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In conversation with Damian Douglas, Emma Winchurch-Beale and Samantha Adams

In this episode, Belinda Barker chats with Damian Douglas, Managing Director, EMEA, TIME and President of the World Media Group, Emma Winchurch-Beale, VP Growth Partnerships UK, Economist Impact and Samantha Adams, VP, Advertising Sales, Western Europe at BBC News about the key issues facing the marketing and media industry as we head into 2024. Below are the highlights of their conversation. You can watch the video above or listen to the full podcast here.

Belinda: From a commercial perspective, what did you feel were the biggest trends this year?

Emma: AI gets real – for business that are adopting it, regulators regulating it and techies continue to improve it. It started this year and we will see that continue next year.

Another trend I’ve noticed is longer considerations for programmes. There are more key stakeholders involved in programme decision-making. The sign off process is taking much longer this year than it has previously. And I think that’s a trend that’s going to continue. Following through from that, there’s an appetite for more meaningful projects as brands continue to want to be more authentic. They don’t want to be classed as greenwashing or to be doing something that doesn’t have some substance to it.

There’s also a definite return to in-person events – in-person meetings, a lot more event programming, more appetite to attend bigger events, to network with your peers, to learn and to understand in-person. I think the video conferencing fatigue has really kicked in.

Samantha: We saw a masterclass in branded entertainment with the Barbie movie, and subsequently we have seen a rise in the number of brands looking to engage in true commercial partnerships. Bringing it back to what Emma was saying about the meaningful projects and the long consideration times, there are requests coming in for more blue sky thinking. But whilst brands are starting to think bigger, they’re being more cautious about where and how they spend their budgets, and the need for a return on investment was critical this year.

Damian: I agree. I think typical sales cycles, have pushed out significantly – six plus months in our organisation, but that’s because you don’t see many traditional advertisers anymore. They’re clients of brands; brand storytellers; they lean into us to tell their stories on our platforms, but they also have to tell the world how they are relevant today because the landscape has changed. They are having to justify their existence from a purpose and values perspective, and that means there are more stakeholders. The sales cycles are long, but that means deeper partnerships and longer relationships, so there are plusses.

Belinda: How is Gen AI going to evolve during 2024?

Samantha: Gen AI has been one of the biggest topics this year. There’s no doubt that it’s already beginning to change the way we work but I feel there’s still a long way to go on winning wider trust.

Brands are increasingly exploring the use of AI curation and personalisation. People are using it to work smarter and it’s enabling advertisers to analyse vast amounts of data to really understand consumer behaviour, consumer preferences and demographics. It’s increasing the relevance of ads to consumers and allowing for greater personalisation and targeting, be it within the programmatic space or display advertising.

It’s also impacting on brand safety, which isn’t an issue with trusted media brands like members of the World Media Group. Across the wider media landscape, it’s getting much better at picking up areas of misinformation, which is particularly important in 2024 as we’ve got so many elections taking place around the world. Finally, it’s going to offer so many efficiencies and cost savings. I really hope it frees up more time for even better use of human creativity, which is what makes brands stand out.

Damian: I agree. We’re going to be able to model those more efficiently. We’re going to be able to look at how we optimise in absolute real time. Being more responsible around how we handle consumer data and what we use it for is going to be imperative. One of the biggest trends I’ve seen in the last 12-18 months is publishers starting to own and generate their own in-house data platforms. That’s also coinciding with the move to a cookieless future. There’s a real opportunity, but also responsibility.

Emma: Yesterday, two of our members, Politico and Business Insider, as part of Axel Springer, have announced a partnership with OpenAI. Chat GPT is going to summarise Politico and Business Insider articles in a first-of-a-kind deal. I think we’ll see more work to really protect journalism and to ensure that we’re partnering and being open about, how Chat GPT and AI doesn’t take away anything from editorial values.

Damian: I’ve always fundamentally believed that good journalism and good journalists introduce you to subjects that you might not think you want to know about, but you should know about. That’s where generative AI still lags behind – that human aspect. I think we’ll end up in a position where if you’re reading AI-generated content, you’ll see it clearly labelled on sites.

Belinda: What are the biggest challenges for advertisers in a difficult economic climate?

Emma: The world economy remains fragile in 2024 and whilst most of the Western economies have fared better in 2023 than expected, the risk on interest rates remain high. The longer that goes on, it becomes more painful for companies and consumers, even if we avoid recession.

The election year also has a big impact because it makes economies more uncertain. We also can’t avoid looking at what’s going on in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, and we have tensions between China and Taiwan. These all make for uncertain time and impact oil prices, and all of those factors feed into the economic climate. With uncertainty comes caution, and there is more pressure and accountability on marketing budgets. The poor CMO is now not only answering to the CEO, but also the CFO and the COO, so they have even more pressure and accountability in economic uncertainty. I think we are looking at a continuation of uncertain economic climate in 2024 and that has huge impact on business.

Belinda: Can we talk more about the impact of an election year?

Samantha: It’s going to be a massive year of political change. We’ve got over 40 countries taking part in elections including the US, the UK and India, so there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty in the world. Election years are always interesting, and many brands consider going dark during this time, but there’s no real need to do this.

It’s important for brands to be true to their brand identity and have a consistent focus on their core messaging and to avoid diluting their message, but elections can offer lots of opportunity, especially for timely, reactive advertising. For example, a brand could double down on messaging about their commitment to a certain value, such as sustainability, which could really resonate with a politically conscious audience.

There’s often a lot of misinformation around elections so it’s important for brands and consumers to engage with quality publishers who can offer brand safe environments and trusted quality journalism so that you know the truth of the messaging out there.

Belinda: What are you most looking forward to in 2024?

Emma: I’m a big sporting fan so I’m looking forward to the Olympics. I found out the astronauts are returning to the moon. I’m a real ‘spacey’ so I’m excited about that because it’s kind of going back to the old school, but it’s new for 2024. And it’s a leap year, so an extra day to get work done!

Damian: I’m going to stay on the positive side here and say, I’m hopeful we get a new set of leadership emerging across some of the most important political landscapes in the world. I think we’ve had a decade now of really poor standards through our political leadership. It feels that we have an opportunity in a 12-month period to re-write some of those challenges and put some leadership in place that shows proper statesmanship and keeps politics off the front pages.

Samantha: I always love the start of a new year, both professionally and personally, because I think it’s great to have that reset, but also to take all the learnings from the previous year and build upon them. Like Emma, I’m really excited about the Olympics and Paralympics, mainly because I know we’re going to see some brilliant advertising creative; there’s going to be amazing content out on the television.

Professionally I find it exciting to work with brands on trying to amplify their partnerships around not just the physical location of the Olympics, but to see what we can do beyond that and take it to new audiences.

Belinda: Thank you Damian, Emma and Sam and here’s to an exciting year ahead!

Tags 2023 round up, highlights, trends

The Future of Travel Marketing: Key Takeouts

With the travel industry in flux over the last few years, it’s been a challenging time for travel brands and advertisers. The editorial excellence at the heart of the World Media Group member brands is made possible by advertising, and many of those advertisers are targeting travellers – and particularly affluent travellers. In the lead-in to this year’s World Travel Market, we were keen to get a sense of what the Future of Travel Marketing holds for brands and advertisers and what’s driving consumer decision-making.

In a panel chaired by Samantha Adams, VP of advertising sales for BBC studios, we invited three travel experts – Heledd Owen, Director of Marketing, Tourism & Business at Cymru Wales / the Welsh Government; Pat Riddell, editor of National Geographic Traveller magazine; and Max Askwith, Global Innovation Partner at Dentsu International – to share the facts and stats that travel marketers need to take note of. We highly recommend watching the full discussion above, but here are some of the key takeouts:

Revenge travel: seize the day

Dentsu’s global consumer survey, based on a sample of 420k people in 70 countries around the world, shows there’s a stabilisation of demand for domestic vs international travel globally meaning we’re back to pre-pandemic levels. Max Askwith talked about the rise in ‘revenge travel’ – people making up for lost time – as well as an increase in work-cations – trips that combine travel with work.

NatGeo Traveller’s Pat Riddell described how pent-up demand has transformed into a ‘seize the day’ attitude towards treating oneself with a focus on experiences – the more unique the better. Trips that might have been considered ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ are now once-every-few-years.

Emotions more powerful than facts

There’s been a significant shift with people saying they lean more towards feelings than facts when choosing a holiday. This is good news for marketers who can be more ambitious and embrace longer formats, videos and personal stories to connect on a human level. So where are people going? Sierra Leone and Madagascar are listed on National Geographic Traveller’s ‘Cool List 2024’, as is Wales!

A rise in responsible tourism

As more countries who are at risk from climate change and biodiversity loss are limiting their intake of tourists, we’ll see travellers starting to take an active part in regeneration schemes to put less of a strain on destinations.

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about who they spend their money with, and we’re likely to see more platforms that allow travellers to filter and compare destinations based on their regenerative and community values. We’re also seeing an increase in demand for more sustainable forms of travel such as rail, reflected by the recent Eurostar-Thalys merger, connecting France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK through one network; and Amtrak’s investment in the US. Luxury rail travel is also a burgeoning market.

Members-only travel experiences

As data and technology becomes more advanced, we’re likely to see a proliferation of members-only travel services to cater to the specific needs of smaller subsets of consumer segments and identities, allowing for more hyper-personalised propositions and benefits. Technology will be used to provide efficiencies in processes and we’re likely to see more chat bots filling basic travel needs such as Concierge services. However human interaction remains important to traveller and expertise will still be required to for skilled services – having the top sommelier talking to guests in real-life, for example.

The future is entertaining

What does the future of travel marketing look like? Marketers are increasingly tapping into the power of entertainment to tell interesting stories, as demonstrated by Heledd Owen’s Grand Prix award-winning ‘Wales to the World’ campaign. According to our experts, we can expect to see more bespoke marketing messages for different, niche strands – for example, dogs are a hugely segment for travel marketers to consider! Who knew?

Trends show that consumers have greater expectations from the companies their dealing with. That includes a desire for responsible marketing that supports the local communities in the locations that are being advertised.

And how long will it be until we’re all going to space for our holidays? There’s talk of supersonic planes to cut down the flight times to Australia and the first space hotel is slated to open in 2025. Meanwhile, commercial space travel is already happening – companies like Space Perspective are offering journeys to the edge of space, but their angle is less about space being the ‘destination’ and more about seeing Earth from space and it being the spark for positively changing the world on your return.

From what we’ve heard from our experts, the future of travel marketing looks exciting. It’s a far cry from the doom and gloom of the Covid years, with plenty of opportunity for travel marketers to get creative. But the perhaps the legacy of the pandemic is that, rather than travel being a strain on the environment, clever marketing campaigns can help consumers to make travel choices that make the world a better place.

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Tags consumer decision makers, consumers, future of travel, marketers, marketing, Travel

[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]

Tags advertising, Luca Allam, Manoj Khimji, Middle East, The Media Navigators podcast

[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]

Tags Group M, Kieley Taylor, The Media Navigators podcast

Cymru Wales: ‘Wales To The World’ Takes Home the Coveted Grand Prix

London, Friday 8th September 2023 – The World Media Group, an alliance of leading global media organisations united in championing trusted journalism, is delighted to announce Cymru Wales (the Welsh Government) as the Grand Prix winner of the 2023 World Media Awards.

The awards, presented by the World Media Group, are the only global awards to recognise brands, agencies and media partners who, together, create the most effective cross platform, cross border, content-driven advertising campaigns.

Brands including Adidas, Birkenstock, Bumble, Deutsche Telecom AG, DP World, Maersk, PGIM, Visa and Volkswagen were amongst those receiving accolades for their impressive category entries this year during the awards celebration at the Ham Yard Hotel in London.

Cymru Wales’ Grand Prix-winning campaign, ‘Wales To The World’, which also won the Travel & Tourism category, capitalised on the opportunity to showcase their nation to an international audience when Wales qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals for the first time in 64 years.

‘This is Wales, C’mon in’ invited the world to get to know more about Wales in an authentic, people-led campaign that communicated Wales’s brand proposition and embodied the nation’s values. The people of Wales became messengers — telling their nation’s stories, and championing its values, culture and traditions in an engaging, unscripted and authentically Welsh way.

“While the standard of all our finalists was impressive, the jury agreed that ‘Wales To The World’ sums up what is at the core of the World Media Awards’ ethos. It truly demonstrates how a powerful content-driven campaign in the right media environment can bring a story to life without compromising on authenticity,” said Belinda Barker, Chief Executive of the World Media Group.

“The Welsh Government did an amazing job bringing together different cultures and values in an integrated campaign that showcases Wales as a progressive nation with so much to offer. We can’t wait to come and visit!”

“The World Media Awards showcases the best in international content-driven marketing so it’s an honour to be listed amongst such a high calibre of finalists,” said Heledd Owen, Director of Marketing, Cymru Wales. “We’re delighted to be awarded this year’s Grand Prix for ‘Wales To The World‘. It means a lot to know that this campaign, which is just the beginning of our long-term strategy to raise the profile of Wales internationally, has been recognised by the industry. We look forward to sharing more stories from the heart of our nation in the next chapter.”

A panel of 39 heavyweight jurors from leading international advertisers, agencies and publishers, co-chaired Jerry Daykin, Head of Global Media, Beam Suntory and Natasha Byrne, Managing Partner, UM, were tasked with selecting winners from the many global submissions. The full list of judges can be seen here. The World Media Awards Ceremony was supported by Smartology.

The full case studies for this year’s winning entries, along with the winners of previous years, are available to read in the World Media Group’s Creative Vault here.

The winners of the World Media Awards 2023 are as follows:

AUTOMOTIVE

Buzz – Feeling The Force Of A Perfect Partnership
Brand: Volkswagen ID Buzz
Entered by: PHD and Scholz&Friends

Judges’ Comments: Volkswagen chose a great brand ambassador in Ewan McGregor based on the insight that there was a strong link between their audience and the Star Wars audience, and the relaunch timing for both iconic brands. But more than that – the campaign had strong results, with a reach of over 5.7 billion and 20,000 preorders – a capacity order book.

CORPORATE INFLUENCER

Discover New Paths
Brand: Maersk
Entered by: Havas Business
Credits: &Co, Copenhagen

Judges’ Comments: This campaign used every touchpoint to create a truly global impact. The jury loved the involvement of the employees – creating internal ambassadors. Maersk tackled negativity about logistics head-on and succeeded in injecting emotion into B2B marketing. Plus, it achieved great results – two thirds of people who saw it went on to connect with Maersk.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Protecting Gamers Protects Visa
Brand: Visa
Entered by: Starcom Worldwide
Credits: Roblox, Venatus Media

Judges’ Comments: Visa had a clear objective to reach a Gen-Z audience, and the insightful analysis of Gen-Z audience behaviour in the gaming world meant a true value-led campaign could be created.

The judges also felt that Visa succeeded in brilliantly transforming the brand value of ‘security’ into a suit of armour for gaming avatars. And all of this executed in just eight weeks – very impressive!

Highly Commended:

OutFront
Brand: PGIM
Entered by: Reuters
Credits: Ptarmigan Media

Judges’ Comments: In a sea of long format articles, blog posts and graphs that define this category, the judges highly appreciated the creative direction and craft of the creative execution of this strategy.

LUXURY & LIFESTYLE

Ozworld
Brand: adidas
Entered by: EssenceMediacom
Credits: Jam 3

Judges’ Comments: The adidas team identified the ideal platform to connect with this unique audience, and came up with a strategy that reinforced the perceptions of the adidas brand as innovators.

This campaign turned a product range with historically declining sales into top-selling products -results which testify to the success of the campaign.

MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

Brand Anthem
Brand: Bumble
Entered by: Havas Media Group London

Judges’ Comments: This campaign is a great example of a well-executed, international marketing strategy that also requires localisation of messaging – the Bumble team showed that they could deliver on complex coordination and delivered impressive results.

TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMS

#WhatWeValue: Embracing Volunteerism With Gen Z
Brand: Deutsche Telekom AG
Entered by: Mindshare GmbH
Credits: emetriq GmbH, Publicis Sapient, Saatchi & Saatchi London, Proud Robinson & Partners

Judges’ Comments: A meaningful and purposeful campaign built on the strong insight that Gen-Z want to give back and do something for each other – and that they have a particular focus on the future of the planet. The campaign engaged with the audience across multiple Gen-Z focused platforms with excellent results and also made a real difference – supporting 108 projects to help to make the world a better place.

TRAVEL & TOURISM & GRAND PRIX WINNER

Wales To The World
Brand: Cymru Wales (Welsh Government)
Entered by: Orchard Media and Events
Credits: iCrossing UK

Judges’ Comments: The passion came through in this entry and the jury felt that the Welsh Government team did more than just make the most of this World Cup moment. They addressed the difficulties arising from a clash of values, they embedded local storytelling into different cultures, and the modular creative approach enabled many stories to be told on the creative journey. Plus, there was a sense that this was the beginning of a strategy for Wales – the start of things to come.

Specialist Categories:

BRAND & MEDIA OWNER CATEGORY

Birkenstock: Ugly for a Reason
Brand: Birkenstock
Entered by: The New York Times Advertising

Judges’ Comments: This was an example of two brands coming together to achieve a mammoth task, to explain why Birkenstocks are the way they are. Birkenstocks, yes, are ugly but for a really good reason! And the New York Times with their reach and journalistic integrity were the perfect partner to explain that. The judges also loved the extensions of activity into social and events that kept the conversation going and benefitted both brands.

Highly Commended:

Trade In Transition
Brand: DP World
Entered by: Economist Impact

Judges’ Comments: The judges were impressed by the cut through that this research-based campaign achieved – and the strength of the results was reinforced by the fact that it was quoted by global influencers such as Christine Lagarde.

RISING STAR

Obinna Iwuji
Wavemaker

Judges’ Comments: Obinna demonstrated an authentic approach and attitude to his work (no marketing speak), as well as an enthusiasm for the industry, and a passion to go the distance. He’s clearly excelling in his own right whilst also creating a legacy and carrying out amazing work outside of his day job.

Highly Commended:

Teodora Tepavicharova
Condé Nast

Judges’ Comments: Teddy impressed the judges by, even at this early stage in her career, giving on to the next generation through mentoring.

SOCIAL GOOD

#WhatWeValue: Embracing Volunteerism With GenZ
Brand: Deutsche Telekom AG
Entered by: Mindshare GmbH
Credits: emetriq GmbH, Publicis Sapient, Saatchi & Saatchi London, Proud Robinson & Partners

Judges’ Comments: This was more than a marketing campaign – real actions came out of it. The brand demonstrated its support for young people’s commitment to change and promoted volunteerism – even flipping an NFT into a tool for enablement. Deutsche Telekom knew their audience well and put money into the projects post-campaign

#ENDS#

Media contact:
Charlotte Panther T: 07834 431206 or E: Charlotte@world-media-group.com

About The World Media Group – Championing International Trusted Journalism
The World Media Group is a strategic alliance of leading international media organisations that connects brands with highly engaged, influential audiences in the context of trusted and renowned journalism. Its members include The Atlantic, BBC News, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, Insider, National Geographic, Politico Europe, Reuters, The New York Times Company, The Smithsonian, TIME, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and partners Brand Metrics, Dianomi and Smartology. To find out more about the World Media Group, please visit www.world-media-group.com.

Tags 2023, winners, World Media Awards

[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 7^th. 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]

Tags 2023, Content Leadership and Innovation, Infosys, Navin Rammohan, The Media Navigators podcast, WINNER, World Media Awards

London – 05 September, 2023 – The World Media Group today announced the winner of the 2023 World Media Award (WMA) for Content Leadership & Innovation. This honour is awarded to the individual recognised by peers for talent in creating exemplary international content-driven campaigns that demonstrate brand bravery, creativity, and innovation. This year, the award is going to be presented to Navin Rammohan, Vice President, Segment Head Marketing at Infosys. Navin will receive his special award at this year’s WMA celebration in September.

Co-head Judges, Jerry Daykin, Head of Global Media, Beam Suntory and Natasha Byrne, Managing Partner, UM, along with Belinda Barker, Chief Executive of the World Media Group, agreed that Navin is an inspirational leader who pushes the boundaries of what is considered traditional content marketing, developing new models of collaboration, and using Infosys technologies to create unique experiences.

Navin was nominated for several innovative initiatives; most notably, the Infosys campaign around unifying power of sport to create more meaningful connections between tennis fans and players., Infosys collaborated with tournaments including ATP, Roland-Garros, the Australian Open & ITHF to create unforgettable sporting experiences for fans, players, and the media.

This included an industry-first, cloud-based SaaS system called the ‘Infosys tennis platform’, which aggregated multiple data sources. Infosys also launched a 3D art museum for Roland-Garros fans that encapsulated the heritage of the tournament, and they created a virtual platform during the Covid 19 pandemic to host 12,000 VIPs of the Australian Open.

The second campaign was The Sustainability Project for The Economist Group. As digital Innovation partner, Infosys Technologies is leveraging its cutting-edge capabilities to enable users to seamlessly navigate and engage with Economist Impact content and tools. Through a dynamic framework that customises, organises, and prioritises the content that matters most to readers, the combination of meaningful UX and intelligent integration of topics, formats and events ensures readers understand the most critical trends.

“World Media Group members once again nominated a host of exceptionally talented candidates for this year’s Content Leadership & Innovation Award,” said Belinda Barker, Chief Executive, the World Media Group. “Navinfought off the competition by demonstrating his ability to identify innovative marketing opportunities that simultaneously showcased Infosys’s technological expertise while delivering value to global audiences. In doing so, the Infosys campaigns under his leadership perfectly reflect the qualities we are looking for when we select our World Media Award winners.”

The award will be given during an exclusive live ceremony at the Ham Yard Hotel in London, on Thursday 7^th September 2023, where the final category winners will also be announced. The winner of this year’s prestigious Grand Prix Award will also be announced on the night, joining previous Grand Prix winners Johnnie Walker, London & Partners, Malaria No More UK, Shell, Sonos and Tata Motors as the ‘best of the best’.

Tickets for the World Media Awards ceremony can be purchased here.

ENDS

Tags 2023, Content Leadership & Innovation, Infosys, Navin Rammohan, WINNER, World Media Awards

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With such a high calibre of candidates nominated for our Rising Star Award this year, the judges have a tough job on their hands. The award recognises those talented individuals who are making a significant impact to the creativity and effectiveness of content-led advertising strategies early on in their careers.

A big congratulations to our five shortlisted nominees! Here’s why their companies thought they deserved to be nominated. The winner will be announced at the World Media Awards ceremony on Thursday 7^th September.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Rosie Duckworth, Account Executive, UM”][vc_single_image image=”22911″][vc_column_text]Rosie has been an integral part of the UM International team for about a year since she joined after university as an Account Executive. Impressing us right from the interview process, Rosie keeps shining with her brightness, curiosity and dedication to the work, her clients, and her team. Her positive attitude and strong work ethic have led her to become a rising star within her team as well as in the agency. UM are lucky to have her.

While Rosie’s contributions span multiple accounts, she recently played a vital role in launching a multi-market, multi-channel campaign for one of our biggest clients, Accenture. The launch was no easy feat as it came at a time where team capabilities were reduced, but Rosie brilliantly managed the process and ensured a smooth and timely launch.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Tilman Henschke, Strategy Manager, Crossmedia UK”][vc_single_image image=”22912″][vc_column_text]Ever wished you could hire someone straight out of university who can take whatever you throw at them head on? We discovered that person in Tilman. He embraces new challenges and consistently leverages his knowledge to add value and interest to his role. From Account Management to Data Analyst and ultimately to Strategist, his positive attitude, combined with his natural intelligence, curiosity and humility, allows him to tackle any task and completely go beyond expectations.

Tilman has taken Crossmedia’s “Boutique at Scale” approach to a whole new level, ensuring that all work produced is tailored to clients and their objectives, resulting in the best possible outcomes while also challenging them to think differently. His thorough work for S&P Global includes analysing brand measurement studies and continuously adapting and refining details to help marketers demonstrate the value of paid advertising.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Teodora (Teddy) Tepavicharova, Senior Programmatic Strategy Manager, Condé Nast “][vc_single_image image=”22913″][vc_column_text]Teddy is at the forefront of leading the strategic development of Condé Nast’s go-to-market approach for Programmatic. She has achieved unprecedented success by increasing the company’s digital revenue, making a significant contribution to the EMEA earnings.

Well respected and with numerous award-winning campaigns under her belt, Teddy has a reputation for driving results and business growth. Her deep knowledge allows her to incorporate bespoke strategic media solutions that deliver impressive results for global clients. Moreover, she serves as an internal and external strategic consultant, educating clients and agencies on Programmatic advertising.

An industry speaker and a leading champion of diversity and inclusion, Teddy is a changemaker in the field. She also serves as a mentor in the OK! Mentorship program. Going above and beyond for the community, Teddy has been awarded a “Citizenship Award” and “Leadership Award” for initiating projects and events, fundraising thousands to support local and national charities.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Sakshi Bhambhani, Digital Director, OMD”][vc_single_image image=”22914″][vc_column_text]Sakshi joined the international OMD team as Senior Manager in 2021, after moving from India to London during the Pandemic. Since then, she has elevated agency and client profiles by translating her passion points around people, culture, Data, and Tech into tangible business outcomes. Sakshi has been crucial in driving digital transformation for OMD’s global clients.

Beyond Data and Tech, she is passionate about people and culture and has developed agency-wide training promoting DEI solutions and comprehensive onboarding programs for graduates entering the media world. She has also mentored four female graduates with their career planning.

Her impact speaks for itself: Within a year, Sakshi was promoted to Digital Director, was named the agency’s MVP (Most Valuable Player), and also received an award for ‘Best Client Impact’ after opening new revenue workstreams that are producing excellent results.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Obinna Iwuji, Content Partnership Manager, Wavemaker”][vc_single_image image=”22915″][vc_column_text]Since joining Wavemaker at the end of 2020, Obinna has taken on leadership of the employee resource group, Wavemaker Roots. He leads a team of 12 people who create opportunities for growth for Wavemaker employees by organising public speaking workshops. The sessions aim to support women and people of colour to boost their confidence when presenting publicly and teaches them how to create their personal brand.

As a result, Obinna has fostered a community of people interested in cultural inclusion in advertising. With this, he has contributed to client pitches and brainstorms, created several community events – from fundraisers to public speaking workshops – and established opportunities for employee growth through the creation of mentorship programs. These events have people as senior as the Global CEO dedicating time to mentoring mid to junior level employees.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Tags nominees, rising star award, rising stars, shortlist, World Media Awards

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The World Media Group hosted a post-Cannes wrap event last night at The Adelphi in London, giving the audience a taste of what went on at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year. The panel, chaired by Hannah Last, Sales Director UK at The Economist, included Mark Bembridge, CEO Smartology; Arif Durrani, Director, Reuters Global Content Studio; Massimo Marioni, Europe News Editor, Fortune; and Shula Sinclair, CSO, MSIX & Partners.

Last began by asking the panel to describe the event for those in the audience who had never been. Durrani, who has been going to Cannes since 2009, has watched the event evolve from its film festival roots to incorporate Media, meaning media planning and strategy and media owners to PR and Adtech. “Adtech has grown each year since then to become a much bigger part of the equation,” he says. “They own the marina, all the yachts; the money is there.”

Although official figures suggest there are about 10,000 paying delegates, Durrani suspects that you can times that by four once you account for all the unofficial visitors enjoying fringe events along the Croisette throughout the course of the week.

This year’s highlights

Marioni, ranked the Spotify concerts high on his list, but more importantly, Cannes gave him the opportunity to talk to “high-ranking Google executives” about the development dangers and issues around generative AI. While Fortune doesn’t report on Cannes itself, the event generates plenty of content and affords Marioni unparalleled access to top executives through panels, meetings and lunches.

Commercially important

For Smartology CEO; Mark Bembridge, Cannes is a serious business. “We’ve had more meetings than ever this year. It’s commercially important to us. You get all the key decision makers in one place and it’s an opportunity to sit down and thrash out real deals,” he says.

Sinclair agrees. “From an agency perspective, we talk about looking for inspiration from the best creative work, but make no mistake, we’re making deals.” Does she feel the festival’s moved too far from its creative routes? “It’s moved with the times,” she says. While Sinclair admits it’s quite a fractious relationship between creativity and new technologies like generative AI, she believes it’s all part of the essential ecosystem. Don’t assume that creativity is separate from business, she says.

The hot topic – generative AI

Every year, there’s a buzz around a new theme and this year, it was generative AI. Last asked the panel whether they thought the hype was justified.

Marioni doesn’t believe it’s been overhyped. While there remain lots of questions around how we use it responsibly, he believes it will be transformative for the industry and could reframe what intelligence or creativity is.

Bembridge believes AI’s still got a long way to evolve, but will do so quickly because of the huge uptake. One of the challenges, however, is scale – there aren’t enough people to programme and build the models required for it to move as quickly as we might like.

In the meantime, many marketers are using it in its current form. Reuters’ Content Studio is using programmes like ChatGPT for content and strategy ideation, for example, tapping into what Durrani describes as “Google search on steroids’. They are also working with a new Beta version of Photoshop that incorporates a new feature called Generative Fill that allows you to add to existing images using AI, allowing you to create credible mocks for pitches in seconds.

Other themes for 2023

Moving away from AI, Last asked the panel about their creative highlights. One of the highlights for her, she said, was seeing Apple win Creative Brand of the Year –surprisingly for the first time.

Sinclair cited Dove’s Grand Prix Award-winning ‘Turn Your Back ‘campaign encouraging people to turn their back on a TikTok filter, which she said felt “really defiant”. Sinclair also highlighted a clever, emotive use of Metaverse technology in Tuvalu’s campaign, ‘The Last Digital Nation’, which won a Titanium prize. The sinking island is being recreated in the Metaverse to preserve its history and culture before it finally disappears.

Marioni referred to Mastercard’s Priceless campaign, now in its 25th year. “LinkedIn told me an interesting anecdote – the data Mastercard had at the time was pointing them away from using the campaign,” he said. “But despite the data, the people in the room felt there was something about the line that could resonate. And they were right, so there’s hope for everyone!”

“At the core of every powerful idea there’s an innate human universal truth,” says Sinclair. “When I see that, the jealousy I feel is the mark of a brilliant campaign!”

More than just a jolly

With Cannes often being viewed from the outside as a ‘jolly’, Last asked the panel how they justified it to their bosses. Everyone agreed that if it wasn’t great fun, it wouldn’t attract the high-ranking attendees, from stars like Kevin Hart and, last year, Ryan Reynolds, to the senior executives from the industry’s most successful companies.

“It’s difficult from both a sustainability point of view and from a work justification point of view but it does deliver,” says Marioni

Bembridge agrees: “There are two parts – the deal-making and the networking. It’s the one touchpoint in the year where you meet people you haven’t seen for a while in real life. You share something together as an industry and that keeps those relationships going throughout the year.”

The Croisette and The Gutter

Part of the lure of Cannes is who you might meet walking down the Croisette. Sadly, this year, roadworks dominated the main thoroughfare, which, according to Durrani, was a major detraction. “It wasn’t just a terrible aesthetic, it actually changed the experience because it removed the serendipity of bumping into friends, colleagues, speakers and stars when you’re walking up and down the strip. That’s a big plus of Cannes and unfortunately it was totally prevented this year,” he said.

Thankfully, the roadworks didn’t stop people gathering in Cannes’ famous Gutter Bar, a small corner bar outside the Martinez Hotel but where hundreds spill out into the street in the early hours of each morning. Sinclair’s advice is to avoid The Gutter at all costs, but while Durrani understands the sentiment, he does see the reason it exists: “Cannes is increasingly restrictive – in the evening it’s all private dinners, wristbands and VIP groups. If you’ve just won an award, or have spent the day pitching clients, the Gutter is the one place where everyone can go to celebrate or just catchup.”

One final piece of advice

Finally, Last asked the panel to suggest their one tip for anyone attending for the first-time next year.

Bembridge says organisation is key: “Get really organised and really prep because there’s so many great things going on and so little time. Really organise your time well.”

Sinclair agrees but suggests giving yourself some flexibility: Plan but don’t be too rigid. Let serendipity happen. Running into people you haven’t seen for 20 years can open up an opportunity that you may never have expected.”

Prioritising is essential, according to Marioni: “Plan, prioritise, be open to possibilities, and remember, there are lots of invites but not everything’s going to be beneficial.”

Durrani’s advice? “Take advantage of the fact that there are so many different marketing and tech disciplines as inspiration for true creativity. It’s when you can mash 3 or 4 ideas, trends or connections together and come out with something completely different where the magic happens in terms of creative thinking. Cannes is great for that.”

You can watch the video of the WMG’s Cannes panel on what Generative AI means for trust and truth in marketing here.

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Tags cannes, generative AI, Key takeouts, post cannes wrap