When marketing’s greatest unite!

We headed to Istanbul as platinum sponsors for a fourth year running at the WFA global event for brand marketers. The World Federation of Advertisers is the only global organisation representing the common interests of marketers. We are excited to share with you some of our insights gathered at this great event.

The WFA is a dynamic organisation that connect the world’s biggest brand owners and national advertiser associations. To create a global network which offers a unique source of leadership, expertise and inspiration. As the voice of marketers worldwide, they want to push boundaries between advertising and brands. We were excited to see what they had lined up for us!

Our partnership with WFA grows stronger each year, as we at RTL AdAlliance understand the importance of connecting the dots globally and grow our international networks while all the time helping brands find the best home for their advertising in a very local approach.

Marketers should take on a regenerative mind set, “Consumers still say they don’t feel represented and would like to see more diversity in the work we put out in the world.” Says Cristiana Diezhandino, the Chief Marketing officer at Diageo, highlighting that 64% of people want diversity in digital ads and 88% do not feel represented. To explore a progressive pathway to growth Diezhandino claims that there is a lack of female directors, it is important to know who is behind the camera.

A full house showed up for Mark Adams from VICE media; to face the challenges we experience today and enforce the idea that marketers should think like a designer and not a marketer.

The environmental impacts and how we can achieve a sustainable future were a hot topic at the WFA this week. Mastercard gave us an insight to the carbon footprint consumers have produced; 40% of electricity worldwide is consumed by servers, 15% of adds that are on “made for adds” inventory produce 26% more emissions.

The WFA #planetpledge pilot managed to lower the carbon footprint of programmatic advertising by 20%, with no trade-offs on reach or performance. If everyone in the industry copied this example, the footprint of each company could be dropped by 10-20% in a year.
A huge 25% of the carbon emissions of a company come from marketing alone.

Some food for thought from Rupen Desai; “should marketers focus on company and not consumer behaviour change?” 82% of the audience at the global marketing week thought so.

We value our partnership with the WFA greatly, not only is it a great organisation that drives the marketing industry forwards, but we also see many similarities between the two of us. We share a ‘Glo-cal’ approach. We both combine a global strategy or vision with a highly localized execution and expertise, be it for industry changes or localised campaigns.  We appreciate this was a great opportunity to connect with top players in the marketing world and having had insightful conversations on how we can improve as an industry.