 Hello and welcome to exchange for media with me today is a very special guest He is one of the renowned chief strategy officers who has really transformed the business for PhD. Please meet mr. Mark Holden Chief strategy officer Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So mr. Holden my first question to you is Tell us about, you know, you coming back to camp after two years. Yeah, well, it's been a long time But actually it's been great to come back and connect with people again And see how things are changing Some of the themes this year that I think is important to highlight are important to highlight Effectiveness seems to be higher up the agenda. There was obviously there's a creative effectiveness is the new award That's that's been introduced this year. Also, there was a huge amount of Focus on effectiveness in marketing and then walk carried out a program of Presentations a little bit of attention and then some of the IPA research research So that's really good to start to bring that in And other things that I think might be worth highlighting I mean, there's always been a lot of focus on brand activism And you see sometimes it's quite easy to create ideas With charities NGOs and brands that want to do good and especially but they felt like there was more of that this year So brands really trying to have an impact, which is really really good and And of course technology some really interesting use of technology that I've seen from brands about using technology as a creative canvas So there's a lot of talk around metaverse this time, so how do you think Indian market can you know learn from it and You know, what kind of takeaways can you give for Indian market? Sure? Well, certainly for the the urban populations that are digital natives for those those groups those audiences in India they They should start to and as we're marketing tools and we should start thinking about how we can start to use some There's a lot of hype around the metaverse And around web 3 but there will be some usefulness that emerges from it So for example using NFTs as a gateway to access certain communities and groups and also thinking about how we can build what are called Dows and decentralized autonomous organizations These are groups individuals that gather around Indian businesses and can start to shape the direction and policy Feel like of how these businesses are run. So what it means for Indian businesses in Indian market is to think about how they can start to Blur the walls of their own organizations with their communities or with their fans Allow them to start to think more than anything over the direction of the company And I think that's really the huge value that's going to emerge from web 3 for India Also, you know, this is after two years after the pandemic. This is the first can on ground So do you see any kind of effect on the entries on? The sessions that you know, how pandemic has changed it. Yeah, I think I mean the only way to answer that is I just think there is A real people are very energized by being that together again And I think you're seeing that from you know Not just India from across the world from cross cross a pack people coming together again, and I think that's Really so important in a creative industry is this sort of, you know, you know Bounce up against other people and that's where ideas come from So I think really that's just that that difference that the last two or three years have made to the festival But when you see the entries when I'm talking in specific to the work work that was done during the pandemic that has come this year or Even the sessions, you know when people are talking about things. Do you see that things have changed? Yeah, there is a slight shift towards a more lightness in tone. I think people are looking for you know a bit more More fun, I guess And to lift people's minds and hearts a little bit more. So I think that's that's emerging. I think how to the work I think in the pandemic we had a lot of brands that took it very seriously and try to engage and understand where people were being anxious But I think there is that slight Shift now Which is really nice to see. Do you also see a shift towards purpose and sustainability? You know that these are two things that I've been hearing in most of the sessions. Do you agree with it? Yeah, of course There is you know, we believe purpose is really a powerful tool to galvanize the workforce of any Organization and to give them give them mean people need meaning in there in their in their jobs They can't just come to come to work every day and just do tactical things. The purpose is really important The question really always is to what extent should you communicate your purpose or advertising? And in some cases you should some cases you perhaps you shouldn't and if you are Communicating your purpose to what extent how does that affect the organization? How does it grow the organization? It might well be that purpose-based communication Builds the right associations that you know are important build meant to have a bit of your brand and therefore purpose is a really good structure I would also understand from you that you know in the last few years Everything is about programmatic and data and technology How how challenging is it to you know? Have your whatever you are selling to the to the client to make it different from what other agencies are doing of course Well, I think I mean all of these elements are Components that effectively make up the tapestry the canvas that the vast canvas that we can use in And it's a question of how you combine them together think of it as a restaurant They know their ingredients aren't they and quality of the chef is based on the degrees Which you can find those ingredients together to create something remarkable So it's not that you have to have a technology that no one else has that's how you can bring them together. I mean omnicom Typically what we've always done is we focus not on buying data and owning data. We was we spent a lot of time Building data licensing partnerships with a range of parts so we can remain on the client side of the table And we can combine data sources together in a way that's right for the client as opposed to selling data We really purchased that's that's that that's one part of it But really it's about how we combine tech data together and build algorithms around it to create something remarkable India's doing a phenomenally well this year. There are a lot of entries from India that are being talked about They've already got three grumpy's Have you been able to see any of them? I have I have seen some great work. I mean the work actually the BBDO in our group Done with PNG with with aerial where the names of the package and change the names of men Just always really really nice. I mean obviously that the idea of changing names on pack isn't a new idea But it's been used in a very creative way very powerful way. I thought that's fantastic as well Mark, thank you so much for talking to us. Thanks for your time