 Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to have with me today, Hamish Davis. He's the global chief growth and marketing officer at WaveMaker. Hamish, welcome to Exchange for Media. Hi, thank you very much for talking to me. Great, great to connect. For taking the time out. And I just want to ask you first, you're very closely involved in the pitching processes globally at WaveMaker. In your view, how has the process changed over the last few years? Yeah, so I've been doing this role for six years. And over that time, I've seen quite a major evolution of the way things are going. I mean, the fundamentals are still the same. People want to have a great progressive offer. They want to work with people they like, talent-wise, and they need to get good value. So those fundamentals have not changed. What has changed, obviously, is with the technology advancements, just the sheer pivot of our business from fairly standard planning and buying through to a very progressive offer, very digitally centric, end-to-end solutions, and importantly, increasingly consultancy services. So higher grade needs, which weren't on the radar five years ago. So the fundamentals are the same, but actually it's getting more complex. You mentioned that things that weren't on the radar five years ago. So what does the client expect from an agency now? I think it's certainly for a big network provider like us. So we're part of Group M, largest by far in India, and a very big network in its own right for WaveMaker India, and the same position elsewhere. The expectations for the big networks like us is to provide all services that are likely to be required. So obviously core planning and buying, end-to-end solutions in terms of audience and data work, into platforms, and then seamless delivery. So true end-to-end solutions and then consultancy services. So be that anything from addressability or content or applied innovation. So a lot of the progressive areas, AI, how to use, how to use the metaverse effectively, all those kind of higher grade needs, which just didn't exist three or four years ago. Now there is an expectation that us as a network should and can deliver those well. So yeah, that's it. A big part of the pitching process is the price point that you go to with the client. So is price still the biggest considering when it consideration when it comes to the pitching process? It's not about price, it's about value. So we have to deliver true value. So an element of the value is of course the immediate pricing, and GroupM is in a fortunate position because of market share that we can provide that sort of hygiene of really great pricing, but it's about value too. It's about overall value, it's about the talent we provide, the caliber of that talent, the cost of that talent, the commercials, and also the opportunities that we can provide in terms of outcomes based solutions as well. Historically, yes, it's been about making sure that the price is as low as possible, the value as high as possible. As a business now, we are pivoting more to outcomes based models. So actually, don't pay us for what the offer is, pay us for what we deliver to you. It's early days still, but as more and more digitized this, and there is more direct link between the investment made in advertising and the delivery of sales or whatever the metric is for that campaign, we can join those things up better in a digital environment so we can shift more to an outcomes based model. That's really interesting. It's very interesting what you said, don't pay us for what we offer, but pay us for what we deliver. Can you just elaborate on that because with tighter budgets and focus now on ROI or rather now on delivery, I was wondering with innovation and creativity, how do you deliver the value? Well, the challenge is how we actually can measure that and how we can get that cause and effect dynamic. So in an old analog world, that was pretty much impossible. You could do retrospective econometrics to show M&M modeling that could show to a degree what had happened in the past and what made the action happen. So the cause and effect, but it was all retrospective. In a digital world, you can do that in real time. So again, connecting up in the performance world now of what activity you do and what response you get and as we get smarter with that, we can actually build business models based on outcomes which is ultimately what the client wants. The client wants to get maximum return from their investment. So if we can guarantee an outcome or if we can at least be remerated on an outcome space, then that's a win-win for both parties. That's the ultimate goal of activity is to drive outcomes. Now with technology being the center of conversations and with chat GPT and AI being the centerpiece of all conversations, as now what excites you? How do you see this evolving? Oh, it's such early days. I mean, we've been working with AI for several years now in terms of our optimization systems. We have an amazing tool called Architect, which optimizes, which helps craft audiences, optimizes those audiences to media channels and comes out with great optimized media plans and solutions. So we've been working on that from a functional basis, but a very important bit because it's very much core business for us. We've been doing that for years. So we in the short term will now see huge efficiencies and effectiveness gains by allowing machines to do things that are better done by machines than humans. What that allows us to do is to take out some of the functional roles that used to be done by humans and now it's now done better by computers. But it allows the humans we have to actually use their time to do more creativity, more of the differentiators that are really going to make a difference in terms of effectiveness, more creativity, more time to strategic solutions. So it just allows us to spend less time on the operation and functional aspects and more time on the thinking and creativity. So that's the first big change for us as a business. In terms of how AI can really fundamentally change the business in terms of creation of addressable content and content and creative and all the other areas that could potentially get involved in, it's very early days for us, but we are seeing some very exciting opportunities come through with the initial campaigns that we were really deploying AI in its kind of new sense. One example that we're doing is now for the British Royal Navy and they had a real challenge in recruiting diverse audiences to the Navy. So more women, more ethnic minorities, people from different socioeconomic groups, it was quite a bastion of white male and the Royal Navy were very keen to diversify that to really embrace and reflect British society now. So they now deploy with the help of a wave maker in the UK a bot which basically helps the recruitment process over a 12 month period. When you're looking to go into the armed forces, it's a very long recruitment process, but what we've developed is a bot that helps first attract and engage new audiences, but then keeps them, keeps a discussion going, a dialogue going with the prospects throughout the 12 month recruitment process and that has proved, I can't go into specifics for confidentiality reasons, but I can't, but what that is proving to be is hugely effective for recruitment, for initial recruitment, but then importantly keeping people throughout the process. So their ROI has just, in the areas where focus has just gone through the roof, which is amazing, but importantly it's also generating so many more insights that then the Royal Navy are using throughout their throughout their organization. So these are just a few of the initial campaigns that we're we're truly unleashing the power of AI and what we're seeing now is is very exciting. So I think, you know, smart application for different types of communication challenges is going to, it really is going to have a have a like a step change in effectiveness and a step change in the way we do things going forward. Are there any examples from India often close often the AIPAC region that you'd like to share with us? I think arguably the best case study worldwide not I mean not even arguably it is our best case study worldwide is the work we did with Shah Rakan for Cadbury's Dairy Milk during the pandemic and the work he did in terms of optimized addressable solutions to a very micro level across India promoting small businesses. It won the titanium lion in 2022 at Cannes and then won again for for ROI effectiveness in 2023. So it was great to see that, you know, some of the very best work is coming out of India through WaveMaker and I know will be in partnership. So yeah, I think that's our probably our best example. After being a media agency, WaveMaker is now positioned as a brand consultant. So how does this positioning help WaveMaker and your clients? I think goes back to the first question you said in terms of the expectations of our major multinational clients and also a lot of the local ones too is that a modern media agency needs to cover all areas of communication and where things are going. So we have set up a consultancy community which is headquartered between New York and London but then every major market including India has these services which are areas outside the core business but absolutely fundamental to the growth. So applied innovation would be would be a good example of one of the key areas of that consultancy hub where we work with clients to experiment in new areas of media and tech that are really going to make a difference. So last year obviously a lot of work about the metaverse, this year it's been a lot about AI but it's a division that's always looking what's next and we always encourage our clients to experiment at the earliest opportunity. So yeah, this consultancy group looks at this content, addressability, all types of data tools and technology and we're finding that that really helps us just stay ahead and make sure that we can get in there first, get the learnings because those learnings, the timeline between innovation and their mass activation are getting shorter and shorter. So we need to be in there quick and then we need to scale up fast. You hold your roles global chief growth officer as well as chief marketing officer. How do both these roles complement each other? Okay, so importantly we work in a very competitive category, competitive in terms of clients but competitive in terms of talent as well. So it's really important that every effort we do is focused on making sure that WaveMaker is seen as an amazing destination for clients and amazing destination for talent. So as such we wanted to make sure that everything we do from a marketing perspective is 100% focused on driving growth for our talent and our clients and our new business. So by putting those two roles together with the initiatives I do, I know we're going to be right to drive talent to get more talent in to retain the talent we have and also to make sure that when we do initiatives for on a public level in terms of PR and other elements, they're very much focused on the type of client partners we want in the future. So by bringing those two together it allows you to have a single message across all areas. So what is the growth that you're looking at in the short term and the long term in terms of client conditions growth? So we tend to focus on two areas. So sort of traditional categories, we're very strong in FMCG. We want to extend across more of the traditional categories but we've been particularly successful in new economy clients and where we've been successful is really going for new economy clients that need to scale up globally or on a local level. So I would say yeah we are very good at all the core business categories but where we've seen most growth in recent years has been with new economy clients and where they come to us is when they're ready to scale up and that's new markets, new territories. So for example we'd be looking after Netflix since the day one of Netflix when they were sending out DVDs in the mail and they'll see things have changed now. We look after Netflix across 30-odd markets. DoorDash, one of the biggest delivery food delivery businesses in the world, we started a relationship with them and now extending that relationship as it expands to international territories and other businesses like Coinbase and others where we again get them when they are already relatively successful in a domestic setting and then require rapid scale up across the network and that's where we found a sweet spot and we like to think we are the destination within Group M for new economy clients. And just a word on the team in India. I think I think we have an amazing business in India. I mean first of all I think we already mentioned the Shahrakaran categories work. I mean they do some exceptional work. India is responsible for a big big chunk of our awards globally. They are one of the most successful in terms of great work and I always say to all my other countries you need to be more Indian when it comes to celebrating great work because they're benchmark but in terms of new business they've also had a very successful, I mean they've always been a major player in India and this year has been no exception. I mean this year they've already picked up Ricket. They retained Purno Rickar which is a hugely prestigious piece of business for us that we are very happy to have retained and grow from there. There's KRBL, the big Basmati Rice local champion which is very important to a lot of Indians but also they've picked up a long tail of smaller pieces of business, work for Johnson & Johnson and Crunchyroll and others. So those guys are on a roll right now and they're one of the markets I get most excited about. I was down in Mumbai a few weeks ago and just learning how they do things because they've got a unique way of doing things but they're highly successful. Finally you mentioned the team wave maker India is on the roll but what's the challenge to continue this speed at which they've grown and retaining clients and winning new clients. What is the challenge in doing that? I would like to talk about opportunities first because I mean you've got to call out India as the now the most populous nation in the world. India is in the next few years I think is going to join the Premier League when it comes to just a power in the industry. Just pure demographics is nothing else alone. I mean already I'm seeing this year India is our third most successful market in terms of new business. US is first obviously the US volume is always very high but US is first then China no great surprise but India now ranks number three in terms of new business growth for us worldwide and I see a lot more potential not only because of the demographics which are hugely important but also in the progressive mentality of the country. I'm seeing a lot of entrepreneurialism a lot of exciting things happening in the digital space so you know it's a very exciting country. There's a damn size as well you know it tends to be quite bureaucratic and other things you know but it's like overall the outlook for India I think is very very positive so I look at it as a market where I think it's just going to grow and grow for us in future years. Very excited by it. Thank you so much for your time it was a pleasure talking to you. My pleasure too.