2018 Executive and Grand Jury Recruitment in Progress

The 2018 Midas Awards® for the World’s Best Financial Advertising℠ is now open for entries. Founded in 2001, the Midas Awards is the only awards show to recognize excellence in financial advertising and marketing on a global scale.

“The Midas Awards has a 17-year legacy of honoring the World’s Best Financial Advertising,” said Scott Rose, Executive Director of the Midas Awards. “Midas’ reach extends over regional, national and continental boundaries to provide a global view of advertising and corporate communications in the international financial community and continues to be the only international advertising competition that honors the world of financial advertising and marketing.”

In 2017, Midas Awards Executive Director Scott Rose assembled the inaugural Midas Executive Jury panel comprised of creative officers and executive creative directors from the world’s foremost advertising agencies as well as prominent internationally recognized experts in financial policy and communications. Midas’ Executive Jury panel reviews all the Shortlisted entries selected by the Midas Awards Grand Jury and provides an even more comprehensive evaluation of global creative work.

“2018’s Executive Jury recruitment is off to a brilliant start,” added Rose. “We’re thrilled to have Joyce King Thomas, Chairman/Chief Creative Officer for McCann XBC and Creative Director for “Fearless Girl” as one of the award-winning creative executives onboard to judge this year’s competition.” 

Fearless Girl,” McCann New York’s ground-breaking creative on behalf of State Street Global Advisors earned the prestigious Grand Midas Award and Best of Show in New York Festivals International Advertising Awards as well as top accolades in other top international competitions.

Jury selection has begun for the 2018 Midas Awards Executive and Grand Juries. Midas’ juries represent the world’s most respected and influential minds in financial advertising. Client and agency leaders from the creative and marketing disciplines, as well as internationally recognized experts in financial policy and communications, will participate on the judging panel. Additional jury members will be announced in the coming weeks.

Midas awards Gold and Silver Ingots to the highest scoring entries and presents the coveted Grand Midas to the entry considered “Best in Show.” The results of the juries are parsed into a highly anticipated annual rankings brief, The Midas Report, —a veritable who’s-who in the world of financial services advertising that includes the 3 individual reports: Agency, Brand and Network. 

The deadline to enter the 2018 Midas Awards is October 1, 2018. Entry details, including competition categories and rules and regulations can be found on the Midas Awards website.

 To enter please visit: HERE

The New Super Powerful Galaxy Note9: For Those Who Want It All

With all-day performance, a new S Pen and intelligent camera, nothing keeps up with your life like Galaxy Note9

Samsung Gulf Electronics today announced the latest addition to its premium Note series with Galaxy Note9 during an event held at the Habtoor Palace, LXR Hotels & Resorts, in Dubai. The Note series has been recognized for including the company’s latest groundbreaking innovations, and Galaxy Note9 builds on this legacy with a premium smartphone that delivers the ultimate in performance; a new S Pen with connectivity for the first time ever; and Samsung’s most intelligent camera yet. 

“The Galaxy Note9 demonstrates the power of Samsung innovation in a single device. It is a phone that has all the features you need to work hard and play harder - it’s designed for a level of performance, power and intelligence that today’s power users want and need,” said Tarek Sabbagh, Head of IT and Mobile (IM) Division at Samsung Gulf Electronics. “Note fans are Samsung’s most loyal, and in a region driven by ambition and entrepreneurship, the Galaxy Note9 is the only phone that can meet all the needs of the diverse population of achievers.” 

In a previous post I mentioned that there were some disturbing trends lurking in WARC’s analysis of campaign trends from this year’s Cannes Lions. To my mind those trends say a lot about the sorry state of marketing practice today.

In the WARC report, my colleague, Graham Page, Kantar Millward Brown’s Managing Director, Offer and Innovation, focuses on the positive in his assessment of key themes from this year’s winners. He notes that news-driven motivation has a powerful impact on sales, that emotionally powerful or humorous advertising has always been effective, and that purposeful campaigns are powerful because they have meaning and command attention. All true. And all too often ignored.

In contrast to Graham’s assessment, the trends that struck me from the WARC report were far less positive.

Lack of budget

In 2018, 20 percent of shortlisted papers claimed not to have any budget, up from 8 percent the year before and reflecting a general decline in budget size. While WARC dresses up smaller marketing budgets as ‘brands become more resourceful’ I see the trend to smaller or no budgets as an outcome of the ‘do more with less’ refrain that has dogged marketing for years. Let’s be clear, the evidence finds that the odds are stacked against doing more with less. If you do not reach new buyers your brand will not grow, and while big budgets are no guarantee of success, they do help you afford the media to reach a good proportion of potential new buyers.

Short-term focus

When it comes to duration WARC does not dress up its finding that ‘short-termism dominates’. 71 percent of shortlisted campaigns had a campaign period of three months or less. That is not a campaign, it is an event. Too many marketers are focused on driving social commentary (the most popular media channel used by 86 percent of those shortlisted) which requires them to come up with a series of shareable events that fail to build brand coherence and have a cumulative impact.

Lack of effectiveness metrics

WARC definitely does not dress up this one, stating,

“Despite regular calls over the years from judges in this category wanting to see clear commercial results, many papers listed impressions as a metric for demonstrating an impact, or regarded flimsy data that was self-serving as sufficient to prove their case.”

As noted by Paula Lindenberg Vice President Marketing, AB InBev Brazil, metrics proving the impact of marketing make it easier to sell creativity and get the budgets to make it happen. But more than that, I would argue that effectiveness stems from setting the right objectives in the first place. If you know how a campaign or activity is going to make more money it makes it a whole lot easier to assess whether that campaign has been effective or not.

What do you think of my assessment of the state of marketing today? Too negative?

Written by Nigel Hollis,Executive Vice President and Chief Global Analyst at Kantar Millward Brown.

WPP announces that its wholly owned global operating company, Burson Cohn & Wolfe (“BCW”), has acquired Hirshorn-Zuckerman Design Group, Inc. (“HZ”), a branding, content and design agency, in the US.

HZ’s revenues were almost US$23.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2017. Clients include Hilton Worldwide, Salesforce and Tishman Speyer’s Rockefeller Center. The agency employs nearly 200 people and is based in Rockville, MD, with offices in Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, DC. It was founded in 1987.

HZ’s wide-ranging offerings include a full spectrum of multichannel digital design and development, mobile activation, social media, brand and identity creation, content, film and video production, search marketing (SEO/SEM), data and analytics and integrated media solutions. Its client base spans the consumer, hospitality, food and beverage, education, B2B, real estate, sports and entertainment and technology industries.

BCW is part of WPP’s Public Relations & Public Affairs group which collectively, including associates, generates revenues of approximately US$ 1.7 billion and employs almost 10,000 people globally.

Bryan Thompson has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Abu Dhabi Airports.

Mr. Thompson brings with him more than 25 years of international experience in various areas of airport management and operations, including ANS, terminal operations, strategy and planning, in addition to infrastructure and corporate development. In his previous role as Senior Vice President – Development at Dubai Airports, Mr. Thompson led the development of Dubai International Airport as well as Dubai World Central. In addition, he was involved in the strategic planning of Dubai 2020 and 2050.

Prior to joining Dubai Airports Mr. Thompson served in a number of key executive roles across the Asia and Pacific regions. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Launceston Airport, General Manager of Strategy, Planning and Development and General Manager of Assets and Infrastructure Planning at Melbourne International Airport.

Prior to this, Mr. Thompson held the positions of Director of Airport Operations and VP Terminal Management at Mumbai International Airport.

Mr. Thompson started his career in the aviation industry as a Principal Air Traffic Controller, and later on he was appointed as Assistant GM for Airport Operations at Johannesburg International Airport.

Mr. Thompson holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, Strategy and Finance from the University of South Africa.

His Excellency Abubaker Seddiq Al Khouri, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Abu Dhabi Airports, said: “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Bryan Thompson to lead to Abu Dhabi Airports at this critical stage in our journey to becoming the world’s leading airport group. I am confident that his vast experience and excellent leadership will take Abu Dhabi Airports beyond the delivery and opening of one of the region’s most ambitious infrastructure projects and on towards further establishing Abu Dhabi as a destination of choice for tourism, business travel and transit.”

Bryan Thompson said: “I feel honored to have been invited to join Abu Dhabi Airports at this remarkable time, as we prepare to unveil our ground breaking project to the world and further highlight everything our unique brand of Arabian hospitality has to offer. My focus will be to build on the strong foundations already in place, further cementing Abu Dhabi Aiports’ role as a leading world hub and ensuring the company’s growth in constructive partnership with all relevant stakeholders.”

Eighty one percent of customer experience (CX) leaders report they will compete mostly or entirely on CX, but less than half have established the rationale for why CX drives business outcomes, according to Gartner, Inc.

The goal of CX is to meet and exceed customer expectations, but while 48 percent say their CX efforts exceed management’s expectations, just 22 percent of CX leaders report their CX efforts exceed customers’ expectations.

To address this challenge, Gartner unveiled the CX Pyramid, a new methodology to test organizations’ customer journeys and forge more powerful experiences that deliver greater customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

“The fact that so many organizations understand the importance of CX to the brand, but are unable to deliver outcomes that meet or exceed customer expectations is indicative of the growing need for fresh approaches to delivering more positive outcomes for customers,” said Augie Ray, research director at Gartner. “Leading brands in CX start with a strong foundation in customer satisfaction. Getting this right and understanding how to build upon it to drive positive financial and business outcomes is what sets the best brands apart from the rest.”

The Gartner CX Pyramid (see Figure 1) is a framework to understand what separates the most powerful customer experiences from the rest. Each level, from bottom to top, defines an incrementally stronger way to forge relationships between an organization’s brand and their customers based on the way CX leaders listen for, understand, act on and solve customer needs.

The pyramid helps to identify the most powerful CX based on criteria including: (a) how the experiences are triggered, (b) the amount of effort required of the customer, (c) the completeness of the solution, and (d) the emotion and change in perception created by the experience. The CX pyramid goes beyond just solving today’s problems for today’s customers, by focusing on five key stages:

Stage 1: Communication Level – Furnish customers with the information they can use via the right channel at the right time.

Stage 2: Responsive Level – Solve the customer’s problem quickly and efficiently – meaning, balance both business and customer goals, measures and strategies.

Stage 3: Commitment Level – Listen for, understand and resolve customers’ unique needs.

Stage 4: Proactive Level – Provide experiences that resolve needs before customers ask.

Stage 5: Evolution Level – Make customers feel better, safer or more powerful.

Through these various levels, the CX pyramid should serve as a filter to review customer touchpoints and experiences throughout the entire buy, own and advocate journey.

CX leaders looking to drive more powerful, proactive and innovative solutions through the CX pyramid should follow three key steps:

Assess Your Capabilities – Ensure they’re capturing a thorough understanding of customer wants, needs and expectations, not just their perceptions of your existing initiatives.

Tailor Your Customer Journey Maps – Push experiences in the top of the CX pyramid at key touchpoints and drive customers deeper into the buy, own and advocate journey.

Measure Your More Innovative CX Efforts Differently – CX leaders must make sure to measure their more innovative customer experiences against adoption, perception and financial objectives.

Often called as “On the go generation”, we are the busiest of all and hardly get time to sit for leisure. Even the old school bookworms now a days could not find peaceful time to escape into the wonderlands of literature.

Thankfully, the technology has changed our reading habits, giving a digital avatar even to the oldest forms of literature. Through varied digital platforms, we can read any book or piece of interest on our gadgets, whether we are stuck in traffic or doing our daily chores.

Here are the must have apps for literature enthusiasts to help them read anytime, anywhere.

1. Amazon Kindle

Amazon kindle enables people to buy, download, and read books, newspapers and magazines. We can also purchase our favourite books instantly without rushing to the markets stores.

2. Hubhopper

Being India’s largest platform for podcasts and publishers, Hubhopper is a must have app for the busy readers. It offers easy - passive content across popular genres like health, education, history, business, technology, sports, etc. A leading provider of podcast exclusive content from over 2000+ channels, it enables you to listen to your favorite books and topics of interest whilst you are busy with the daily chores. The Hubhopper app saves users time, effort and space on their devices by bringing together all the content they love from their favorite publishers under one unified experience. It's the daily dose user’s need today.

3. Goodreads

One of the most renowned platforms for book lovers, Goodreads can help you read and connect with your friends at the same time. While sharing your reviews, you can even see what your friends are reading. You can also make your friend group on the app to connect with each other.

4. SwipeSpeare

This is one of the most helpful apps for all the Shakespeare lovers, especially for the new readers and young students. This app can be very helpful if you find difficulty with language in terms of the different phases of English literature.

5. Wattpad

If you are confused about what to read and what not, Wattpad can help you with countless options. It has content from genres across fiction, horror, drama, suspense, thriller, romance, poetry and many more. You can also share your favorite reads with your friends through this app.

6. Grammarly

If you are polishing on your writing skills, Grammarly is the perfect app for you. It also has an AI based grammar checker to help you proofread your content. This app can be used to correct writing errors on all of the devices. The paid version of this app picks up advanced errors like subject-verb agreement and modifier placement.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), today, observed International Youth Day across its headquarters and all operating companies. During the celebrations, which were organized by the Group’s various youth committees, ADNOC’s young talent focused on the contributions they have made to the business to enable enhanced performance, profitability and efficiency, as well as their aspirations for the company and the UAE.

ADNOC’s younger employees also participated in a series of engagement events with the company’s senior management, including His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO.

“Our youth are the bedrock of ADNOC’s future. They play a pivotal role in unlocking our full potential and delivering on our 2030 smart growth strategy. We invest in our young people and enable them to think differently so we can seize the material growth and value creation opportunities across the company’s operations,” said H.E. Dr. Al Jabber.

“Given the importance of our young talent, we have established a focused approach to attracting and retaining the best and brightest minds and ensuring that we provide them with the space and opportunities to develop their full capabilities. ADNOC has a long history of investing in UAE youth and nurtures an exceptional talent pool that our company and our nation taps into,” stressed Dr. Al Jaber, when he met with participants at the various events.

ADNOC’s life-long learning strategy ensures that robust development and learning experiences are in place throughout an employee’s career, built on a competency-based and structured approach to capability building. This includes on-the-job learning and ensures the company’s youth can realize their potential and deliver business value.

This year alone, some 300 students from ADNOC Technical Academy (ATA) have embarked on structured on-the-job training programs at ADNOC facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This ensures that future technical talent is equipped with a wide range of mechanical, technical and instrumental skills needed to understand and lead processes in the oil and gas industry.

In recent years, the company has also reinvigorated its investment in leadership development of its young employees through the ADNOC Future Leaders (AFL) program. Participants have developed and introduced several new business opportunities, through innovative thinking, that have already been taken up by the business.

Out of the AFL program the ADNOC Youth Council (AYC) was born with the mandate to engage with youth within and beyond ADNOC. The AYC collaborates with the Abu Dhabi Youth Council and Emirates Youth Council. It has enabled the creation of Youth Committees across the ADNOC Group and champions youth interaction and engagement at major industry events.

Saud Al Shamsi, Chairman of the ADNOC Youth Council, said: “We are fortunate and proud to be part of an organization that, following the vision of our founding father and our Leadership, is fully committed the development and engagement of its youth. ADNOC’s ongoing investment in its young talent will help secure the company’s leadership position for the long-run and ensure we maximize value in the service to our nation.”

One of ADNOC’s Youth Committees initiatives was the signing of a pledge to give back to the nation in the spirit of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. In addition, young talents presented their hobbies within the XHub initiative, which focuses on encouraging, motivating and optimizing individual talents.

Recently, a group of 20 UAE Nationals have also become the first group of trainees to start a two-year professional development program, aimed at developing a world-class workforce with enhanced advanced technology and innovation capabilities, at the Schlumberger Middle East and Asia Learning Center. This is part of a joint initiative between ADNOC and Schlumberger, one of the world’s leading oil and gas industry technology and service providers.

ADNOC’s participations in the International Youth Day reaffirms its commitment to talent and leadership development of its young employees.

Almost half of UAE CEOs in the retail industry intend to start using artificial intelligence (AI) in the next two years, as they are increasingly influenced by technology to enhance the retail store experience for customers. This is according to the 2018 Global Consumer Executive Top of Mind survey, ‘No Normal is the New Normal’ jointly conducted by KPMG International and The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF). 

Global CEOs however were less optimistic about the adoption of AI, with only 24 per cent expressing intent to start using AI over the next few years. They were also less confident about the prospects of technology in retail, with 48 per cent saying that brands would use technology to enhance the retail store experience. This is in stark contrast with UAE CEOs, who were confident of harnessing technology to transform the customer experience in-store.

Even when it comes to the overarching theme of business transformation, 80 percent of UAE CEOs said they planned to prioritize it over the next two years versus 57.5 per cent of CEOs globally.

As changing customer behaviors and shifting demographics contribute to sustained margin pressures, shorter strategy cycles and increased expectations from customers, companies are ramping up to embrace digital and AI technologies underpinned by data and analytics.

This shift is helping boost margins, customer centricity, agility and efficiency by replacing or augmenting some human activities with technology, and by shifting technology to the cloud. 

Anurag Bajpai, Head of Retail, KPMG Lower Gulf, said: “We are envisaging a major push towards embracing technology to enhance the retail experience. The next few years in the UAE may see more brands adopt AI, VR and connected technology to transform the in-store experience and integrate online and offline experiences. The 2018 Top of Mind Survey finds an industry aggressively navigating a sea of change, where retailers and manufacturers appear to be radically rethinking their strategy, culture and processes and becoming more agile as they focus on growth.”

Globally, the Top of Mind survey found that some of the most significant variables that manufacturers and retailers may have to consider include how they reach the consumer, what technology they need, whether they want to do everything themselves and how they react to disruptive new competitors. The decline in brand loyalty was also identified by 29 percent of companies and was deemed to be driven by psychological, sociological and technological factors.

The survey also found that there is a direct correlation between how customer centric a company is and how fast it grows profits and revenues. In fact, 46 percent of customer-centric companies ranked connecting with consumers round-the-clock as a top priority. 

“Today’s consumer and retail market is beyond disruption – we are disrupted – and CEOs need to listen to the market, look outward and focus on changing their business,” said Willy Kruh, KPMG Global Chair, Consumer & Retail. “It’s an increasingly difficult tightrope to walk between dealing with both internal and external continuous disruption, but both are key to creating customer centric organizations. Those companies that cannot authentically connect to customers will get left behind.”

The internet has been billed as the great equalizer, breaking down barriers and giving voice to millions. At the same time, it has allowed for abuse online – whether in the form of hate, harassment or offensive content. The freedom to express is an essential democratic principle, but should it persist unfettered? How and where should we draw the line, and who – or what – should play a role in moderating online debate?

Facebook’s Hard Questions, a series that explores the most challenging issues Facebook confronts, hosted a discussion about the line between hate and debate, featuring a diverse range of views. Moderated by Andrew McLaughlin, the co-founder of Higher Ground Labs and Former Deputy CTO at The White House, the panel includes: Monika Bickert, Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management; Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Media Justice Network; Daniella Greenbaum, formerly a reporter at Business Insider; and Geoff King, journalist and lecturer at UC Berkeley. See the full discussion and highlights below.

Monika Bickert on how Facebook thinks about free expression…

“We want Facebook to be a place where people can express themselves. It is about connecting people. It is about giving people a place where they can share things with one another and learn from one another. […]”

“We know that people won’t come to Facebook if it’s not a safe place. We actually do have these guide rails in the form of our Community Standards that tell people ‘this is where we draw the line.’ And we draw the line in most cases because we think that speech might lead to real world harm. […]”

“We don’t allow hate speech on Facebook because it creates an environment where people feel personally attacked, where they won’t feel comfortable coming and sharing themselves. But it’s really hard to define hate speech. […] When we think about how to define it, we think about what constitutes a personal attack. […]”

“The one thing that we don’t remove is where someone simply asserts something false. What we do is try to counter the virality of such content or try to promote or make visible other views.”

The panelists on how Facebook should draw the lines…

“The more that Facebook can adhere to free expression principles, including international guidelines, essentially international law taken on voluntarily, the more robust, uninhibited and wide open debate will be.” – Geoff King

“Whether we’re talking about Facebook, Google, any of these other companies […] at the very top are groups of mostly white people making decisions about whether or not speech is violent, whether or not speech is dangerous. And I have to say that they’re making decisions in their own interest. […] If we’re going to live in an economic system where the public square has been so deeply privatized, then I absolutely expect those private companies to take on decisions that protect all the people.” – Malkia Cyril

“More than 80% of [Facebook’s] users live outside the United States. So if they’re going to adopt any sort of governmental system, it certainly doesn’t need to be [the US]. I do think it’s a good system and it preserves freedom of speech, which I see as an important right and social good. But beyond that, I think that Facebook has this incredible opportunity to be a platform for debate and engagement.” – Daniella Greenbaum

“There are some things where we’re all going to agree. We’ll all agree that you don’t want child sexual abuse imagery online…. But it’s when you get to these edges, around things like hate speech, around what constitutes an actual threat of violence, what constitutes actual harassment or bullying that’s where the conversations are the most difficult and also where the enforcement is the most difficult.” – Monika Bickert

On whether Holocaust denial should be allowed on Facebook…

“There is a classical liberal view of free speech that political debate be uninhibited, robust and wide open. […] That said, Facebook, again, is under no obligation legally to allow that on their platform, and I think that’s largely Facebook’s call, but if Facebook is going to make that decision, it needs to have clarity around its decision, it needs to have transparency around it.” – Geoff King

“It’s not about speech, it’s about power. People are actually dying on the streets because of the speech that’s taking place online. So let me be clear about it, it’s not a question of whether an individual has a right to say whatever’s on their mind. That’s a strict US constitutionalist view of the question of free speech, that’s not my view of free speech. […] What I care about is whether or not anti-Semitic crimes are going up as a direct result of people on a platform allowing individuals to organize criminal activity online.” – Malkia Cyril

“Trying to eradicate bad ideas from platforms is not going to succeed at eradicating these ideas from the world. So I’d rather have more room — whether it’s on Reddit or Facebook or platforms that don’t even exist today — for bad ideas to aired and challenged and debated and brought to light so that we can actually engage in meaningful debate and hope that reason will prevail.” – Daniella Greenbaum

“If somebody promotes the idea of the Holocaust or violence of any sort, we remove that. If somebody engages in anti-Semitic speech by saying ‘Jewish people are…’ and applying a dehumanizing label, [we would remove that]. If somebody mocks survivors or victims of the Holocaust, any of that would violate our hate speech policies. And we also block the speech where countries have told us, ‘this is illegal in our country,’ — then we will remove that speech in that country alone. […] Even if it is a horrible assertion of falsity, whether it’s about the Holocaust or any other world even, we don’t remove content simply for being false.” – Monika Bickert

On who’s affected by the debate over free expression… 

“The decision-makers around what speech is allowed and what speech is not are the same people that benefit from that reality. So how do we end up with fairness under those conditions when that is what is happening?” – Malkia Cyril

“Especially for marginalized communities, especially for minorities, especially for groups that are targets of oppression, we need to be supporting the broadest possible speech in the hopes that that speech will be used — and again, this is an optimistic note — in order to stop oppression, in order to help marginalized communities and in order to ensure that minorities always have a voice and a platform on which to say ‘what’s happening here is not okay.’” – Daniella Greenbaum

“Often times with censorship, […] it’s often not the powerful loudest voices, the people with the most access, who end up being affected by those policies, but those policies tend to often times be used against people who don’t have political power, not the dominant ideology.” – Geoff King

Source:Facebook