The AccentureChameleon
Strategy
Pragyan Rath is assistant professor
of business ethics and communication
group at the Indian Institute of
Management Calcutta (IIMC).
She has researched extensively
on visual culture and is currently
developing a new model for corporate
communications, which she tentatively
calls the ekphrastic technology
(verbal representations of
graphic designs).
Disrupting Disruptions
Pragyan Rath
Abstract: I intend to develop a matrix for innovative com-
munication strategy in
a specific circumstance when a long-standing brand
image is hit indirectly (disruption);
the organization has to move ahead and damage control
(sustain).
This article helps redefine the global paradoxical situation
of disruption vs. sustenance through the extraction of an
innovative communication strategy from the microanal-
ysis of the chameleonAccenture print advertisement
of 2010 within the macro-context of WoodsAccenture
Animal print advertisements.
Keywords: advertising, cloud, disruption, paradox,
surrealism.
Acknowledgment: I am grateful to my home institute
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC)for
facilitating my research with fund allocation and Osmania
University Center for International Programs (OUCIP)
Library for providing me with relevant research material,
both helped me immensely in developing the narrative
theme of mise en abyme into a corporate communica-
tion technique.
Introduction: The Prototype of a
Paradoxical Business Situation
It was the 20th-century French anthropologist Claude
Lvi-Strauss who established a scientific method for
analyzing myths. It just did not stop at analysis, but po-
tentially developed a method of unearthing a cultural
grammar of persuasive language that a particular cul-
ture produces through its mythologies. Why should
this method be relevant for management discourse?
Advertising is one of the major tools of persuasion. And
one of the major ways of persuading through advertising
is through the use of symbolic language. Advertisements
use symbols, because of the strategic value of symbols.
Expert Insights 1
 The AccentureChameleon Strategy
They use symbols that have a shared cul-
tural value, a mythic value. And a mythic
value is the ultimate persuasive positioner
of influence, because such a value is po-
sitioned in communication as a transcen-
dental valuea value that transcends time
and space, a value that is eternal, a qual-
ity that has operative value (Lvi-Strauss
1955) for a particular consumer set. This
is what A ccenture did, when they substi-
tuted Tiger Woods, their brand ambassador,
with animal prints, and of them was a cha-
meleon. The strategic use of chameleon by
Accenture through the operative value of
the mythic significance of the animal is an
instance of great strategic decision in the
field of business communication.
But the use of the chameleon is not just a
simple strategy. Accenture was itself in an
interesting situation and it is, in particular,
such a situation of complexity that requires
an intricate symbol like that of a chame-
leon to project Accenture as an influential
venture. Thus, the researcher contends that
the conversion of the glorious Accenture
ambassadorTiger Woodsinto a set of
animal print posters (frogs, elephants, and
others) is an interesting type of situation,
and the strategic management of the type by
Accenture is equally interesting as a busi-
ness case. The study of such situations and
the academic conversion of their operative
value into types/prototypes of business
situations entails development of inter-
esting communication strategies from the
point of view of taking significant business
decisions in complex business situations.
Through the exclusive analysis of Ac-
centures strategic use of the chameleon
symbol along with its mythic value, the
researcher intends to develop a matrix for
innovative communication strategy in a
particular business situation characterized
by what the researcher observes is a situa-
tion of paradox. Paradox because, the busi-
ness situation is:
a. a specific circumstance when a long-
standing brand image is hit indirectly
(disruption),
2 Expert Insights
b. and is also a situation that sets up chal-
lenges for the organization to move ahead
and attempt damage control (sustain).
The AccentureWoodschameleon ad-
vertising complexity is a paradoxical com-
bination of two opposing conflicting forces
of business rhythmsdisruption and suste-
nance. This article helps redefine a global
paradoxical situation of disruption vs. sus-
tenance through the extraction of an inno-
vative communication strategy from the
microanalysis of the chameleonAccenture
print advertisement of 2010 within the
macro-context of WoodsAccentureAnimal
print advertisements in the midst of reces-
sion, disruptive technology, and futuris-
tic cloud computing mechanisms in the
complex interaction between information
technology (IT) industry and consultancy
services, and that too, in a global market.
2010 Accenture Case History
That Accenture is a leading global consult-
ing services company delivering solutions
at the complex intersections of business
and technology is well known. But that Ac-
centure has also had a track record of fol-
lowing a differentiating positioning method
in its vision and mission through its mar-
keting strategies is also a very interest-
ing aspect for business studies. It handles
competition through differentiation. It was
first a part of the Arthur Andersen account-
ing firm. But internal divisions solidified
into distinct units of the Andersen World-
wide Socit Cooprative (AWSC) in 1989.
Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting
through the 1990s managed internal com-
petitions, with Andersen competing with
Andersen Consulting through its special
consulting service line, Arthur Andersen
Business Consulting (AABC). With breach
of contract allegations through 1998 to
2000, the resulting episode was the com-
plete breakage of all contractual ties be-
tween Andersen Consulting and AWSC and
Andersen. It was an arbitration settlement
that had the legal requirement of a change
of name for Andersen Consulting; the final
 The AccentureChameleon Strategy
differentiation factor in nomenclature. It was
the first day of the first month of 2001, and
Andersen Consulting became Accenture,
differentiating itself from its accounting
legacy.
Interestingly, it is in the nomenclature
that we see the differentiating positioning
strategy play along. Accenture as a word is
Accent on the Future, submitted through
a competition by their own employee in
their OsloNorway officeKim Peterson.
The meaning clearly positions the organiza-
tion at a global consulting peak, where it
intends to have an impact on the futureit
almost says, it will shape the future, even
better, it will create its clients futures. In
a market submersed in competitive con-
sulting services, Accenture keeps its differ-
entiating positions strategy on, in its attempt
to differentiate itself from its competition
Deloitte Consulting, HP Enterprise, and of
course IBM. While the latter is more into
technology services, Accenture charts a dif-
ferent path altogether in the realm of con-
sulting practices.
Let us look at Accentures chronological
timeline of differentiation of its consulting
affinities through its advertisement cam-
paigns in the 2000 decade. It was in 2002 that
Accenture evolved its new campaignNow
it gets interesting. In effect, Alex Frankel
says it well when he writes: The idea be-
hind the tease was simple: to engage me
and enroll me in an unfolding corporate
name change narrative. And the tease
went like this: Renamed. Redefined. Re-
born. 01.01.01 and Now it gets interesting
(Frankel 2004). Frankel historicizes the ge-
neric rift between the fading emperors of
businessthe accountants, and the emerg-
ing kings of the new global economythe
consultants, a battle that was waging a grad-
ual war in the 1980s of corporate America.
In effect, in 1998 itself, F rankel notes the
record recruitment of 16,000 consultants by
Andersen Consulting, attracting top man-
agement students from esteemed business
schools around the world (2004), thus driv-
ing the final nail into the disruptive effect of
Expert Insights
consultancy over accountancy. And now,
emerging from the shadows of its long-
drawn accounting history, Accenture was
positioning itself as strategically a consult-
ing business operations, and that too, emerg-
ing from an acrimonious separation from its
sibling. The point to be notedAccenture
has begun its journey as Accenture from a
situation the researcher calls the triple dis-
ruption prong, as illustrated in Figure 1 and
its corresponding index in Table 1.
With the 2001 campaign, Accenture de-
veloped its core competency as a major
differentiator in the competitive world of
consultancy. So, Now it gets interesting
Figure 1: The Birth of
Accenture Through
the Triple Disruption
Prong
Table 1: Index for Triple Disruption Prong
Disruption
Type Description of Type
Intra- disruptive phenomenon of rift
disruption within the companyAndersen and
Andersen Consulting
Inter- disruptive culture of American
disruption business landscape in the 80s and
90s, between two business groups
accountants and consultants
External Accenture as a separate autonomous
disruption consultant body renamed,
redefined, and reborn into a
completely new organization of
global ambition, contributing in
more than technology consultancy,
that too, in the new millennium
while competing with many other
technology professional services
providers like IBM.
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