1. “King of Shaves founder Will King once told me that economic uncertainty multiplies the beard index, as men feel more threatened and, therefore, need to display more masculinity.”
Mark Fiddes, ECD of Havas Worldwide Dubai
2. “We as marketers are in a privileged position, sitting where we are, to create purposeful brands that can actually help people change their worlds for good, big or small.”
Chris Garbutt , TBWA global CCO
3. “We could see more and more of our clients bringing consultancies and agencies together to get that balance between delivering data technology and creativity.”
Jon Wilkins, chairman of Karmarama
4. “Clients hate to be just a touch point where you brief and then just dump on them what you think is good for them. A lot of time is lost, and most of the time you’re not right the fi rst time.”
Fadi Yaish, founder of And Us
5. “Some stores peak 48-72 hours after they break, marking them as social moments, while others are still being talked about after more than three days, both on and off the platform. They are the movements.”
Alex Josephson, global brand strategy head at Twitter
6. “Young people feel they can change the world by joining our industry, and the campaigns that our networks have done have actually made this world a better place on many fronts.”
Day Richa, chairman and CEO of BBDO Middle East
7. “Technologies fail when people focus on the gimmicks of their application and lose track of human needs.”
Filip Jabbour, CEO of Group M MENA
8. “We need to make sure that we keep hold of the things we need to keep hold of, and don’t just pursue the new for the sake of newness.”
Jason Dormieux, global chief transformation officer, Wavemaker
9. “I remember myself saying, ‘This website has so much traffi c!My campaign will definitely deliver.’ That, ladies and gentlemen, is a historical misconception.”
Yvette Madi, head of digital, BPN MENA
10. “Believe it or not, clients are not the bad guys. They’ve got their own existential crisis brewing and expect more from their agency relationships.”
Fiona Quinn, CEO, BPG Orange
11. “Through accurate measurement we know there is not a shred of truth in the stories around radio listening.”
Sarah Messer, director of Nielsen MENAP
12. “If our success inspired another Grand Prix from another agency in the region I would be equally proud.”
Paul Shearer, CCO of Impact BBDO
13. “Brands that still view consumers as statistics rather than real human beings, and approach communication in an impersonal manner, will eventually fall by the wayside.”
Beatrice Cornacchia, senior vice-president of marketing and communications ME&A at Mastercard
14. “Voice is communication in its simplest form, an aspect on which you might not have focused much previously.”
Jennifer Fischer, chief innovation offi cer, TBWA/Raad
15. “Feedback from a client helps create culture and the energy that you want. That doesn’t happen overnight, but it starts to build the culture that you want.”
Mel Edwards, global CEO of Wunderman Thompson
16. “Our competitors are investing in buying big data companies. We made the choice of content.”
Dany Naaman, CEO of Havas Middle East
17. “The evidence shows people are moving to an audio-based world to take a break from the screen.”
Marco Bertozzi, vice-president of EMEA sales and multi-market global sales at Spotify
18. “I want to create work in the shape that matters at the point of value between the brand and people.”
Rob Newlan, global president of Virtue
19. “In KSA, the number of search queries for Chinese e-commerce players has seen 60 per cent annual growth.”
Sachinn J. Laala, CEO of Liquid Retail
20. “What most people don’t know is the first female director made her film in 1896, an experimental, mixed-race fiction film.”
Pegah Ghaemi, writer, director and producer
21. “The web has forgotten about creative, where social has continued to innovate.”
Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar
