 Welcome to Exchange for Media. With me today is a very spirited AIPAC leader who's leading a relatively young yet dynamic agency. Please welcome Mr. Gordon Domlija, AIPAC CEO, Dave Baker. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. Absolute honor. Sir, as you know, your agency has been doing reasonably well despite the pandemic. You know, you recently retained L'Oreal in India, which is a very huge account. You have Mondays, you have a lot of big camps in India. So, you know, if I could ask how is India contributing to your overall growth, you know, for the AIPAC region? Of course. So first, I'm going to correct you because rather than reasonably, I would say remarkably and astonishingly, and especially given the circumstances and the context of where we are, I don't need to go into that. But, you know, I think three, the key story here is about resilience and about learning and about an attitude and aptitude which focuses on people and the people that deliver truly outstanding work throughout whatever circumstances they find themselves in. So I think, you know, it's been a, you know, we are a young company and I think that dynamism, as you say, has probably helped us even in this period because we don't really have a lot of set ways of working, set rules and set regulations and processes. I think a lot of our strength and our, you know, and our growth over the last couple of years has really been focused on our ability and our agility to drive outcomes, to drive different ideas, different ways of working that really resonate with clients as their businesses change, as consumers change, as the whole media ecosystem changes. So I think that sort of, you know, put us in a strong position, you know, over the last couple of years. I think right now, I mean, India, you know, truly remarkably given the situation there has continued to contribute incredibly. I think one of the, you know, really fascinating things about what's happening in India is that business really hasn't slowed down at all. You know, it feels like businesses going full steam ahead in like, you know, the amount of pitching we do. I mean, you know, a regional publication. So, you know, there is a lot of pitching. There is a lot of business out there and there's a lot of people looking for new solutions and looking for new ideas. So I really feel that, you know, business hasn't slowed down at all. And so our team and the whole industry has had to adapt to that. Now, it had to like try and totally change its focus, change its way of working. Like, you know, while, you know, enduring some of the most incredibly stressful and distressing, you know, circumstances outside of their control at the same time. So it's been a, you know, it's fascinating. And, you know, and it's just, you know, for me, like the incredible spirit that I see from India really has come through. And you see the work that has been done in those circumstances, it's truly incredible. Now, I mean, in terms of total numbers, I mean, India represents about 20% of our business in Asia Pacific. And in terms of the growth that it's contributing, it's contributing still throughout the COVID period, it's been contributing ahead of its size. So around 25%, 30% of our total growth is coming from India at the moment. So you mentioned L'Oreal, which is, you know, a huge piece of business, really critical piece of business to us, not just in India, but across the world, you know, growing business and one with huge ambition. And, you know, as an agency, you always want to be tired with brands with huge ambition, you know, who challenge you. It's difficult, it's hard, they put you under pressure, but that's the only way you learn and I think that's the only way you grow as well. So that's been, you know, that was, that was a great result for us. I think if you look at the other retentions around Heinz, Cedars, around Fetiva and Mao, you know, we've done very well at retaining business. But I would say the other part of what India is contributing is the growth of like new economy business. If you look at, you know, the amount of startups, the amount of tech companies, you know, I'm very used to that living in China, you know, this has been my reality for some years now, but I'm really seeing India at a cusp of like the technological and digital revolution. So I think, you know, if you look at Housejoy, Bumble, Tinder, matchmoney.com, these are all, you know, different kinds of clients and future facing clients who are asking us to do different things, you know, to operate in a very digital ecosystem, to understand performance and really contribute to their business. And for us as an agency, there's nothing more important than seeing what we do contribute directly to a client's business. I think, you know, historically, we may have got away from really how close we were. If you just look at like media performance, it's not a reflection of business performance, but now a media is so integral to business performance and you see how the technology companies are coming to us to actually, you know, work out how we actually operate in the new world, in the new world of commerce and retail and acquisition. So I think that's, you know, that's really, you know, what I'm most proud of, like in terms of how they've managed to turn that and almost like reshape their business and reshape their profile into e-commerce, into programmatic, into areas which, you know, have had to be forcibly, you know, brought up to speed and accelerated during this period. You know, why you have done remark to be well and I've connected myself. But, you know, situation in India for the last two months was very bad, you know, we had that second wave and it was far more damaging than the first one in terms of personal loss and overall sentiment. How much did it impact? Because, you know, it has a direct impact on consumer sentiment and, you know, consumption and other issues. So, how much did it delay your, you know, growth chart? I think, you know, you have to, when you're talking about business, it's very difficult for me to separate out the human element of what has happened with the business element because it's very easy to fall into a trap just talking about business like nothing's happening because in reality, business does go on. Now, all of our clients are still operating, you know, people still own businesses, you know, they're still part of a massive global economy. So, things have to keep progressing, you know, despite what is happening at a human level. So, you know, there has been, you know, that and I think what we've been very good at doing is making sure we prioritize the human element through this period and the effects that this is having on people. We're a people business. I mean, you know, literally we don't make anything, we don't produce anything, we don't have any special powers anywhere other than our people and their application, their passion and their enthusiasm for what they do. So, to me, looking after them has been the priority over this period. But that said, people have still want to occupy themselves with work, you know, it's been important. If you're in lockdown, if you're not going anyway, you know, people still want to keep busy and keep, you know, and feel like they're doing something, achieving something and they're growing. So, you know, so in reality, what I'd say is it hasn't really slowed us down. Now, if anything, it's made us think differently about how we work and we are doing things very differently. But if you look at, you know, I mean, I'll call out our team in India are just fantastic. And, you know, Ajay, as I'll see in South Asia has done a fantastic job in unifying the business, in creating a community spirit around the business and sharing the pride and the optimism that they have about the work that they're doing. I mean, you see the work that we do on, I mean, particularly on something like Mondalis, it's outstanding. It's like really second to none anywhere in the world. So, I'm immensely proud of them and immensely proud of what they've achieved and immensely proud that they've not really seemed from a business perspective, and like that would be very clear, from a business perspective, haven't suffered at all. Whereas I fully appreciate how tough it's been on everyone individually. So that's definitely been, you know, a great scene from the team. So, you know, you had the entire APAC region and the last one and a half years, the entire, I mean, all of us have been affected by the pandemic situation and some, I mean, India has been one of the worst affected countries. But, you know, in the entire region, which markets have proved to be most resilient to the pandemic? Well, I mean, I feel remarkably lucky being based in China, I'm based in Shanghai. And other than the original outbreak and then some sort of like very sensible, regimented way of getting back to a full working environment, we haven't been in any sort of lockdown or any sort of restriction for well over a year now. So, you know, so business here has accelerated. I think you see for a lot of global brands, you realize now the importance of China, particularly when it comes to luxury brands and luxury consumption. I think, you know, China has really, you know, taken the bulk of sales in the world now. You know, it's well over 50% all luxury sales are contributed by China. So there's a resilience here, but that is circumstantial. I think as much as anything else. And I think what that has allowed sort of China to do while the borders are still relatively closed here, even the categories which have been most affected and, you know, by the most affected, I say directly, you know, travel, tourism, you know, those ones that are directly, you know, affected by not operating during this period. A huge new industry has developed around internal tourism around like, you know, and this has more than made up for the gap, you know, and that includes like travel, retail includes all of the elements that you'd normally see from a category which has basically disappeared, you know, and particularly in China, we had a lot of travel clients moving wave maker and, you know, what do you do? There's like, you know, so that hit us quite hard in China last year, but if you now see like how much has been made up and like, you know, people wanting to travel experience new things and, you know, within the borders of what they have, like the rebound in China has been like remarkable like that and the ability to just create a new economy from the circumstances that they're in. So that's definitely been the case. And, you know, and look, I mean, you know, APEC is far, Asia Pacific is far from a homogenous region. Every, you know, and as you all know, this is very difficult to explain to people who haven't spent a lot of time in the region. Yeah, one country to the next, even one province to the next within individual countries is so different. And like, you know, not just in language, but in culture, in geography, and like, you know, in outlook, in approach to everything. So, you know, it's been very sort of different across the whole region. Now, some regions or some markets that are affected very directly. I mean, you know, you look at the contribution of travel and tourism to somewhere like Thailand. You know, that, you know, if you knock 25% of the GDP of a country, then of course you're gonna have a knock-on effect to everything else. It's not just the direct impact. It's the indirect impact of every ancillary business. And then just the money in people's pockets, macro economy, like very quickly, you know, it sort of trickles into the micro economy and you can't, you know, so spending slows down. So some markets are genuinely suffering in the prolonged sort of period of hardship and suffering that they see. So... Where would you place India in this context? And, you know, which impact market can India look at and, you know, learn certain things and, you know, maybe follow the recovery path? I think, again, separating out, you know, the, you know, where we are in terms of the, you know, the human cost and human element of what's happening and that recovery. Honestly, from a business perspective, I have really seen India accelerate. I think they are taking a lot of cues from how China has grown, as I mentioned, particularly around commerce, around, you know, route to market, O2O and like these sort of areas, I think, you know, you know, India's always been a country that's very quick to pick up and very quick to accelerate. And I think we've seen that, you know, despite the inability to actually get people in an office and like, you know, and do any sort of real, let's say, formal learning or formal, like, you know, training in these areas, it just picked up very, very fast. Out of necessity, I think, somewhat, but, you know, they've definitely taken a cue there and I see that acceleration path very similar to what it looked like in China a couple of years ago. I think the other thing with India, it's still a, we're still driven by certain tent poles. I mean, IPL is still like a massive driver of like, you know, of media, you know, and of consumption. Likewise, you know, you look at the holidays and the festivals, there are still like, you know, huge tent poles around, you know, these festivals in terms of not just spending, but in terms of consumption, in terms of how people behave, in terms of like, you know, in terms of optimism as well. So I sort of feel these, you know, that India has that, you know, and I think that's, you know, that has helped massively this year. I mean, you know, there's no one who isn't optimistic and don't worry, IPL is coming back in September and then we've got the holidays and then everything, you know, you know, it really feels like, you know, despite everything, there is still like an air of optimism about, you know, the future, how this will transpire and looking at this whole situation, you know, and please don't take this as a perfect, but from a business perspective, that it's been a positive in terms of how it accelerates our thinking, our ability to be creative. I mean, honestly, like I'm blown away by the work that we do in India and the creativity of, you know, of our people there. It's always been like, you know, truly, yeah, it's a creative media hub, you know, and I say that because you go to other sort of markets, other countries, it's, you know, media is somewhat different, you know, and like, you know, certainly here in China, I would say it's far less creative. It's much more performance orientated, you know, some very heavy on data, like digital accountability, measurement, you know, performance, how much did I sell today? How much am I going to sell like, you know, later today? You know, and that is, you know, and that's how media has been built. So we're very, very strong in that area. Whereas if I look at India, the creativity, the storytelling that comes out of our teams in India is incredible. I mean, and leads the world genuinely. So, you know, in every adversity lies an opportunity. So what according to you will be the biggest opportunity for advertisers in media in the post pandemic world. How do you see the media business evolve in the next, I mean, in the new era, which would be post pandemic? Yeah. I mean, I think you can see how things have developed now around platforms, around communications, around the ability to target by very precisely, but also create stories around your messaging. I think the, we have definitely embraced that already, but I see that acceleration. I mean, you know, I look at how we already do things in China and it's dominated by platforms, you know, it's dominated by how you have conversations in platforms, how you actually build an organic conversation in platforms. As far as less becomes around, how much money can I spend? How much share of voice do I have? How much do I have? How much money can I spend? How much share of voice do I have? How much like, you know, GRPs can I get? And how cheaply can I get them? That's, you know, that feels like that was a hundred years ago to me, honestly, because now it's very much around, you know, do I, am I talking to the right people in the right way on the right platform? Yeah. Am I giving them the environment, the stories that they can then go and share that they can then talk about that they can then like, you know, interact with and grow for us, you know, and increasingly that move from this mass sort of public domain into more private domains into like how people talk to each other about how like, you know, brands interact with people's lives in those, in those channels, in those platforms, in those domains, I think is, you know, the future of communications and the future of like how brands will grow. So I think for us, you know, increasingly, you know, while storytelling is the output, there was so much data and there's so much, you know, analytics that has to go into understanding how that works, understanding really where your customers are, how, you know, how they will react to certain messaging and very much like, you know, test and learn at like massive scale. You know, I mean, we work with a lot of like, you know, what would say traditional FMCGs, you know, and not so long ago, there was a very clear sort of IMC process which felt very like, you know, modern, you know, you go into, you know, development, you build theirs, you build out storyboards, you go into like, and like this whole process would take months and months and months, right? And you'd end up with an advert which probably looked pretty similar to an advert that you created two years ago, right? But now that just doesn't exist anymore. And that's not how consumers expect to see brands and how to interact with brands. You know, so I feel that, you know, that, you know, this will continue to be the case. It will continue to accelerate. I think people will continue to expect to have experiences in the digital space. I think what will change once everyone comes out of the pandemic will be, you know, as doors open up, as retail opens up, you'll see a lot more integration of like the O2O, you know, in terms of what an experience online looks like relative to an experience in store. You'll see far more investment into actual experience centers, I think in retail, you know, destination and experience. And I think we're already seeing that in China, the interactivity in store and the expectation that retail isn't a singular channel, that, you know, your experience, like whatever brand you have, you need to experience it physically, digitally, you know, emotionally, you know, carporally. It's like, you know, so to me, that interaction and that sort of like merging of like the online world and offline world and how that comes together is the massive opportunity. Brands that do that better, brands that do that best, they're the brands that grow. And I think, you know, the agency partners that you pick will be the ones who are specialized in that area. You'll understand what a consumer journey looks like, you know, through a digital world, through a real world. You'll understand that, you'll understand like, you know, how, you know, how to, you know, connect with people and how to influence them through that journey. You know, WaveBaker did exceedingly well in France in 2019. So how aggressively are you participating this time and what are your expectations from the first digital version of awards? Yeah, yeah, so we did very well in 2019. I think that was led very much by some Huawei campaigns that drove excellent results and performance in the awards. I think this time round, you know, it's a new era in terms of how these things work. I mean, I've never been to Cannes, right? You know, so I don't, no, seriously, seriously. It's, so I don't really know what the physical experience is. Other than obviously, I see a lot of people, you know, on yachts drinking fine wine, you know, not jealous at all, obviously. But so to me, everything's always, like being a little bit digital and a little bit removed. I think as we go into this awards, where, you know, we are, you know, for me, awards are a fantastic recognition of our people and I want, I encourage them to take pride in what they've done. You know, if they, you know, and I would support them to do that. I don't think they're a be-all and end-all in terms of what we do. I think, you know, I would rather have a very healthy business than a bunch of awards. You know, it's always like, you know, in my mentality, if that's, if that's good, and like, you know, awards, lovely, that's your cherry on top. And like, you know, and I'm very, very happy. But I think it's, you know, definitely, you know, it plays to India's strengths. I mean, I'll tell you like, in our entries this year in Cannes, the total weight maker globally, we have 25 entries and 13 of them are from India. Really? Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, as I was saying, like the creativity, there's not been many shortlists from India yet. You know what? I need to, I'll have to check. That's what we do in coming days. Yes, it's due. So we'll, but, you know, I'm sure we will have plenty of press releases, really, around the end of the week that we do. And some silvers and bolts. Yes, absolutely. And you'll be the first to know, of course. But it's, you know, it just goes to show, I mean, this is our entire global network over half the awards are from India. And so, you know, I'm really, again, you could be nothing but like, you know, super proud of like, you know, the teams and the efforts, but you can see the work we're doing. And again, it goes back to that storytelling. It goes back to like, you know, the kind of clients that we work with who have that ambition to like, you know, to do new things, to push boundaries. So obviously with Mondalis, we've, you know, the work has been outstanding and well documented, I think. You know, if you look at what we've done with Cadbury as well, it's incredible. So I think, you know, that, you know, I hope, you know, bring home a lot of heavy metal for our teams in India. But yeah, so we are, you know, taking it seriously, but, you know, we, and, you know, genuinely, these are the ones that we think globally have the very best chance of winning. And most of them are from India. It's fantastic, right? I best wishes to you. I really hope that you come back. I mean, we'll be proud to burst. We'll feel great if India also wins some entries. So, you know, coming back to the pandemic and the human side of it, you know, what did you do as an agency, you know, for your employees there in the Indian, globally and in Europe region, but particularly in India, you know, in these last two months when we were, we were really going through a very difficult phase. So if you can talk of, you know, some of the measures that the agency took for its employees. I mean, certainly it's, you know, let's say there are, you know, there's probably two ways to, or two routes for answering. Firstly, you've got the direct support, you know. So some of the direct support I think is around, you know, if you see what we've done around APAC and globally, at WPP level, at a group and level, at an agency level, it's, you know, I think there's been some fantastic, you know, fundraising events and like fundraising initiatives, which has driven particularly when the need for oxygen was at its highest, like how were we able to like, you know, purchase and get these things into the country, you know, and I think, you know, as you know, infrastructure wise, sometimes India is not the most easy to navigate when you're actually trying to deliver support from outside of the country. So from that perspective, you know, I think as a group, we came together very, very quickly, you know, in terms of fundraising and trying to get things on the ground to our people directly. I think then, you know, what WPP group and wave maker in India have done has been a little short of miraculous that our talent and human resources teams have been absolutely phenomenal in, in doing everything they can to find hospital beds for people, you know, to try and like, you know, to like not just for people, but for their families and like, you know, really looking out for everybody that they can. I think there was a, you know, a very central sort of help line, which anyone can like be in touch, not just from wave maker, but from our entire organization, you know, try and finding like, you know, open beds, trying to find oxygen, trying to find anything to like, that we can connect people to. And I think we've done fantastically well there. I think, you know, the extension of like health insurance to ensure that everyone was covered within our organization, I think was what was a major move as well, you know, necessary, but, you know, you have to still do these things. And I feel that was very much, you know, it was fast and it was genuine and it was authentic. And like, you know, and I think that to me is, you know, is the thing that comes through. Of course, like, you know, we've suffered tragedy like everybody has in India. I mean, everybody has suffered some tragedy. There is no doubt, you know, but you, you know, the responses that I've seen from, you know, from our organization and from individuals has been a little short of miraculous, I would say. So that's been, you know, on that side. I think on the other side, it's also understanding and demonstrating empathy to people who are suffering. You know, work isn't the most important thing in your life, you know, your life and your family is the most important thing that is ever gonna happen, right? So, deprioritizing, you know, what you do, like, you know, and just trying to give people some space to like deal with their, you know, very real suffering, very real problems, you know, and putting work aside, you know, while you have to do that and making sure that, you know, people sometimes don't realize that you can do that. You know, so, I mean, I've been personally and I know as an organization, a great place to say, prioritize yourself, self-care and family care is far and away the most important thing, you know, like work can always wait and work will always be there, that's it. So, you do that first. And I think that, you know, is maybe a softer measure, but I think equally important because I think it's important that people know that they can deprioritize what they do because I feel that sometimes that has to be explicitly said, because people are very, you know, conscientious. People do, you know, apply themselves to their work. They do feel responsible. You know, it's important to tell people that sometimes you don't have to do that, you know, not now anyway. But then thank you so much for speaking to us. It was really very, I mean, it didn't look like a Zoom poll. I mean, I felt that, you know, we were having a conversation in person. So I really look forward to having you in India sometime soon once the travel restrictions are over. And again, I want to thank you for this interview and your time. Thanks. Thank you so much. Love it. Can't wait to come back to India.