitter and click on something your brand created? That was the question Karina Wilsher, global COO of New York City ad agency Anomaly, was faced with answering for her clients. “If you look at the old model of advertising, it has an ascending story arc with a big reveal at the end, whereas in today’s world, with everyone on their phones, you need to deliver the headline first to get their attention,” she says. Rather than train her team to think like journalists, Wilsher went out and hired one–a former digital editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Anomaly hasn’t stopped with journalists. The award-winning agency, whose clients include Beats by Dre and Coca-Cola, has also recruited data scientists and technology- product designers. It turns out Anomaly is hardly, well, anomalous when it comes to companies reaching outside their conventional talent pool for fresh perspective, new ideas, and skepticism about business as usual. “If you want radical innovation, you need to look to unusual suspects,” says Marion Poetz, an innovation professor at Copenhagen Business School. As you find your industry being uprooted by technology, consider turning to outsider talent who can help push your company forward, so you don’t get left behind.

Read More