The three-letter word now is CDO

Kabali opened to fireworks and cheering fans at 3.30 a m in Bengaluru on July 22. The IAA brought a fantastic line-up of speakers to the city at 9.30 am that morning. No comparison, but a hall full of students chose to stay and listen to the proceedings, which said a lot for the content on offer.

The Marcom industry has often moaned the mismatch between what academia prepares for them in terms of young human resources at an entry level and the actual requirements in their respective industries. A common remark thrown at young recruits is “Ok, forget whatever you have learned so far. Welcome to the real world!”

Changing curriculum and better-designed courses have evolved over the years but true industry-student interface is what the International Advertising Association (IAA) Global Apprentice Conference aims at providing. In its fourth edition, this annual event finally came to India. So Bengaluru hosted the two-day event at the Presidency College auditorium with a young graduate-level student audience of about 230 and a galaxy of very senior speakers, which included Felix Tatary, the IAA World President, Srinivasan Swamy, SVP global, and India Chapter President, and Diane Slade, General Secretary IAA Global, from Australia.

Some of the others included M.K.Anand (Times TV), Salil Kapoor (Hooq), Pratibha Pai (3C Consultants), Ashish Bhasin (Dentsu Aegis), Bobby Pawar (Publicis), Anupriya Acharya (Publicis Media), Arun Anant (HT Media), Gangadhar (MEC), Anand Sankeshwar VRL Media), Vishwas Shetty (IndiaBulls) and VL Rajesh (ITC, Foods). Some session Chairpersons included Pradeep Dwivedi (Dainik Bhaskar), Bhaskar Das (Zee), Kaushik Roy (RIL) and this writer.

The basic construct was that speakers explained “what’s coming next?” in their respective landscape and what they were expecting from prospective recruits. The opportunity for the young audience to listen to a speaker line-up like this was really unique.

Felix Tataru quoted Jack Welch to make the point that if the rate of change on the outside exceeded the rate of change on the inside, the end would be near. He bemoaned the fact that while society was in the midst of radical change, transformation in the marcom space had lost the rhythm. He stressed the importance of values and explained that the Chinese word for “crisis” meant “danger plus opportunity”, thereby bringing in the element of hope and possibility.

Salil Kapoor noted that these days telecom companies (telcos) were looking for revenues from online videos. He pointed out that the greatest commercial impact these days is from content marketing in any form, followed by data analytics, social media marketing and then wearables. He signalled the gradual waning in importance of the CMO and the CTO and the arrival of a new animal called the CDO (Chief Digital Officer). This would be a person who understood both technology as well as the nuances of the brand. Ashish Bhasin was his usual competent self, explaining that around 48 per cent of all people who joined the advertising profession left it before they completed eight years. After that, the rates of attrition in the industry were much lower. Therefore he counselled resilience and the capacity to withstand constant stress. Bobby Pawar, at his irreverent best, was a darling of the audience. He said the brave new world would belong to those brave enough to change it. He was very clear that user-generated content had failed. He pointed out that in many cases it was created by content creators and not ordinary lay people. He summed up the need to have the curiosity of a scientist and the soul of an artist.

Pratibha Pai took the student on a journey of what presentation skills were all about. She stressed the need for passion and purpose, along with the mandatory tips on message mapping and elements of posture. Diane Slade had a session where she explained the importance of developing a person brand as well as a session on how to take an interview well. Anupriya Acharya explained that cheaper technology, platform-readiness, content and apps as well as infrastructure were all coming together to signal a spurt in convergence. In a world which had moved to a collaborative economy, as evidenced by Uber and Air BNB, there was an increasing amount of engineered addiction. Talent would need to be multi-dimensional and she advised the students to go from learning to un-learning and re-learning.

VL Rajesh of ITC remarked that the objective of any marketing effort was SOS (move Stuff Off Shelves). He said the world was changing from Return Over Investment to Return On Engagement, and from Advertising to Advertainment.

Change was in the air. While the students had a rare buffet of diverse content from many experts, there were also three motivational “how I did it” talks from Gangadhar of MEC, Anand Sankeshwar and Vishwas Shetty. It was clear that in a country where mobile hogged 193 minutes a day, what was really important was “glanceable and thumb-stopping content.”

To me it was a rare event where so many senior people got together under the banner of the IAA to invest in the future of this industry. Sundar Swamy, take a bow!

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