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In conversation with Manoj Khimji and Luca Allam

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The World Media Group’s Chief Executive Belinda Barker chats with Manoj Khimji, Managing Director, The MediaVantage and Luca Allam, CEO, PHD, both based in the UAE, about how to navigate the complexities of advertising in the Middle East. Below is an extract of their conversation. You can watch the full video below or listen to the podcast here. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/pkk8aDg_QLE?si=cWRzLe93eyPBPmoZ”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

You both began your career in London. What led you to the decision to focus on the Middle East?

Luca: I came here in 2010 so I’ve been in the region for 13 years. I worked in London for a few different companies, including one of the biggest media agencies, OMD, part of the Omnicom Media Group. I think the real driving force was the idea that digital back in 2010 was still in its relative infancy. I knew that I could excel relatively quickly in this part of the world. It was a career decision first and foremost, then it became a lifestyle decision thereafter. Manoj: I started working with Haymarket Media in London straight out of university in ad sales. I moved out here in 2004. The UK media scene is a very mature market. The lure of this kind of exponential growth in the region is what brought me over. I had a stint here with Motivate Publishing launching Hello Magazine, and with The Times newspaper when they launched the Middle East edition. The Times Middle East gave me an understanding of the entire business of international media representation, and how critical that is to aiding the growth of global communications for a lot of the Middle East entities. I came on board at The MediaVantage in 2010. The region is expanding; it used to be very much about Dubai and the UAE. Now, around 65 percent of global communications from this region is coming out of Saudi Arabia, which, pre-2020 was not the case at all. Luca is largely responsible for that, with Saudi tourism launching their brand in 2019. It’s exciting times and it’s been a fantastic 20 years.

With the current crisis in and around Israel, what does it feel like on the ground? Is it changing things in the region or not?

Luca: I’m not a political analyst, but what I can speak on is the general sentiment. It’s tense across the region, naturally. A lot of people who work in Dubai, are being directly or indirectly touched by this. They know people in the region, whether it’s in Palestine or in Lebanon, so they are being affected. From an advertising perspective, there are strong signs that it’s going to have an impact. A lot of our clients are already talking to us about how they can adapt; asking whether they are being insensitive to continue advertising. It’s still evolving so it’s difficult to predict exactly where it’s going. But we are seeing that impact on advertising already, and it probably will continue over the coming weeks and months. The fear is that this extends into a larger conflict, and that could impact 2024 plans and marketing plans around that. One of the things we should stress is that the Middle East is not one region. It’s a bunch of different countries built into a region with very different nuances, who all have their own different challenges – economic, political or social – regardless of what’s happening now in Palestine or in Israel. It’s a complex region and the sentiment in Dubai does not represent the entire region from an advertising perspective.

Can you expand on how different the individual countries are culturally, and has your own background helped with that?

Luca: I’m very proud that I came from the UK, but I’m equally proud that I have a parent who is Middle Eastern, who is Arab. In a business sense, typically the UAE and the Saudis love to have that combination – someone who speaks both languages, understands both cultures. Increasingly, they want to have a market strong for Saudis; they want to grow strong marketeers and advertisers at a grassroots level with lesser reliance on expats coming into the market. I look after Middle East and North Africa and I do a lot of traveling to Egypt and to Riyadh because that’s where the focus is when it comes to Saudi. I’m based here in Dubai, but I also travel to the Levant region. We have offshore offices there as well, so I get a bit of a flavour of what’s going on across the region. It’s not a one size fits all. The types of humour that the Egyptians have versus the Saudis are totally different, so you have to nuance your creative messages to the Egyptians. There are pockets of markets that are notoriously strong in certain things. For example, Jordan is well known for their technology development and their AI development. Egypt is known for their creativity and unorthodox thinking. Saudi and Dubai or UAE are very much focused on infrastructure, best practice work. I get access to local nuances, which gives me a much more enriched picture. Prior to what’s been happening in the last couple of weeks, MENA has really been thriving. Small and medium sized businesses have been taking off across the markets. But again, it’s being driven by Saudi. Saudi is the key focus for advertisers because of the purchasing power, because of the scale of the population of the market. It’s still a young country in terms of its demographic so the potential is only going to increase. And all of this has been backed by a very clear and powerful message from the crown prince about vision 2030 and how everything needs to be geared towards that.

For Middle East-based advertisers looking outwards, are there any kind of real cultural differences about the way they should be viewing the outside world?

Manoj: Yes, there are, and in light of things that have happened in the last few weeks, those have started changing as well. To give some context, Luca mentioned that Dubai is not the Middle East, it’s the melting pot. The UAE is about 10 million people in terms of population. Dubai is a little over half of that. The Middle East is 600 million. Based on that 600 million, it’s not more than maybe 15 percent of the global population. So, we’re talking about a really small sample size, but it’s important because it represents a lot of the different cultures and the people in the region. Our organisation works with a lot of Palestinian people, who have a high residential population in the UAE and that’s where we felt the immediate effect of empathy with those people that are working in our organisations and in the industry, and across the market, how that has related to a more global level in terms of the advertising message. The big Middle East entities – the sovereign wealth funds, the public investment fund, the big tourism boards, the airlines, the ones who really are dominating global communications from the region – they take very strong strategic advisement from consultancies and media agencies, such as PHD. But they also have a tendency to follow what a lot of the FMCG and the global brands are doing so we’ve had conversations in the last 10 days with clients and agencies talking about what Unilever are doing, what P&G are doing, what Mars are doing, and should we be potentially following suit? I think that’s a challenge. And a lot of those decisions are driven by fears around brand safety, of course. When a Middle East entity goes global, there’s an automatic brand safety concern anyway, because there’s a lot of negative perception. There are reputational issues, which we find these brands have to combat almost every single time they go out on a global level. They’ve proven themselves to be very adaptable in the creative messaging of those communications. But as Luca said, this is a really, fragmented region, much more than, for example, the counties infrastructure in the UK. We’re talking about different dialects, different languages, obviously different religions, and even within religions, different sects of those religions, different time zones, different working days of the week in some countries. It’s very much a region made by individual countries as opposed to a natural region based on geography.

What would your tips be for a European brand considering making its first step into the territory?

Luca: The first tip – prioritise your markets. Focus on the big markets – Saudi Arabia and UAE are the main two. The Qataris, the Kuwaits, the Omans of the world are secondary. As a third market, I would look at Egypt which has about 100 million in terms of population. It’s nearly three times the size of Saudi, but they have a much smaller purchasing power. The second tip: Make sure your media makes sense for each of the different markets. You can’t have the same one size fits all. For example, penetration of smartphones in Egypt is not particularly high. They rely on more traditional forms of communications, such as television and out of home. But even out of home and TV are not regulated – it’s a very difficult measurement system and technology system infrastructure, so you have to have local people in Egypt selecting your media.  And you need a very clear, creative message that’s going to create impact. Conversely, in Saudi, you have a much higher adoption of all technologies, mobiles, tablets, Smart TVs. You can be a little bit more creative with what you’re doing. But pan-Arab TV still remains a critical part of building reach and driving good coverage. It’s a TV-first plus video approach, and then they look at something like out of home as a second. Things like print and radio are much more neglected here. The third tip: The creative messaging needs to be on point. If you want to launch a campaign in the UAE, you’ve got to think about your approach with South Asians. What’s your approach with Arab expats? What’s your approach with Western expats? Then you break down the Western expats even further. It can get quite complex. When it comes to UAE specifically, you’ve got to try and find that unilateral creative comms approach. In Saudi, it has to speak to the Saudi pride tapping into 2030 vision and where they’re trying to go, harnessing the Saudi sentiments. If you’re going to launch in Egypt, make sure the creative message is very Egyptian in its humour. Creativity and humour go a long way in Egypt. The current economic climate is not good. There are no dollars in the market. There are a lot of problems with inflation, so advertisers are looking more and more to humour to build up some affinity towards brands. So, markets, media mix and then creative messages all need to be really thought about quite carefully.

Which industry sectors do you see at the biggest opportunity?

Luca: There’s a lot of growth in luxury. Chanel is one of our clients. They, and all the other big luxury clients, are benefiting from the exodus of people leaving coming to Dubai, High Net Worth Individuals. Luxury is booming. Sectors that were historically strong are not so strong anymore. FMCG and CPG have struggled in the last few years. The budgets are no longer the same as they once were, and we’re seeing other sectors overtake them – e-commerce, pure digital clients, tech players, and of course, travel. Travel tourism is becoming massive here in the region. The World Cup the Expo happened here. There’s so much investment that’s going into trying to raise the profile of nations, reposition countries in the eyes of the world’s audience. We’re seeing a bit of a tourism arms race where everyone is trying to compete to drive their own national brand to a global audience. That’s fascinating to be part of.

Where do you get your news from, and what media brands are your personal favourites

Manoj: I’m very much a podcast guy in the morning. Some of that is work related – daily catch-up podcasts with some of the major media brands; a lot of football podcasts, sport or golf related podcasts. I lean on a lot of business media: Reuters for factual reporting; Time; Insider; The Wall Street Journal. These are my main go-tos during the course of the day. Once I’m home and the kids are in bed It’s either Netflix or probably Tik Tok for the sheer entertainment value. Luca: The confidence in media outlets has probably never been lower than it is now, especially in light of the conflict that’s happening at the moment in the Middle East. People are starting to ask the tough questions – then the truth becomes, where can we get the real scoop, the real news, the real insights? We could see a world where in the future, things get even more fragmented. AI is becoming so important now with these stories being self-generated. Articles being written by AI, videos being created by AI – we’re coming into a very, very complex time for advertisers. Our job as agencies or as publishers, is to keep challenging, keep asking those tough questions because at the end of the day, you know, if we lose the end consumer, then advertising is not going to work. Manoj: We were asked to deliver a lecture last week at a university here in Dubai on media to a group of undergraduate students. One of the examples we used was in light of the conflict at the moment, there have been a lot of clips doing the rounds on social media. Some are from reputable sources, some are just being shared and, you have to be really careful how you’re interpreting and acknowledging some of those clips. One specific clip showed a group of young people at a concert, apparently running away because of attacks that were going on. It turns out, after it was factchecked by Reuters, one of your members, it was actually a group of people running towards a Bruno Mars concert to get into the door. As Luca said, we’re not political commentators or experts, but you’ve got to be very wary. And I think our role as people who work within the media is to spread that message – look guys, be aware, be careful. I think we’re heading into some interesting times with AI, as Luca mentioned, and there are conversations about whether platforms should be declaring that an article has been written by AI or that an algorithm has been influenced by the AI, for example. It’s going to be interesting. Luca: It goes back to trust. A lot of my information I rely on is from my own network. I trust my network and trust the people that I work with. I think if media partners, media publishers lose trust with the audience based on the information they’re sharing, we’re all going to be in trouble.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

In conversation with Kieley Taylor

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The World Media Group’s Chief Executive Belinda Barker chats to Kieley Taylor, Global Head of Partnerships at GroupM, about the organisation’s Funding News and Fighting Disinformation initiative, and why it’s particularly pertinent in the lead up to an election year.  Below is an extract of their conversation. You can watch the video below or listen to the full podcast here. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/RoPRyO4uTIo”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

In conversation with Kieley Taylor – Funding News and Fighting Disinformation

The World Media Group’s Chief Executive Belinda Barker chats to Kieley Taylor, Global Head of Partnerships at GroupM, about the organisation’s Funding News and Fighting Disinformation initiative, and why it’s particularly pertinent in the lead up to an election year. Below is an extract of their conversation. You can watch the full video above or listen to the podcast here. Firstly, what does your role as Global Head of Partnerships at GroupM entail? GroupM places about one out of every three media dollars globally. We find appropriate context for advertising to appear. We look at audiences and we look at price point, so that brands can really deliver the outcomes that they want, whether it be salience, sales, etc. My role is looking after those most scaled partners or those that have the most points of differentiation, so that we can really help our brands to stand out, whether it be through data and technology access, valuable pricing, or more and more, through a lens of what are value-aligned places for advertisers to appear. It’s a global role – how do you work with the different parts of GroupM around the world? As I don’t get more than 24 hours in my day, it’s much more about approaches for each different investment leader and their respective market. This informs a tiering so we can have consistent codification around partner assessment. It’s a matter of having a consistent frame of reference, rather than me being on the phone all hours of the day and night. Tell us about your five key pillars and how responsible journalism fits in. The Five Pillars of our Responsible Investment Framework help us to keep a lens, both short- and long-term, around the types of strategic relationships that we wish to broker. Responsible Journalism; Brand Safety and Suitability; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Environmental Sustainability; and Data and AI Ethics are the five different pillars. There’s all kinds of intersectionality amongst publishers or platforms across many of these different themes, if not all. But it’s more a matter of helping brands who have specific ERG or CSR-types of value alignment to find best-fit partners. We also tend to find that DEI is fundamental to responsible journalistic enterprise. Those journalists, those reporters, understand their audiences – the communities they serve – better than anyone. As we get away from a cookie-based world sometime later next year, the value of those audiences and the authentic relationships that those journalists have built over years will really come to the fore. We’ll be able to see not only the integrity in the environment, but also that they are naturally supporting whatever look or affiliation that a community might have as its majority resident. A little bit different than the more opaque cookie worlds that we’re one foot in, one foot out of right now. Why, as an agency, do you feel supporting responsible journalism is important? The hard-nosed business answer is strong competition forces choice and helps to drive innovation and a plurality of opinions. It’s beholden upon us to make sure that different types of narratives are represented in a credible way. In this precipice that we’re on of post-truth being [accepted as] a societal value, it’s critically important that we’re reaching out and helping directly to invest in those that are telling authentic and true narratives. There are political cycles going on both sides of the pond and I think they’re going to be watched with a lot of interest, if not trepidation. Functioning democracies require for there to be the fourth estate. Given the privileged position that we have – to place as much media investment as we do – we really do find it to be imperative to continue to be a cornerstone in support of those that hold truth to power in democratic and functioning societies. How does it work in reality? How do you audit the amount the agency spends on supporting newsrooms? It’s certainly more straightforward with digital and programmatic. The post reporting is done on a 24-hour cycle, if not more frequently. So having a sense of how the dollars or pounds are stacking up is a little more straightforward. Dollars might be going to a publication that supports a newsroom, but also supports lifestyle or sports news content – all of these more suitable places for brands. We’re looking with that much wider lens of a publisher when they do support a newsroom versus hard-nosed investigative journalism exclusively. The other thing that we have to be really cognisant of, going back to the functioning of democracy, is how a population can have access to credible news information when there are paywalls and when they have to have access to broadband digital internet. When we did a lot of work around public health for Covid 19, we saw that going to radio broadcasters was a huge and powerful medium to mass distribute public safety messages, as were local press publications. Making sure that credible information is not tiered within society is super important – to impress the point about the intersectionality of those different pillars of responsible investing. Have some markets responded more positively to this than others? The short answer is yes. We’ve done a partnership with Internews, who is using a consistent rubric to set a floor, so ensuring that the organisation is not under any sanctions, ensuring that there are by-lines for the actual people who are doing the reporting; that they have retraction policies if something is found to be incorrectly stated. What we have found is that in some different marketplaces, there is a higher standard to journalistic enterprise, but we have found comfort that the floor is credible and consistent and allows us to have a breadth of local news sources for consideration in the markets that we’ve been able to partner with Internews to review. How can publishers play a role in reframing responsible journalism? I was recently at a panel discussion on the same topic, and there were two things that I implored publishers to think carefully about. One was for those that have programmatically accessed inventory, to look hard at all the different resellers or demand sources that you might have convened over the years. The fewer middle actors you have, the more favourably you will be looked upon, and the lesser your carbon footprint. Some hard decisions are being taken based upon rudimentary data and not looking at the broader context of the reputation of the journalistic enterprise. The other bit is to make sure that you use this time now as applicable to local laws (GDPR and the like) for getting consented first party data. You will become a beacon of authentic and consented identity, which is going to be more and more valuable to advertisers as cookies go away. Once we have a data match, then game on. We can deliver really personalised creative within that kind of context. Help us meet halfway with the business transformation. Through consortiums, coalitions, fractional support, there are ways with which we can get to a place that we can more easily integrate and operate in the cookieless world. Finally, on a personal note, what news brands do you consume? I tend to consume news brands like Bloomberg and Reuters to help me understand how my client’s business is operating and help me understand politics without such a sharp lead. I also really enjoy the longer form content, like Wired and Fast Company. I like to really understand the direction and the future of technology because it pairs so closely with what I do for a living – when I’m not chasing a two-year-old child around that is![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

In conversation with Navin Rammohan

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This month the World Media Group’s Chief Executive Belinda Barker chats to the winner of the World Media Award for Content Leadership and Innovation, Navin Rammohan, in a special edition of The Media Navigators podcast. Navin is Vice President, Segment Head Marketing at Infosys. Below is an extract of their conversation. You can watch the video below or listen to the full podcast here. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Congratulations Navin. Please can you start by telling our audience a little bit about who Infosys is and what you do as a business?

Infosys is a large global IT services and consulting organisation. We started off around 42 years back with a seed capital of around $250 with seven founders and today we are about $18 billion in revenue. We have 330,000 employees globally, and we are in 56 countries, managing our clients’ businesses around digital transformation. We look after the entire technology spectrum of large enterprise – the Global 2000, the Fortune 500 of the world, managing critical technology and different kinds of work related to their technology transformation. Just to give you an example, imagine an iconic automaker, which is looking at their cloud transformation, we look at how cloud can impact their car business for connected cars. Similarly, a government organisation that is looking to implement strategies for their SME businesses that want to use blockchain, we help them look at blockchain as a strategy for the small and medium industries within their constituencies. We look at AI to really help tennis players improve and manage their games and that’s some of the work that we do with sports organisations. In a sense we navigate the entire technology spectrum of medium to large enterprises around any kind of challenges they face, which technology can really solve. We define ourselves as an organisation which is there to help amplify human potential; to navigate the ‘next’ for people, businesses, and communities. The value systems that the founders put behind the organisation 42 years back still stand in terms of how we go about doing our business. We are proud of our ESG strategies. We became carbon neutral in 2019-2020, 30 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. In the social sustainability space, we’re implementing a strategy of re-skilling about 10 million people with digital skills. We are already at the halfway mark with 5 million people already on a platform that is provided free to enable people to learn digital skills. We are really proud of what we are doing ‘beyond business’ but I don’t think we can call it beyond business because now ESG is a core part of every organisation’s strategy. From a people perspective, learnability is one of the core strategies of Infosys. We have probably the world’s largest corporate university in Mysore, where we train close to 15,000 people simultaneously. Learning and constantly evolving ourselves to learn new technologies and bringing that to our clients’ business is core to Infosys. It’s about amplifying human potential to create the next opportunity for people, businesses, and communities. We are a people company that uses technology to really help better our clients.

What made you think that a content-led campaign was the right approach for Infosys and how did you get involved with the tennis partnership?

At Infosys we follow our content marketing approach with a theme called ‘UnMarketing’. It’s a very value-driven approach where we are not really marketing the technology, but we are creating marketing with the help of technology. Rather than creating TV commercials and campaigns, we want to create products and services and platforms using our technology, and that becomes our marketing. Tennis is a great example of what we are doing using the content marketing approach. We are building a digital platform for ATP, which helps players and coaches to understand statistics much better. It helps fans to engage with the game in a much more immersive way than if they had just watched it on TV. If you go to our platform that we have created on the website, the spectators can understand the game in a much more granular way, and that improves the fan engagement level. Infosys technology is the backbone of all these immersive experiences, and that becomes a marketable technology for us to showcase to our other clients. We go beyond the tennis audience and core stakeholders to our other business audiences to show them that what we can do with tennis data can easily be done with retail data or manufacturing data. That has been our philosophy in terms of an approach to marketing – the technology is used for creating products and services and platforms and digital experiences for any kind of business, and we use that to market ourselves. That has been the differentiating factor because it brings in authenticity and value. We’re talking from a place of complete knowledge; clients appreciate that, and it leads to meaningful engagement and conversations with them. We’ve taken this model to our other partnerships like The Economist Group. We have built their entire sustainability platform – it’s called The Sustainability Project. One of the problem statements that had come to us with was that their sustainability content was spread across the whole website and they wanted to bring it all together in a way that was personalised. They knew a lot about their audience and what they’re consuming, so how could they then target them better? We created a platform for them that is live on the Economist Impact website called The Sustainability Project, so every piece of content related to sustainability is in a single place. The Economist team is now able to target this audience in a much sharper way. They know what their audience is reading, how much they are liking it, how much time they are spending on the content, so it gives them insights into the new things they need to do in this space. It’s almost a Netflix kind of an experience that you’re bringing to sustainability content. Similarly, we are currently working on something called the Value Chain Navigator with them, which is a digital tool to look at how organisations around the world are looking at their Scope 3 emissions. While these are projects which are delivering business value to The Economist, it is also helping Infosys from a thought leadership perspective in the sustainability space. It helps us to build our credibility and, at the same time, we are building new technology solutions which are solving a real-world problem for our clients. Leading with content like this helps us to create a very differentiated kind of proposition, which is helping us in the market, both from a brand perspective as well as from a business impact perspective.

Content marketing has been a big trend over the last few years. Do you think that will continue and how will it morph in the future?

I think the definition of content has really changed. It’s no longer about text. It’s no longer about audio. It’s no longer about video. What we are seeing in the market is a lot about content being experiential and immersive. Every year, the number of digital channels and mediums are increasing. Whether it is Web3, GenAI now, whether it was the Metaverse, each of these trends have had a hype cycle. I’m not saying that as marketers, we should not ride some of these hype cycles. I think we should. But I think we should ride it in a way that is furthering the brand’s narrative. That’s the most important thing. How is it really adding to your brand story? How is it making it relevant to the audience that you’re trying to target? How is it relevant for the business you are in? For example, about two years back, the Financial Times, came to us with a business problem. They felt that the world of journalism was going to be very different in the next few years with people wanting to contribute to the content in some way, rather than just being passive listeners or audiences. They call this whole phenomenon ‘participative content’. We brainstormed with the visual journalism team at the Financial Times and came up with a gamification of the content. We created something called the FT Climate Game – a very immersive and scientifically based game with four personas that let you decide how you want to take decisions which will end up having a certain impact on the climate. The goal was to ensure that the temperature doesn’t rise above 1. 5 degrees. It was a fascinating way to reimagine content completely and give an understanding of the subject itself. Another example is something we created for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, based in Newport in Rhode Island. It’s where tennis started in the US and is the only grass court tournament there. All the legends of the game and every old artifact related to tennis are on display at the museum, but unless you go to Newport, you can’t see this fabulous museum. They came to us to ask how to take it global – they wanted every tennis fan globally to be able to experience the Hall of Fame in a way that is immersive and experiential, so we built a Metaverse. You can take your own avatar and move around this entire space, exploring the Hall of Fame and every artifact immersively, like you’re actually there. It was launched in July, and we’re seeing tremendous results. I think the content strategy is really evolving around creating content that is genuine, adds value, and builds in authenticity into every interaction that you do, which creates some kind of meaningful engagement with your target audience. I think that’s the direction where content is headed.

What is the one challenge or trend that you’ll be watching over the next 12 months?

With Gen AI now, there’s a huge amount of opportunity. We are experimenting with AI models to not just solve clients’ business problems, but also in marketing. We’re trying to see how we can push the narrative so that clients understand it in a much more immersive way. I think the Gen AI space is going to be very exciting in the next 12 to 24 months. We are keen to explore and create, but the principles for us will not change. We want to look at any of these new technologies with the same principles of making sure that it furthers the brand’s narrative, it adds value, and it really engages in a way that it is meaningful. I think the storytelling aspect of content is going to become much more important because it’s going to lead to a human-centric kind of content building. We are seeing that it has a much better resonance from our clients when we connect with them at a human level with our content. Thank you, Navin.   We look forward to presenting Navin with his award for Content Leader and Innovation at the World Media Awards ceremony of September 7th.  If you would like to join us in celebrating the very best in international content-driven marketing, tickets to the World Media Awards ceremony are available here. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

In conversation with Kim Vinnell, Reuters

Welcome to Trusted Journalism Matters, where we chat to World Media Group members about what quality journalism means to them. This month we meet Kim Vinnell, an international broadcast journalist and host of Reuters flagship daily news podcast, Reuters World News. We’re delighted to have Kim as our host for this year’s World Media Awards.

Here, she talks about the ‘glocality’ that makes Reuters unique, her faith in deep-rooted, in-depth journalism, and why she believes journalists renowned for their impartial and factual reporting and will continue to be prized.

Why does trusted journalism matter to you and what attracted you to working for Reuters? 

Now more than ever, we need journalism we can trust. The media landscape is polarised, commercial priorities have seen a shift toward opinion as opposed to fact, AI presents all-new challenges, and context and nuance is so often lost.

Working for Reuters has meant I can surround myself with journalists of the highest calibre, who are drawn to this profession because they believe in the importance of an informed public and independent journalism. I was also drawn to Reuters Trust Principles, which are the drivers behind all of our work, and which enable us to maintain the trust we have built over many years in this industry.

Tell us about the ethos at the heart of Reuters.

Reuters values integrity, independence and freedom from bias, while always striving to innovate and be agile in delivering on its mission to bring ‘the world to the world.’ Our factual and unbiased journalism allows us to maintain a leading position in the fast-paced ever-changing journalism landscape.

What is it that your audience looks for in Reuters content and have you experienced any behavioural changes in recent years?

As a fairly recent recruit, I’m probably the wrong person to ask about behavioural changes of our audience! However, in my career across networks and outlets, I have noticed a clear shift toward ensuring news is understandable (goodbye news-speak), that content goes to where the audience is (multi-platform approaches) and that people (despite all the predications) are still willing to put in the time to read, watch or listen to quality journalism.

Why is an international perspective so important in current times? 

A global perspective has always been important. But I believe we are now more aware of it than ever. From the climate crisis, to understanding how the war in Ukraine impacts global energy and food prices, to the Covid pandemic and the ensuing vaccine inequality… we are faced daily with local stories that impact every industry and community around the world.

That’s part of what makes Reuters truly unique. Our ‘glocality’ – the combination of our deep local expertise in the 200 locations we report in around the world with the global perspective and reach of our newsroom of more than 2500 journalists.

What innovation or story are you personally most proud of?

I am immensely proud of our Reuters World News podcast team. We are a small team which only launched six months ago – but already we are surpassing expectations on listenership, retention, and audio production standards. If you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, please do give it a go! It’s a ten minute daily global news podcast, which takes our listeners around the world, to cover the must-know stories of the day, utilising the incredible breadth of Reuters global journalistic talent.

How do you visualise the future of the journalism?

I think in-depth, deeply reported journalism will continue to take centre stage. I think trained journalists with reputations for being impartial and factual will continue to be prized, especially as AI and its ‘hallucinations’ come to the fore.

Creativity in media: What makes a winning content campaign?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Damian Douglas, President of the World Media Group and MD of TIME for EMEA, sat down with this year’s World Media Awards Head Judges, Natasha Byrne Managing Partner at UM media agency, and Jerry Daykin, Head of Global Media at premium spirits company Beam Suntory. The conversation centred around creativity and what makes an award-winning entry. Here’s what our Head Judges had to say on the subject:

Damian: Creativity is the backbone of these awards. What are the most exciting trends you’ve seen adopted within content marketing recently?

Jerry: I absolutely love it when content marketing delivers on both the brand’s mission but also helps the media owner tell stories that they wouldn’t have been able to tell anyway. I’m a Diversity & Inclusion ambassador for the World Federation of Advertisers so I love it when brands create content which talks to new audiences, talk to new communities and funds new voices through sponsorships or partnerships.

Damian: So what makes a great content partnership?

Jerry: Ultimately, you’ve got to look at content partnerships from the creative side and ask is it true to what the brand wants to communicate? It’s relatively easy to make a fantastic piece of content. It’s trickier to make a fantastic piece of content that authentically brings the brand into it.

We’ve had a lot of maturity now in this space. There was a time when brands would just stick a logo on a piece of content. There are times when that can work, but there are better examples when there’s a real joining of what the publication stands for, what its editorial themes are, and what the brand wants to talk about. Not one big advert, but truly communicating and getting much more depth on the brand. I think that’s a great content partnership.

Damian Natasha, how do you approach it from an agency perspective?

Natasha: I say to my clients, “You might be talking the talk, but are you walking the walk?” A big trend is content partnerships delivering on the brand’s ethos, as well as around social issues. But also, if you’re talking about diversity and inclusion, look at the creatives within the brand partnership. Are they inclusive? Do they give options for people who are non-seeing or non-hearing? Are they inclusive creatives? Really thinking about the whole picture – that’s the trend I’m seeing in recent times.

Damian: What’s the media owner’s role in this? Do they have the right to push back on the client and say, if you want to show up in our spaces you have to respect our brand values?

Natasha: The ones that I love to work with are those that really push me and say this might not be the right thing to do, connecting our editorial with what you’re trying to say. Is your message linked up to what your brand is saying? Those are the ones that are going to continuously improve what we do as an agency, but also with our clients.

Damian: Jerry, do you feel the same?

Jerry: As a client, as with an agency, you’re effectively sending the same brief to a bunch of different media owners and if they all just repeat it back to you, there comes a slightly boring conversation of who’s the highest paid reached or cheapest CPM.

What’s really exciting is when someone comes back with a curveball idea or a different interpretation – this is our audience, we know them really well, we get that you want to communicate this, but actually we think this is a better way in.

Those things tend to win briefs and lead to good work. As a client, it’s good to be challenged, being told our audience won’t like that or don’t do that!

Damian: The media owner is bringing in their context and audience together, which is a powerful combination, but it means as a media owner, you need to have some strength in your own purpose and in your own values. And you’re not right for everything.

Jerry: There’s probably a million different ways of buying reach if all you want to do is get content in front of people. You can do that through almost any publication, any network, any social network. It’s definitely about having that voice, having that opinion, and being able to bring that unique lens.

Damian: Are there any clients that stand out for you, Natasha, in terms of doing incredible things with regards to creativity in this space?

Natasha: A lot of clients are doing really creative things. Every year we have Spotify Wrapped, What I love about that is it’s personalised. It is something that is very easily shareable. And it’s something that people look forward to every year and it tells something about that person. Spotify have really capitalised on that.

Another brand that’s worked well in terms of content marketing is Johnson & Johnson. They’ve just done a campaign where Nicorette have capitalised on the insight that people don’t quit smoking on their own. They’ve done a nice content partnership with Gay Times where they had different partners working together to spur each other on to help quit smoking.

It’s a really nice way to capitalise on understanding what the key insight is and bringing that to life and really making change, because a huge amount of people quit smoking as a result.

Damian: And Jerry, any brands that you think are doing amazing things with regards to creativity?

Jerry: One of the things I really like is a brand that sticks with a partner and builds over several years. Skittle have done a really nice job – I’ve seen iterations some of it funding editorial. They did a great Gay Times piece where they were recolouring old images from Pride events, Pride marches and things, but they brought that through to experiential events; they hosted a Eurovision watch-along last year.

That’s come out of a multiyear partnership where you can imagine behind closed doors they’re asking the editorial team, what do you guys wish you could be doing? What stories do you want to be telling that we could help fund with colour the rainbow within them?

From a media owner perspective there are some new contenders – video platforms like Amazon Prime coming into this space, so plenty of competition but hopefully lots of creativity coming out.

Damian: What about from a B2B lens? Do you see B2B brands pushing themselves in these areas?

Natasha: People always ask me why I love working on B2B brands. It’s because B2B brands have to work so much harder in order to be noticed, in order for people to build that brand love.

I think Accenture does very well. We were lucky enough to have highly commended last year in the World Media Awards. That was with a partner – The Financial Times – over a long period of time so that we’re able to survey where we were before the campaign against our audience, and then be able to see tangible results after.

With Accenture it’s about creating new creative formats, so we’re using their Metaverse technology in one of the FT events, continuously evolving in terms of how we work with our partners.

Damian: Now talent is something we’re going to have to think hard about as an industry moving forward, both from an inclusivity perspective and a visibility perspective, which is why we introduced our Rising Star category.

When you’re hiring and you’re looking for young creative talent, what do you look for and where do they come from?

Jerry: We face a double-ended talent challenge across the industry – we don’t seem to have enough people and we also don’t seem to have enough diversity inclusive people. We need to bring those two things together to make sure that we’re having people from different backgrounds join our industry.

There’s work being done by the WFA in the UK to survey where we’re at, and identify some of those boundaries. We work with external organisations like the Brixton Finishing School who are experts in finding people from different backgrounds and giving them that initial media training. Some of the real stars of the industry come through pathways like that.

We also rely on our agencies and our media owners to have different perspectives, different opportunities, some of those young, fresh minds. It’s obviously tricky when you’re junior, but ultimately, you want people who come with a strong personality, a strong opinion and are willing to bring those perspectives to work. But it’s a challenge. We need to get better at marketing ourselves as industry wanting more people to come and work with us.

Damian: I’ve spoken to agency leaders for the last six to 12 months. Every one of them says they’ve had open jobs but can’t find the right people. Is that still the case agency side? And how do you view talent?

Natasha: If I was to apply for a role in an agency today, I don’t know if I’d get it, because the people that I see coming through the door are absolutely incredible! What I look for is curiosity, being brave, and also a little bit of a difference in terms of your thought process behind things, because what I love about people who are new to the industry is that you see things with a fresh set of eyes. You don’t think we’ve always done something this way; you have a fresh perspective on things.

But there are things that we struggle with in terms of getting new people into the industry. And as Jerry said, we have to address the diversity and also the social economic backgrounds of people that are applying to agencies in Central London because working in Central London comes at a cost, so we need to think about that.

At UM we’ve been going back further in terms of the age of the people that we’re talking to about media. We’ve got our Future-Proof Academy where we’re going to different schools and we’re training and talking to young students about careers in media. We’re working with our clients to give them a brief so that we can get fresh perspective, but also, to excite and interest people in joining and thinking about media as a future career. We need to work further back, not just for people who are already in university, to attract new talent within the industry.

Damian: So, moving on to the Awards, what makes an award-winning content marketing campaign?

Natasha: The first thing for me is could this be any brand? When you look at the actual campaign, could you swap the logo for something else, and it would still work? Or is it completely tailored to this brand, and does it make sense in terms of this brand’s values?

Secondly is really strong insight – what is the insight that this campaign hangs off? And what is the strategy that then leads to the activation of that insight? How does it fit into your overall campaign? Does it just standalone? Does it fit into an overall brand campaign? And finally, what are the results beyond media?

Jerry: I think the only thing I’d add is that when you’re a judge, you’re reading 90 similar papers where they’ve all done good things. So, if you’ve done something brilliant, don’t hide it! Make sure you’re flagging what is amazing upfront in the summary, what is great about this work. Why does this deserve an award? Just put it there upfront for us judges to understand. Don’t leave those gems of why it’s a great idea hidden for people to find. Spell out why the campaign worked so well.

Natasha: We also need to remember these are the World Media Awards, not the World Creative Awards and therefore you need to make sure that you’re highlighting the smart media things that you’ve done in this campaign. If it was a brilliant video, but there’s nothing else behind that, then that’s not a World Media Award.

Jerry: You want the great headline to show why this was exciting, but you also want to dig in, why was it great – what did you do? How did you activate? What was unique? What data did you use, what was the insight? We want everything!

Damian: It’s a big commitment from both of you to be judges. What’s in it for you?

Jerry: I find it super inspiring. Awards are one of those rare moments where you spend a bit of time seeing what everybody else is doing. It’s exciting and inspirational. And you take notes and think, oh, maybe we should be leaning into this.

Damian: That’s what the industry’s about – everybody bringing each other up a level and learning from each other.

Natasha: The inspiration, learning from the other awards and seeing something that we can consider, discovering what different partners offer, but also a big part of it is the community. Getting to know the other judges, getting to know the publishers more. I’ve kept in touch with a lot of the judges I met last year, so it’s been a great community and support.

Damian: We remain a people industry and our ability to convene and share ideas is what the industry does and it’s why it’s so important to get together.

Thanks Natasha and Jerry for a great conversation. We hope that’s inspired anyone reading to consider entering your own amazing creative work into this year’s World Media Awards. Natasha and Jerry, you’re going to have a tough job on your hands, so good luck!

The World Media Awards celebrate creativity and effectiveness in cross-platform, cross border, content-driven advertising. Many of the world’s leading brands are amongst the World Media Awards winners and the programme is recognised by WARC. You can find out more about how to enter the World Media Awards here, along with the case studies of previous winners to inspire you.

 

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60 seconds with World Media Group President, Damian Douglas

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/DWEWyDRqgPY” el_aspect=”43″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

60 seconds with World Media Group President, Damian Douglas 

What have been your priorities during your term as president of the World Media Group?

Over the last 12 months my role has been to support the World Media Group’s strategy to dial back into the power of our journalism. This is the unique aspect that brings the World Media Brands together, and the world has never needed journalism that our brands stand for like it does today.

What trends are you currently seeing? 

We’re all trending towards content. Our brands are content-rich from an editorial perspective. The brands we work with from a commercial perspective equally have a very unique point of view on the world today, and how the world is evolving. Brands are dialling back into their purpose and trying to understand how their purpose marries with societal good as we look towards driving a more progressive future for everybody. I think that’s been one of the unique aspects over the last 12 to 18 months.

How can brands, agencies and publishers work together to achieve the best results? 

It’s essential to be aligned on what the objective is. Brands, as well as publishers, are content-rich, but understanding that differentiated position and a unique perspective on their own purpose and their own value, then understanding what the positive outcomes look like by communicating that, is crucially important.  Greater communication between all three is needed: understanding what success looks like, and then understanding where you take it next. Because this isn’t a three month or six month conversation. Brands are going to play a big significant part in how we evolve as societies, how our economies evolve, and they play a significant part in solving many of the challenges we face.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Nigel Robinson on his role as World Media Group Chair

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Nigel Robinson, Global Account Director & Managing Partner at Mediacom, is the World Media Group’s new Non-Executive Chair. Picking up the mantle from Gordana Buccisano, Nigel supports our mission to champion the values of international, trusted journalism. Nigel’s experience managing global client relationships and leading international network teams for MediaCom brings a unique perspective of the brand / agency / publisher relationship. We chat to Nigel about how he hopes to facilitate a better understanding of the value publishers can offer brands, based on a currency of insight and understanding.

What do you bring to the role of World Media Group Chair?

I’ve spent 30 years working with major clients and brands, thinking hard about what they want to achieve and working out how agencies and publishers can help them. Being in the engine room of one of the world’s leading agencies, working with some of the most advanced clients in the world, you really do get to see and understand what challenges clients are grappling with and the solutions they’re looking for.

I want to bring that know-how and experience to the role of WMG Chair. I see it from an agency perspective and a client’s perspective, as well as from a publisher’s perspective, and I want to connect these groups to help clients grow their brands and drive their businesses forward.

What are the biggest challenges clients are grappling with today?

Everyone is working out how to use data effectively. We’re all aware of the fundamental changes happening around personal identity in a Cookieless world and this means advertising context becomes one of the solutions to that challenge. This is nothing new and, like fashion, it’s coming back into vogue again. The World Media Group and its members are all about publishing quality content; their high-quality journalism creates so many incredibly powerful contexts for advertisers to capitalise on and there’s a greater value being attached to this now.

Similarly, attention has become a very big theme recently. Clients increasingly appreciate that reach is only effective if it comes with audience attention and they’re asking agencies to plan for reach + attention and to quantify its value. This focus on “attention planning” is again, hyper-relevant to publishers like the World Media Group members, whose super high-quality content is being consumed closely and deeply by their audiences. Quite rightly, advertisers are placing a premium on this right now.

Brands and clients are always hungry to understand their categories, their audiences and how their brands fit into the world. Publishers have so much to offer in terms of how they understand people and audiences and providing the context for brands to be seen in and operate in. This is super high value, and that currency of insight and understanding is a great way of connecting brands to publishers.

How can publishers help solve these issues?

I want to help publishers understand this value and tell that story by creating their own narratives and solutions to these challenges and opportunities, which will resonate with brands and brand owners. Having worked with a breadth of clients, I believe I can help publishers articulate their best solutions to increase their value to brands and that’s a big part of what I want to accomplish as the World Media Group Chair.

In a world of snackable content, what role does in-depth content play?

Whether you’re talking about a business audience or a Gen Z audience, consumers’ attention spans have shortened, and we’ve all become used to this very short-form, snackable, slightly clickbait content. For me, when it comes to understanding the value and the role of more in-depth content, there’s also an ethical side to consider.

In the “Twittersphere world”, there’s a danger that we lose the depth of communication. What is the real story? What are the real facts? What’s the real trend here? That’s where high-quality, trusted journalism is needed. As a society, we should nurture it, support it, and make sure it maintains a place in our world.

Quality journalism is not only incredibly valuable to the industry, but also to society, and we must make sure we don’t lose it. Businesses have become more aware of their impact on the world and want to operate in a responsible way, which is why I believe this point can grow in importance.  The World Media Group brands offer a platform for businesses to tell their stories at length, within a trusted, credible environment.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Profile on Damian Douglas, Managing Director EMEA, Time and President of The World Media Group

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Social Media Portal (SMP) interviewed Damian Douglas, Managing Director, EMEA at Time and newly elected President of The World Media Group about publishing, marketing, digital transformation and more.  Please click on the link HERE to read the full article.  It makes for a very interesting read![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Interview with Johan Jervoe, CMO, UBS, the winner of this year’s World Media Award for Content Leadership & Innovation

Now lockdown measures have been loosened and consumers are hungry to return to ‘normal’ life, is this the right time to invest more heavily in marketing? And if so, are there any pitfalls brands need to consider before doing so?

I strongly believe, that investing in your brand awareness now is an opportunity you should not miss. Let’s all remember what brands are for: brands are holding devices of prior experiences for the user. Brands that are communicating during a crisis give stability and visibility and a certain comfort to their users – and that’s what consumers have been looking for here.

As a financial services brand – UBS is a wealth manager, the number one retail bank in Switzerland, and we have an investment bank and asset manager – we have seen markets going up and down in parallel with the pandemic and have had movements that have been almost unheard of. We’ve seen clients across the entire world seeking advice in these uncertain times.

In addition, you also owe it to your advertising partners, both the ones that are selling your space as well as the ones that are creating your creatives. We are part of an ecosystem. So, yes, this is the time you keep spending if you can.

 How do you feel the advertising industry will bounce back after the crisis?

I think some of it will bounce back identically. But it’s clear to me that the new normal will be quite different to what we perceived being normal in the past. Nothing will be the same but particularly high-quality brands will stay and adapt.

Change usually comes with opportunities. Just to give you one example: to stay in contact with our clients, virtually, in some markets almost daily, we have used our relationship with The Economist to promote our content library of 50 years of Nobel Prize winners. Now what’s interesting is that we asked Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winner, to come in and give his opinion to a group of asset manager clients, and one-third of our global clients dialled in. This is a tremendous increase in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in how we bring thought leadership to our clients.

The financial services sector is not one known for brand bravery or innovation – how have you ensured that extra spark of creativity to ensure your brand stands out?

 Banking is actually a very innovative business, and very forward looking, picking up on shifting client demands. People may come in with a business case: “You buy a pair of shoes and I’ll donate another pair to someone somewhere else in the world who is in need of a pair of shoes.”

A banker who supports this idea, has an innovative client focus. And if you keep that same positive spirit in marketing teams, it is driving innovation. Seeing a virtual client event with strong client demand working, empowers the team to drive creative ideas even if other ideas might fail.

It’s also making sure you have the best people on all sides of your business –in your marketing team, with your agency partner, and your media organisations and media owners, and making sure that creativity feeds off each other all the time.

 What are the specific challenges in for the Finance Sector?

We are highly regulated. Disclaimers are often bigger than the ad itself. That limits what you can say, what you can do, the way you can say it, and in what way you can offer up a service, which is very different from other industries.

How does that level of regulation affect content marketing campaigns?

Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” And that’s how it feels. What you have to do is optimise the content so that it’s relevant and uniquely interesting – that stickiness is first and foremost. A couple of film studios have analysed that over the years, and if the movie is really great, you’re willing to look at it in black and white, or with a somewhat snowy picture, because you really like the content. This is very similar. If you think the content is worth it – take the example of interacting with Stiglitz– I’m willing to click that I’m aware that this is a bank in order to access that content.

Why do you think there’s been a growth in content-led advertising campaigns?

It goes back to relevance.When we relaunched the UBS brand in September 2015. We saw across all our media partners, a huge amount of click through. I remember we thought the click through formula was maybe misleading; that it was capturing a too long and too large engagement –it was many-foldmore than the average click through rate. What we discovered is that when people take a magazine or website like The Economist, Forbes or Fortune in their hands, they want to be in that moment and have some “me time” for a half an hour, an hour. The same was true for our campaign. It’s deep diving knowledge, reading, and exchange. If you see content that fits into that, you’re in the right mindset and therefore more people will click through. If content is king, context is queen.

You need to find the DNA of what is your uniqueness for your user base, what are they looking for, and how to serve that up in such a way that is understandable and digestible – I think that’s the difficult part for many banks and financial services.

The advertising headline that has worked the best over the last six months or so is: “Is the world always going to be as unpredictable as now?” And you can see why that’s relevant. You can see when it comes to our wealth managers that they might know more than I do, and I want to know about that for my portfolio. So, get the content right; get the level of excitement into a headline, and then people should be interested in what you have to tell them. Whether that’s a video or piece of copy, they won’t click away.

What are the biggest changes that you’ve noticed in content over the last five years and what sort of trends do you expect to see in the coming years?

Shorter formats, I would say is probably the biggest surprise. Because if you really believe in content then 7, 8, 9, 10 minutes gives you a good angle to a story – but that’s not necessarily true anymore. Then you look at podcasts which are about 20 minutes. It really depends on the situation you’re consuming in, and I think it’s safe to say it’s now predominantly a mobile world, so we’re seeing shorter formats and more informative content.

There’s a universal appetite to consume what you want to consume, however you want to consume it. If I’m on a mobile phone watching something and I want to ask questions, I want to be able to type if I’m in a public area, because I don’t want to speak, for example, about finances. If I’m at home, however, I might want to speak to the bot and want the bot to speak back to me. So, I think the world will move to a “type, a touch and a talk” format, regardless of the device in the next five years.

Part of the reason you were nominated for the award was to do with what you’re doing with best practice in terms of measurement – viewability, metrics, accuracy and audience targeting. How does that apply to content-driven advertising?

When you’re targeting wealth managers – perhaps only 1% of the world’s population, there’s a 99% chance that your advertising will go somewhere else. You get really good, along with your media partners and your agency, at optimising. This is not a short conversation; it’s an ongoing opportunity. And actually, it was always there – I remember when I worked for McDonald’s around the world, you would optimise your billboard campaigns for example, if there was a construction site in front of your ad so you couldn’t see it. You would optimise from flight to flight because things would change in the streets. This is similar; it’s constantly being on top of your numbers.

It’s first and foremost about your content. Think about social media: I might share something with you if it’s hilariously stupid, or if it is sensationally insightful. Anything in between, I probably won’t. The context is as important: where you place your advertising, as well as the people you reach. And the timing needs to be right. There are times when people are not looking at banking advertising – there’s a reason why most banks have quarters that are differently sized. When fitness clubs’ campaigns are being signed off, it’s normally January when people have made that New Year’s resolution to get fit again. You need to know when it’s the right time. You see it with some of the newsletters we’re all getting from various publishers – they know that you do something on a Thursday night or Saturday morning. There’s a mechanic that humans like to consume, and you have to take that on as well.

Then there are softer metrics – how much content is shared, how far are people watching into it? And there is the “like” although I still don’t know if we can actually calculate what a “like” or “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on social actually means. Engagement also sounds so nice but what does it mean? We know that some of the social channels are fantastic at serving up your target group, but the people clicking the trigger all the time are the ones that you pay for. So, you want to filter those out; you want to get to the ones that are ready for consideration.

Tell us about you #TOGETHERBAND initiative and why you decided to develop that campaign?

At UBS, sustainable finance has been a critical component of our client offering and a strategic growth opportunity for over 20 years, and that’s why we are a clear market leader today.

#Togetherband was a great opportunity for us to raise the awareness on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The more people that get involved, the more you can do good, and that means you need to get to a popular, mass audience. We’ve had a billion and a half engagements since April last year. You can see the number of celebrities that have joined the initiative.

What we do is led by our partner, BOTTLETOP: they pull ocean plastic out, they give people in very poor communities a job opportunity as craftsmen, creating the bands in a sustainable way and the entire funding of these will be returned into that cycle for the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It was very clear to us that we wanted to be a part of that; it’s part of our DNA but it’s the right thing to do. It also felt like the right thing to do for our employee base – I’ve never seen anything internally kick so much off. We’ve had 40%+ of the employee base of 60,000 people on a global level building #TOGETHERBAND, and that’s not something we normally hear.

It has been very rewarding and it’s difficult because it’s a real start-up mentality – and if there’s one thing a Swiss 150+ year old bank maybe doesn’t always have, it’s a start-up mentality! But it’s been, and continues to be, a great opportunity.

 

Interview with Christine von Hörde, International Media Management, Audi

Belinda – Why is benchmarking and celebrating great international advertising strategies essential for the success of the industry as a whole?

Christine – Identifying best practice and identifying what makes great great is crucial to foster quality within the entire advertising industry.

Belinda – What is your top tip for creating a winning entry?

Christine – The best advertising often is surprising in its simplicity. 

Belinda – What particular challenges are there in the automotive sector?

Christine – Products become more and more interchangeable; audiences are continuously becoming smarter and less patient, i.e. also less brand loyal. Across all industries, consistently appealing to audiences therefore becomes a bigger task.

Belinda – And what would you consider to be an essential component of a successful campaign in that sector?

Christine – A successful campaign is one that generates impact in terms of company sales and consumers’ minds. To achieve that it is crucial to avoid wasting the audience’s time: relevance is key!  

Belinda – What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in content marketing since the awards began five years ago?”

Christine – Content marketing developed from a niche proposition to an integral part of the marketing mix.

Belinda – What do you think will be the biggest trend in content marketing in 2020?

Christine – From my PoV, personalisation of content along with voice elements will continue to be key areas of innovation.

Belinda – Which new innovation do you think has the potential to have the greatest impact on the consumption of content marketing?

Christine – Both personalisation and voice / audio have strong potential to impact on the consumption of content as both respond to evolving consumer requirements.

Belinda – How is data changing the way you design your content strategy?

Christine – The stronger introduction of data into building strategic responses to consumer needs has been a major shift in the recent past. Apart from upfront insights, continuous data help to eliminate what does not work and focus on what delivers actual value. Data also enable for better individualisation of contents.

Belinda – How can brands use content marketing to align themselves with particular values or topical issues?

Christine – From my PoV, content marketing is the best way to associate a brand with a topic outside of, but right next to its original territory / brand proposition. It takes a strong alignment between brand values and the content topic coupled with the ability to work out a compelling story based on that. Consumers will realise if the story does not work or looks constructed; credibility and a very good fit therefore are not an option.

Belinda – Can you sum up the holy-grail of content-marketing in one sentence?

Christine – I’ll give it a try: “connecting a brand and a relevant topic to derive meaning (for the consumer) & value (for the brand and the content partner) by emphasising the joint purpose in credible, impactful ways.

Belinda – What is the secret to implementing a successful cross-border advertising campaign?

Christine – This is about being aware of cultural differences and looking for what individuals have in common internationally – or should be looking at having in common, i.e. a bigger cause.

Belinda – What’s the key difference between targeting a domestic audience and an international one?

Christine – A domestic audience can be addressed with very specific local flavours. It can even be a very local concern that becomes part of the story. For an international audience, I would opt to look out for bigger, more overarching values to talk about.

Belinda – How can you measure the success of your partnerships during an international campaign?

Christine – The same way measurement would take place on a local base: paid media performance, “buzz” and earned impact along with performance within the own ecosystem – simply aggregated bottom up. [This takes a harmonized ecosystem, so is actually not THAT easy, but worth establishing that]

Belinda – What is the best content marketing campaign you’ve ever seen? And why did it stand out?

Christine – My favourite content marketer still is Nike. They beautifully and consistently tell the story of human empowerment and achieving one’s goals – in all shades of emotions.

After winning the World Media Award for Content Leadership and Innovation 2019, Christine will be joining our esteemed Jury this year. To find out more about our awards and how to enter, visit our How to Enter page to see all of the information you will need to enter.