The Sweet Shop’s Claire Davidson on day two of the Mena Cristal Summit in Lebanon

Hangovers aplenty today in Mzarr Kfardebian!  To say that last night’s Opening Mena Cristal Dinner was BIG would be an understatement, and it was probably pretty clear to all of us how the night was going to play out when delegates started hitting the dance floor during cocktail hour. The excitement extended through dinner, with festivities culminating in a JWT vs BBDO dance off ON the tables at the restaurant, followed the good old after-party nightcap nearby to round out the evening.

Today’s seminars at the festival continued on theme, looking at the technologies of data, analytics, content distribution and how they affect product platforms and our creative industry.

Stephanie Hospital brought us a fascinating seminar on the “Mobile Revolution”.   Hospital asked us to look at how much the computing industry has changed during the past 40 years, and even within the past five years.

It is only 40% of the worldwide population that is connected to the internet today, which leaves 5 billion potential new internet users (mostly whom will be from Africa).

Hospital went on to give us some more revealing stats.  Mobile internet represents 15% of internet traffic. 150 million tablets sold in 2013.  By 2017 there will be 1.5 billion 4G and LTE customers.  In six years online more than doubled it’s share of all media revenues.  In some countries TV has now been surpassed by online.  You can forget about TV if you want to target youth.  Mobile advertising is skyrocketing in Asia Pacific and America as the rest of the world follows behind.  The internet is being reinvented in Asia.  Let’s take Line as an example, the Japanese chat app.  The company started in 2011 and now has 300 million users.  And who doesn’t love to send a sticker?

Media is consumed on mobility.  Communication becomes social and ‘gamified’.  From ownership to sharing, mobile is creating new connection and crowd sharing opportunities.  Look at the success of companies like Bla Bla Car.  Mobile interfaces are really paving the way.  Just take stock of Uber.  Successes are getting faster.

One second on the internet now sees 4,600 photos posted on Instagram, 7,000 skype calls, 35,000 tweets, 430,000 Google searches.  Everything is data.  Boundaries are blurring – social, technology, business.  The world will have a whopping 50 billion connected devices by 2020.  My mind blurs at the thought of that.

Developers are looking for new categories for data analytics.  Take the second screen and where will you have it – your wrist or your eyes are options with Google glasses.  Imagine getting all of that augmented information around your eyes and connecting it into your brain.

2014 will be the year of tracking and predictable marketing for data gathering and analytics.  Brands need to know what their users want.  Data is becoming personable.

The digital economy now has 25 companies above $4 billion in their valuations.  Apple, Google, Amazon, eBay, Tencent, Facebook, Priceline, Baidu, Yahoo, Yahoo Japan, Salesforce.com, Linkedin, Rakuten, Netflix, Liberty Interactive are the top 15.  Most of these you would know are from the USA, China and Japan.  Every sector is disrupted by the digital revolution.  

Hospital left us with just one command – adapt!

I next took in Andrew Lazzaro’s winning talk.  Lazzaro is the Chief Brand Officer of OMD Worldwide and today he spoke on “Emerging Talent: #winning.  Strategies and Tactics to Ensure that Emerging Markets and Technology have the Right Talent to Win”.  We’re hearing at the Mena Cristals a lot of dialogue about emerging markets, emerging technology and emerging brands.  Lazzaro today focused on emerging talent – the Millennial.

Millennials are not defined by their age but by their attitude.  They think differently and you need to as well.

How long does the average Millennial stay in your organization?  It’s less than two years.  57% of Millennials, when they started work in Mena at their current company, believed that they would have left within two years.  There’s a high cost of replacement here.  So how do we reduce this?

Lazzaro asked us to look at BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China – as examples for his discussion.

97% of Brazilians believe in some form of God.  It is the most religious country in the world.  Millennials too want to have a belief system.  They want to believe in you, your organization and their work.  They want the opportunity to develop their skills, and achieve a sense of purpose.  They want to share in the company’s direction.  So believe stronger.  Show me, don’t tell me. Lead by example.  This sets the tonality for your organisation.  Think about how do you capture the belief structure in your organisation.

In Russia 42% of people sleep with their phone on them, not next to them.  They want to be responsive.  Likewise respond to the needs, questions and aspirations of your Millennials.  55% of Millennials will share bad experiences on social media.  (The good thing is that they will also share the positives).  20% believe their aspirations are quite different from what the organisation has planned for them.  What is it that your employees most want?  Is it more money?  A free breakfast?  It’s usually more responsibility and a focus together within the company.  Respond better with forums for exchange, drive meaningful actions and measure the progress.

In India 716 million people will vote.  It is the largest democracy in the world.  So follow suit and involve your employees in the decisions, execution and the journey of your company.  2 in 5 have little confidence in their co-workers and even less in senior management.  What would cause you to take a job with another company tomorrow?  Involve smarter.  Solve the big problems with your young employees, recognise the progress and link goals.  Link individual goals to the goals of the company.

In 1271 cultural excavations were found in China, believed to have been the first advertisement – and it was for ink.  56% of Millennials in China want to be in the advertising bu
siness, and China is about championing that.  80% of Millennials prefer to receive feedback in real time.  Transparency is the number one request from Millennials.  Do you feel your contribution is valued?  Champion faster with real time feedback, find access to opportunity and look for ways to celebrate their success.

Lazzaro’s key takeouts were:

Believe and live it.

Respond and be more ‘on’ with your people.

Involve and do it with authenticity and love.

As you champion your team find more ways to amp up the volume.

Emerging talent = winning.

“Your Consumer Needs You… (Not)” was brought to us by Mennah Ibrihim, Head of Brand Intelligence, JWT Mena and Tarek Haddad, Director of Planning at JWT Levant.  They counseled us on how the hyper-connected progressive Arab is at the centre of many of the Mena’s trends.  In a region where there is much political and social tension, as well as economic uncertainty, many young Arabs are questioning long accepted norms; and thus taking responsibility for the shaping of their own futures to create the world they want to live in.  JWT put together their report for the predicted trends for Mena for 2014.

Fabulously Flawed – the consumer doesn’t want perfect products any more.  They want something with character and personality.  It’s ok to be imperfect.  It’s ok to show your human side.  They don’t want mass-produced, highly polished.  People want something personable.  They want to relate.  71% percent of Arabs smell a ‘red herring’ when there are no negative consumer reviews on brand sites.

Truncating Taboos – people don’t want you tell them what’s right or wrong anymore.  They don’t want you to tell them how to lead their lives.  What they want is the world to be more excepting of their choices and rights such as sexual orientation, risqué clothing worn, or drug taking.  They want to be daring and have unscripted experiences.  47% of Arabs feels it is acceptable for a Middle Eastern woman to live alone if they are unmarried.

Crowd Hacktivists – people are tired of waiting for others to solve their problems.  Governments aren’t solving problems.  Arabs are coming together to talk about their problems themselves and solutions that can be made.  86% of Arabs agree that today’s large-scale country issues can’t be resolved using past methods.

Hello, I’m An Expert – people aren’t waiting around for opportunities anymore.  They realize to be self-sustainable they need to create their own opportunities.  They realise we live in a super competitive world.  73% of Arabs agree that today’s career demands require you to become extremely good at one thing.  60% of the jobs for the next 10 years haven’t been invented yet.

Swag – people don’t need your products as a stamp of traditional social standing anymore.  People buy products that help to “appear” to make their life better in this modern world.  44% of Arabs claim they will not hesitate buying products that make them look good on their social networks.  Brands have to provide a lot for very little or they need to be the facilitator to this showmanship.

Creation – people don’t want you to dictate or decide what products you actually need.  Arabs are becoming more involved in the product development to have the ability to buy into what they really need.  They want to participate and support the evolution and progress of products.  71% of young Arabs claim they would like to be able to input on shaping the design of the products that they buy.

Safety Solutions – people don’t expect you to be able to protect them anymore.  This is wearing people down.  They want to be safe and to have their family safe, whether it’s physical safety or cyber safety.  50% of Arabs believe that there is a lack of security governance in our regional markets.

Ready – people are ready for more digital interaction.  Yes, we are inseparable from our devices, but they have become extensions of our bodies.  People no longer expect low-fi interactions.  They are looking for something new and to better their lifestyle.  The boundaries between the offline and online worlds have been broken.  The percentage of Arabs who are open to and more willing to do the following are: 80% to track aspects of their health, 76% to use their phone as a wallet and 62% are open to the idea of wearable technology.  They are enthusiastic.

Next up was “Seven Steps to Social Video Success – The Science of Sharing” with Dorota Smaggia, MD of Unruly.  The focus of Smaggig’s talk was on brand videos going viral, or today as it is more commonly and better termed, ‘going social’.  It’s video content that brands are making – to start a conversation and drive user sharing.

“Advertising has fundamentally changed from a 30 sec slot you avoid on TV to a piece of video content which you’re willing to share with your friends online.” – Frank Rose, Wired.

People share advertising because of the psychological response and social motivation.  They think it is going to be useful for you.  Shares are a very meaningful commodity today, particularly for advertisers.  Shares have multiplied 50% from 2006 to 2103.  Brazilians are our best sharers.

Our seven steps for success:

1.  Make your video emotional.  Videos that elicit a strong emotional response – positive or negative – are twice as likely to be shared.  Comparative case studies were Tide’s ‘Thank You, Mom’ campaign and The Sweet Shop’s own Steve Ayson’s Old Spice ‘Mom Song’.  Whoop Whoop!

2.  Be positive.  Videos that draw a strong positive emotional response are 30% more likely to be shared than those that are negative.  We looked at ‘Puppy Love’, Budweiser’s Super Bowl TVC as a case study.

3.  Focus on emotions, not the creative device.  Do babies matter?  Do cats matter?  Emotions matter.  Volvo Trucks “The Epic Split” featuring Van Damme had 71 million views, with 3.79 million shares.  Celebrities work.  Mercedes Benz Magic Body Control “Chicken” had 10 million views with 867,157 shares.  So that’s close to a 9% share ratio, which is fantastic.

4.  Be proud of your brand.  Why waste 30 seconds?  People still share with brands present.  Look at the Coca-Cola Happiness Machine – the machine is the main focus of the campaign.  7.5 million views, with 318,386 shares.

5.  Don’t over invest in content and underinvest in distribution.

6.  Exhilarate your audience.  This increases your brand recall as well.

7.  Reach light buyers to grow your market share.  80% of a brand’s light buyers contribute to 50% of a brand’s sales.

The goal is ‘valuable virality’.  Create shareable content that is relevant to the audience and integral to the brand.

Don’t post and pray.  Smart distribution is key.  Use paid media so content is ubiquitous and portable.  Configure the video player to maximise the viral peak.  You can measure performance with awarenes
s – paid and earned views, or attention – completed views, time spent, or advocacy – shares, posts comments, or action – clicks, coupons, conversions or brand metrics – favourability and intent.

That’s it from me today at the 2014 Cristal Lab Programme.  It’s cocktail hour AGAIN now, and then JWT’s turn to host our dinner.

Claire Davidson, Executive Producer ASIA & MENA @ The SweetShop, reporting for Campaign Brief Asia at Mena Cristals 2014.