Ivan Fernandes, MediaCom Global Director, Social Media ...

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■■■Be a 'skeptical innovator': always encourage experimentation, but with a clear vision of whatsuccess means.Always ask: What environments can you use to participate in the social layer of content andwhat assets can you create yourself that are most likely to be kept, shared or used by youraudience?Humans have always been social but today that sociability can be observed, stimulated andacted upon. This is a huge opportunity for us.Ivan Fernandes, Global Director, Social Media Technology, MediaCom WorldwideFor those unfamiliar with GroupM, explain what the GroupM does? If you think about thedefining GroupM moments over your time with the group, what stands out?GroupM is the parent company of Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare as well as expertbusinesses in audience buying and search that collectively comprise the media investmentmanagement arm of WPP.How and why did you get into digital marketing and GroupM? What makes GroupM differentfrom our competitors? What are some of the more important new business strategies beingdeployed at GroupM?A happy accident as a result of reading a Wall Street Journal article in early 1994 about a massivetechnology and content trial being planned by Time Warner Cable in Orlando Florida. Today, GroupMhas more digital specialists than any other marketing services company in the world. We are fullyintegrated across all forms of media distribution which means that we can deal with the sellers of bothmedia and technology across every existing and new platform. This integration is critical for our clientsand for us.What can you share about the thinking behind your new role? What are you most excited aboutfor the future of GroupM and Social Media? How are you going to further develop the GroupMsocial media business?My role is about bring experts together on two axes: first, we have to have a cross agency horizontalcommunity that seeks and exploits opportunities for our clients and moves best practice quickly aroundthe world. The second axis is vertical, to ensure that we don't create artificial silos that prevent usdelivering holistic communications to consumers for our clients. In social media I am really excited bythe work of the Social Media Task Force and by the GroupM Next team which has seen greatcollaboration over the last year. I think we have a shared agenda, from training to thought leadershipand tools application, that benefits everyone without compromising the distinct personalities of ouragencies.Are you seeing adoption of advanced social media services in certain markets? What are someof things you've learned about US social media market?Social media is touching our business in every market. Clearly the speed of Facebook's growth hasbeen a big catalyst of that, but I am pleased that we don't confuse social media with 'how do we workwith Facebook'. I believe that we are seeing our agencies look across Twitter, Tumblr, Goggle+, and thewhole sharing and recommendation universe, to see how to operate those with the greatest effect – aswell as using them to extract more reach and engagement from traditional media. There is no questionthat we have huge challenges ahead to stay smart and we have to be really conscious that the2
dominant players are not the same in every market. RenRen, Weibo and others in China are clear signsof that.GroupM have a long history of digital services and ROI. Why is this important to the group andto you personally?Where the consumer goes, brands go. Where brands go, GroupM goes. It's as simple as that. Ourbusiness only prospers if we create message distribution and discovery strategies that yield incrementalsales and margins for our clients. Over the last five years the face of our company has chargeddramatically, partly reflecting and partly leading the digital evolution of marketing and media. Personally,as my grandmother always said, 'it's only worth getting out of bed if you have something to look forwardto' and in digital media you always have that!How are clients looking at the larger media agencies' role in digital and social media? Havemedia agencies managed to crack one of the biggest issues affecting brands today: calculatingthe ROI on social media?This is our biggest challenge; many different kinds of agencies and clients themselves are laying claimto the social space. Our edge has to be in managing and measuring distribution, having the sense ofwhat kind of creative assets are most likely to create owned media and, critically, to be THE experts inthe interplay between the paid and earned opportunity. Paid media is still incredibly important and noone can compete with the big media agencies in that area.These last few years have not been easy for social media and Facebook ROI. How has WPPapproached such challenging questions?Lots of people talk about channel neutrality. I prefer to think about informed prejudice and believe thatGroupM should be a 'skeptical innovator', by which I mean we should always encourageexperimentation, but with a clear vision of what success means. In the case of Facebook it's like dealingwith a giant toddler that gives the appearance of maturity because of its size but still has much to learnabout itself. I believe that we need to focus on advising our clients on how to achieve value fromFacebook and others and how the consumer experience enhances sales or reputation. I am as certainas I can be that social media in the broadest sense will be a key part of every marketing and mediastrategy but that value will be created in many different ways.How is social media technology affecting marketing landscape today? Why should brands careabout their social media presence? What are the most effective means for making the most ofSocial Media?I don't necessarily agree with everything Mark Zuckerberg says but I do believe that "social by design" isa profound and important concept. It's clear that people like to communicate, share and discover andthese words are at the heart of the social concept. My own sense is that social by design relates tomarketing programs but also to the media itself and that we will see a massive increase in the numberof media properties that are designed with social hooks built in and at these will provide a platform foradvertisers. For brands this requires sharp thinking: What environments can you use to participate inthe social layer of content and what assets can you create yourself that are most likely to be kept,shared or used by your audience?The social universe, like the real universe is, and will be, in flux for years to come and I am certain thatwe will see a raft of new players, applications and services. They will be important in their own rightsometimes which will require very specific thinking but GroupM needs to have a wide angle on thisspace; for example Google+ may be way behind Facebook but we know that 'Plus 1' is already have asignificant impact on the Google Page Rank Algorithm and search results.3
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Ivan Fernandes, MediaCom Global Director, Social Media ...

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