 I'm going to invite on screen Mr. David Dahan, Worldwide Managing Director Ogilvy and Managing Director WPP. He has led agencies and global client operations for the past 10 years in London, Australia and Singapore. Prior to that, he was a brand and communications strategist. Over his 20 years of experience, he worked on very iconic brands such as Dulux, Mercedes-Benz, J&J, Gillette, Emirates, Hublot and many brands from Unilever, including DAV, DIGX, Cleo, Hellmans and most recently Ponds, Vaseline and Comfort. He will be talking on overcoming the challenges in an increasing anti-ad world. So I would like all of you to please join me in welcoming a very warm welcome, David. Thank you so much for spending time here. So over to you. The screen is all yours. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. I mean, it's really a pleasure to be there and an honor to be invited to the ScreenAge Conference. So thank you very much. Thanks for that. Are you kind of sharing the presentation? Do you want me to share the presentation? Yeah, the presentation isn't. Okay, great. So we're going to take the next 30 minutes or so and maybe there will be a bit of time for question and answers at the end to talk about overcoming challenges in an increased anti-ad world. It's a bit mouthful to say, but it's an important topic and it's a topic that obviously is quite close to my heart because that's what I do for a living. If people are anti-ad, then I would have a problem. So the thing that really kind of interested me in this topic is to really see how and before we get to the playbook, I mean, if there is such thing is really to try to analyze, you know, what is really going on and why do we have people that are anti-ad in this world? I mean, like, has it always been the case? What are the changes? So I started by doing a little bit of foreign experts. And since this is a mobile summit, if we go to the next slide, I just thought that I would do a little bit of digging here to kind of understand exactly the magnitude in the context of India. So these are approximate numbers because they're changing by the minute these days. But just to give a bit of an idea of the scale for what we're talking about is 500 million plus smartphone users in India, 77% of who are online through the smartphone. So it's a huge, I mean, really the gateway to online is increasingly the smartphone because everyone would know that's where people spend most of their time. And I was looking how much time do people spend? I mean, I personally tried to cut down the amount of time that I spend on my mobile every day. It's quite hard. But I nearly five hours per day on the mobile. So that is really kind of giving us a little bit of an idea just to get started with regards to this is the scale. This is the importance and the prominence that mobile is playing. And therefore what is happening? So then I decided if you go to the next slide to go a little bit and here it might be like you're going to have to go full screen to be able to see what's going on over there. But basically I went to try to find some data on global ad blocking behavior. And I checked the global web index and realized a couple of phenomenon that kind of made me think about the topic a little bit deeper a little bit. First, is there a difference between is there a difference in terms of gender? It's slightly over indexing with men. But as you can see, there's not much of a difference in gender. The second thing that is worth noting is that maybe the reason why we're having this conversation today is because APAC is over indexing versus the rest of the world. So there's something going on in APAC that actually is slightly less in the rest of the world. But most importantly, I thought that it would be interesting to understand exactly what are the top motivations for ad blocking? Why do people kind of decide to block ads? Or why would people not be interested? And the three biggest ones that I thought were worth kind of a clustering is the biggest one is too many ads. It's a lot of clutter and a lot of stuff that is going on. The second biggest one is ads are annoying or irrelevant. And the third one is ads are too intrusive. And I'm sure that many of you right now, certainly me when I was looking at that, I could recognize myself in this thing because it's true that I feel bombarded with a lot of stuff that are actually irrelevant and more often than not annoying. So if you start looking at it from that kind of a standpoint, you start kind of framing the issue and the question slightly differently. Obviously there's a lot of different kind of reasons, but these are the main ones and they are actually important with regards to the kind of solutions that we're going to find, which is to try to define the problem accurately. If we go to the next slide, it's quite interesting as well because I started looking as well in this study at so where do the people that are ad blocking or let's say empty ads for that matter, where do they find their information on brands and products? And it's interesting because one, they find it on search. That's the biggest one, as you can see, 39 percent. Two, ads on TV, that's 33 percent. So I was just thinking with all the readings that we have made that TV is dead, it's done, right? You can see that it's still at least amongst the ad blockers. So the one that are the most negative towards ads potentially, they watch ads on TV and they find that that's a good way to get proper information on their brands or on their products. And the third one, as expected, is word of mouth. It has always been the case and is very likely to stay the case for quite some time, right? Because we know it's always the nirvana of communication is when you can generate some word of mouth. What I find interesting about TV is that TV, my assumption around that behavior is that TV is a known channel that for people know how to react. If the ad is not interesting, I can go to the kitchen, I can do something else. If it is interesting, I can kind of dive in. So it's probably more known and search is quite interesting because when you think about it, search is a great way to navigate the opportunities and the options that the worldwide wave is giving you, right? So it's not something that is kind of a totally crazy in terms of learnings, but at the same times, it spins a little bit the way we might think. And then finally, I mean, not surprisingly, you can realize that actually the highest ad blocking happening is on the mobile, considering that the mobile, as I said earlier, is one of the main gateway to online, then it's not surprising that that would be the number one choice for ad blocking when it comes to Asia Pacific, right? So all this kind of made me think, sorry, are we framing the problem the right way? I mean, are people really anti-ad? Is it the right way to ask? And if you go to the next slide, for me, the right question is not, are people anti-ad? Are people anti-ad or is it that people are anti-noise and anti-intrusion? My feeling is that it's very likely that people are anti-noise, anti-intrusion. They like advertising, but what that advertising is actually playing the role that it should play, not when it's not. And the more you're bombarded, the more you bomb out people and people are rewarded, the more they will react negatively towards it, obviously. But the real issue is because that calls for different kind of solutions is not how to make people love ads, but most importantly is how do we kind of work against noise and generating more noise? And most importantly, how do we avoid being intrusive? And if you go to the next slide, it's very simple. I've done side by side with a piece of work that we've done recently during the break of COVID and the kind of things that we are exposed on a daily basis, right? So on one side, you have a lot of information, a lot of different kind of a type, promotions, banners, the kind of thing that we're bombarded constantly with, right? And the other side, you have an ad that says, for Dove, that was done by Ogilvy UK and in conjunction with Ogilvy Toronto, right? For Dove, that was just kind of a celebrating the courage of frontline workers in the first outbreak of COVID, saying courage is beautiful. You can see that in terms of power and in terms of attention and in terms of interest, which one would you be or which ones would you be interested to receive, right? And which ones are more likely to cut through and to draw attention. So I was thinking about it and because I'm French, right, I couldn't resist. I wanted to have something that would be memorable for the audience. So I couldn't resist to talk about what French people talk about other than politics, which is if you go to the next slide is to talk about sex, obviously, right? And so I wanted to come up with a memorable acronym, right, that would basically break down what are the things that we should do in order to be able to make sure that we fight against noise, fight against intrusion, and make sure that people kind of like advertising and enjoy advertising. So if we go to the next slide, this is what sex stands for in my world, at least, right? So first of all, it stands for substance, right? And a lot of people call that sometimes purpose. I mean, when we work with our Unilever clients, for example, it's all about purpose, but it doesn't necessarily need to be as big as purpose. But it's just in a world of superficiality right now, which is very much what people get bombarded with. What you want is to provide a bit of depth in the communication, in the position, in the point of view, and in the work that you're doing in general as a brand, right? So substance is the first one. The second one is experience. Experience is really kind of a providing something that is more rounded so that when you invite people into your world, your world needs to be interesting for them. And it needs to provide them some forms of an experience that will be more integrated than just kind of a pushing down a messaging or pushing down a product and hoping that people are going to be interested in it. The third one is dimension we often forget is to care. People, they want to be cared for. They need to feel that they matter, and I was listening to the previous session, and I was interested to see that it was all about the people, understanding the people, learning the people. You need to care for the people. If you care for them, they're more likely to care for you. And finally, surprise. Because what kind of good communication, what kind of good program, what kind of good ad is if there's not some kind of a surprise? That's what we used to call entertainment or emotional advertising, right? But in reality, it's the kind of thing that will make it arresting and that might want you to talk about it, to share it, or to want to watch it again. So ideally, you have all those dimensions. We don't have to be. And so I picked some examples that I wanted to share with you on each of those dimensions to show you how it can be materialized. So if we go to the next one, just before we play it, this is something that we did for Pons, that Oblivindia did for Pons very recently. It's a story for cold cream, which is kind of a very iconic product in the Pons range. This is for skincare for those who are not familiar. And basically, this is for a product that especially in winter is giving you soft skin. And there was a very iconic kind of a piece of communication that broke in India around 12, 13 years ago, which was called Woobly Woobly Wash. And that was basically creating a gesture for the product that people could remember. And the whole point of this was how can we talk about the product? How can we talk about the brand in a way that is more meaningful and that would modernize what we had done 12 years ago? So this is what it is. And this is how you can talk about a skincare product with a bit more substance by linking the product into a more life, more meaningful moment. Can we play it, please? So, The next, thank you very much. So the next one before we play it, just one second, yep, sorry. So the next one before we play it is has been done by Ogilvy in Germany. And it's a really, really interesting kind of a piece of work, probably one of the best piece of work I think we've done in the network this year. And it's the second year in a row that they're doing it. Now they give it a different spin and it's all about experience, creating that experience for the users. So it's a really interesting piece of work that generated some really interesting results as well. Again, when you give something to the people, they actually find their ways often to give you back. Maybe not immediately, but they actually give you back. Let's have a look. Nope, let's go back. I think we're having some technical issues or we're putting the presentation back on. All right, normally that's the time where that's the moment where I'm supposed to tap dance or sing, but I'm really rubbish at that. So hopefully it's coming back soon. All right, next one, yeah, this one, that's correct. That's the one, great. This was just the beginning. Then we asked ourselves, how can we bring relevance and attention to each comparison on social media, real time? The answer with data and technology. Using an algorithm, we found look-alike photographs on Getty images. Through Facebook data, we identified travel enthusiasts who are interested in specific destinations. For example, Lucas. Geotargeting pinpoints Lucas' current location and the airport closest to him. Another algorithm finds the destination airport. This data is sent to a search engine that identifies the cheapest flight price in real time. We then show Lucas how much the cheapest flight costs and make him an unbeatable counter offer, completely automated in an infinite number of variations. Turning a unique visual idea into a real-time social media price comparison that moved to Germany. Great, so we've done substance, we've done experience, now care. So the next one is a topic that I think is really important. It's work that has been done again in India by our office in Mumbai and that is for Vodafone. Again, very important cause and I don't think that Vodafone needed to do something like that, but the fact that they did, I think says a lot about how they try to care for people. At least they try to do something. And I think it's commendable. Let's have a look. Yeah, no, next point before. The one before. The one before. No. Sorry, sorry about that. Always betrayed by technique, technology. No, sorry, play the one before, please. What a love. This phone number in UP, all he has to do is walk to his local recharge shop. Give me 100 rupees, I'll give you 4 number now. Let's call 50, at least one. 93% of India's 1 billion mobile subscribers use calling cards. Because of low internet penetration, they share their numbers with neighborhood retailers for every top-up. Although a practical solution, it created a new ugly things of exploitation. In 2017, a probe sent shock waves across the nation. In Uttar Pradesh, several retailers were caught selling mobile numbers of women customers for less than a dollar. Sexual predators were now haunting women in the privacy of their homes through their mobile phones. Sometimes at night, sometimes at 2, 3 o'clock, many pictures and videos were sent. I can't tell you, it was so cheap, that no lady could see it. The phone set was not working, it felt like a phone call from the end. The people who live in their homes are not safe. Vodafone India decided to counter the social malaise using technology. Introducing Vodafone Sakhi, an industry-first innovation that is a simple text-based private top-up for women by texting private to 12604. A machine-generated 10-digit number is received which women could share with the retailer instead of their mobile numbers. We intentionally stayed away from mass media and instead chose women-only touchpoints. Trusted social workers were trained to spread awareness about Sakhi at primary health centres. Wrapping papers at beauty shops also proved to be an effective touchpoint. With this pioneering product, Vodafone India has given a new ray of hope to women subscribers in their quest for privacy. Vodafone Sakhi, like a true friend, continues to empower women to be fearless in their pursuit of progress. Great, thank you very much. And the last one, Surprise, right? Let's just play, it speaks for itself. So, let's go. Hopefully, you'll get the surprise. There's no doubt that things are going my way. I saw your eyes sparking like a sea of stars. In my own mind, you've surely took my heart. And love is all that I feel. You, my dear, don't mean the world to me. So, this is a piece of content that we've done that is running right now in Indonesia that we've done for Ponds men and that we've done out of Singapore so in conjunction with David Madrid. So, really, again, you see that kind of expected love story. You think, yeah, I know exactly how it's going to end and then you have a little surprise. And again, this is the kind of thing that would kind of generate some attention because people, they feel like you have thought of them. So, that was the first big dimension I wanted to explore. The second dimension I wanted to explore in terms of NTAID world, right? The NTAID phenomenon is that if we go to the next slide, is that obviously I'm going to use a very motherhood statement. Everyone knows is that everyone has a place, everyone has a voice and something to contribute. We know that. We've known that forever. Actually, this has always been true forever. But the only difference is that before, no one really cared about what you had to say because no one could hear it. Whereas, actually, if you go to the next slide, today, everyone's voice can be heard. And that's really something that we need to remember is that any one of those pieces of work, for example, that you have seen, everything that I'm saying tonight is going to be screened by people and some people are going to like, some people are not going to like. Before, they would maybe talk to 5, 10, 15 people around them and that would be it. Now they're going to go on social media. Anyone can go on social media and say whatever they want, whatever they think. And you have to pay attention. I mean, it doesn't mean that you necessarily need to react, it doesn't necessarily, but you can't really totally ignore it because right now, this has become an increasing phenomenon for people to be full or empty something. And obviously, when brands are communicating, whatever the brands, right, whether you are a CPG brand or too much of a brand or whether you are a celebrity or whether you are a public figure or politician, you are a brand, you have a brand to promote. And in that context, if anything, you need to make sure that the people out there, you listen to what they have to say. So if we go to the next slide, that's something that is actually very, very topical is that listening to people's voice and having this kind of conversation and this kind of relationship with people and accepting that people are going to have a point of view, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, you will do what you can in order to make sure that you have more positive than negative or at least that the positives or actually generating actions that will be positive for your brand. But you cannot ignore it because you need to make sure that today, you manage this kind of a duality between fact and fake. And the reason for it is because the number one impact of this conversation and this duality is trust. And trust is absolutely critical for communication. It's a prerequisite for a communication to be effective, for an advertising to be effective and for a brand to be successful. And finding ways to work and to make your communication as powerful as possible and to reduce or potentially to manage this kind of a potentially anti-ad sentiment that could be anti your ad, what you have put out there is to manage this kind of a to establish trust and to manage this kind of notion of fact versus fake. And this is, for example, making sure that people understand that you have good intention. So that goes back to the framework that I was talking about earlier, but that is very, very important because it's very important to make sure that you manage that you manage your brand and your communication accordingly. So if we go to the next slide, right, when you think in terms of what can we do to overcome challenges in an increased anti-ad world, which in reality is what can we do to make sure that we fight anti-noise and anti-intrusion sentiments. One, my definition of sex, right, which is substance, experience, care, and surprise. It could be one, it could be all of them, it could be a combination of them, or what it for sure can't be is none of them, right. But that's not enough. You also need to combine it with, you know, your own personal ambitions as a brand, which is you need to do less, you need to do better, and most importantly, you need to listen more. And I was kind of, again, the previous session was case in point is that this notion of listening is not just listening, is understanding exactly what is really happening. What is motivating people? Why are they reacting positively or negatively? And how they are turning their feelings into actions? Because ultimately as a brand, what you want is to generate actions. You want people to do things. That's the only reason why we communicate is to change their perception or their point of views or whatever. But the change is always by way of generating actions. If there is no actions, it's very likely that actually it means that there were negative actions, right. So my conclusion, if we go to the next slide, is very simple, is that actually we should not worry about anti-add sentiment. We should not worry about ad block because worrying about ad block is actually distracting from the real worry that everyone should have and that I invite everyone to have, which is to worry about doing relevant and interesting work. In the end, that is the best recipe. If you follow my little kind of a, that I'm not going to repeat because after a while I think this and see is going to have an issue with my French hood, right. But, you know, if you think about it, the reality is that the best way to make sure that people do not see your ads as a noise or intrusion is to make sure that it's relevant and interesting. Thank you very much. And shall we open for question and answer? Absolutely. Thank you, David. I think very, very interesting conversation that you had with our audience and such great points to, you know, look back on. I have a couple of questions for you. Our audience is asked with ad-free content, gaining popularity. How can brands create customer connect? But the customer connect goes back to, if you remember, the notion of experience is one of the dimensions where you connect emotionally with people. And when you do communication, again, the communication is to generate action. So if you want to generate action, you need to find ways to say something or to do something, or ideally to say something and to do something that is going to find a way to connect, right. So that's the thing that often we complicate a lot. And of course, it's more complicated now because you have more channels, you have more ways. We break it down a lot into, the communication has become so atomic, right. But in reality, it's always the same logic. People, we are people. When it's interesting and relevant for us, we connect, simple as that. When it's not, and often what we want is that all we want and all I see, we see with a lot of our clients here, right, is just like pushing messages for the sake of pushing messages. We got to be on air. We got to make sure that we say what we have to say, but that's not maybe what people want to hear. And we need to worry about what would people want to hear and what would be motivating for them. I'm not saying that most marketers do and worry about those kind of things, but that's, there's no secret source. You know, there's no kind of secret weapon. That's the way to go about it. In fact, David, I was just about to ask you your magic formula, because nowadays, the attention span of consumers has also shortened quite a bit. So what is that magic formula to grab their attention in the first few seconds? I think, you know, again, I'm going to say something that is going to be terribly common, but that we need to remember is that it's insights. You need to have good insights. You need to make sure that you, I mean, and that's the thing is that now, because we talk to every people, like if they are individuals, we have the ability to micro-target. So we talk to everyone as an individual. We forget the notion that actually, we need to have good insights on them, right? And so we oscillate constantly between really regeneric common denominator to hyper-targeted, can I communicate? And what we need the sweet spot is actually to have a good insight. But when there's a good insight and people recognize, yeah, I can see myself in that or that give me emotions or, oh, that makes me dream. Whatever the kind of emotion that will come, then they will react more positively. And that, you can do that if the insight is good. Hopefully, if I say something interesting, I should be able to say it within the first three seconds so that you're interested to find out exactly, to find out a little bit more. If not, then I miss the point. Right, absolutely. I have another question for you from our audience which says, is there a need for advertisers to recalibrate their approach in an increasingly anti-adworld? I mean, your whole presentation was about it, but if you had to just give it to the audience in like one statement. I think it's the need, we need to do less, but we need to do better. And if you look at what we have done and what we are doing, I can't complain. I work in an advertising agency. The more work we do, the better. So it's not like, it sounds like very counter-intuitive, but in reality, we need to do less and better. And what we do is more and less interesting. So it doesn't matter whether it's three seconds, six seconds, whether it's three minutes, or whether it's 30 minutes. We have a lot of examples that are showing that it's not just a function of the time spent. What matters is, do we have the right communication in place? So my advice would be, in general, we should do less, but better and worry. And better could be more integrated, a better experience. It could be not bombarding for the sake of bombarding or ticking with the channels that we can think of because it will give you a good reach or a good deal. It's like, what is the best way to make sure that people are going to be engaged? And that's hard work. It's difficult to do that. Absolutely. We do agree. Thank you, David, once again. I thank you on behalf of the entire team of Exchange for Media for spending this time with us at ScreenAge. I'm sure the audience has enjoyed it. If you can, then please tweet about it. I'd like our audience to also, if you have any questions, do tweet to David, use our hashtag ScreenAge, and we'd love to hear from all of you. Thank you so much, David, one more time. Thank you very much. And thank you to the whole Exchange for Media team. That was a pleasure and an honor for me to be with you tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much.