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New Executive Creative Director at Tonic International

Dubai-based independent creative agency, Tonic International has promoted Joao Camacho to the role of Executive Creative Director. Having joined the agency in 2016, Joao most recently held the role of Creative Director, where he restructured the creative team and transformed it into a high-level competitive department. In his new role, he will work on developing the digital aspects of the agency to build stronger, more loyal relationships between brands and its consumers, utilising the data as well as analytics at hand to drive the agency’s creativity.

“Creativity is not a service, it is a product,” says Joao. “I firmly believe that by treating creativity as a product, it sets the tone of an agency and truly accelerates its clients’ businesses. The services that an agency provides with creativity are a given, the way to do better is a combination of creative factors and discipline.”

Tonic International appoints new Managing Director

Dubai-based independent creative agency, Tonic International has promoted Jacqui Hewett to the role of Managing Director. Having joined Tonic International in 2015 as General Manager – Media, Jacqui worked on transforming the agency’s media division into a fully-fledged digital operation. In her new role, she will oversee Tonic International’s group of companies across all departments, including branding, communications, digital and media, ensuring everyone works in an integrated way as one team. She will also manage the agency’s new focus and strategy to further build digital capabilities that will deliver a fully immersive experience for the clients and consumers.

“We have transformed our digital performance business over the last few years and our clients perceive us as true pioneers in this space,” says Jacqui Hewett, Managing Director, Tonic International. “Our fully integrated, end-to-end offering gives us the ability to guide our partners through the ever-evolving marketing environment, by ensuring that our team of experts across branding, advertising, digital and media are trained to focus on their business results.”

Out with the old in with the new

Jacqui Hewett, General Manager, Tonic International, tells TMN what she thinks about the evolution of the region’s marketing industry from traditional to digital and offers some rules to help marketers through the transitional phase…

To say that we are spoilt for choice nowadays when it comes to marketing solutions is an understatement. In fact, the abundance of choice can be totally overwhelming for marketing professionals, especially when they are looking to transition from the traditional marketing space into the digital marketing space.

“Marketing plans now need to be multi-faceted, linked to real business deliverables and agile whilst always being consumer centric.”

Long gone are the days of the four P’s directly translating into a cookie cutter solution, agencies have been peddling with the usual suspects of below-the-line marketing (BTL), TV and some additional out-of-home advertising (OOH) support. Marketing plans now need to be multi-faceted, linked to real business deliverables and agile whilst always being consumer centric.

With this in mind, there are four rules of thumb that I like to focus on with clients that are making the sometimes-daunting transition from traditional to digital marketing much easier:

Keep it simple

Consumers have short attention spans and are spoilt for choice – just because you can use every new digital platform and technique to execute your campaign doesn’t mean that you should. I have a test that I run with clients and colleagues when we are crafting the big idea into an executional plan, if it takes you more than two minutes and more than two slides to explain the concept and how consumers will participate, the idea is too complicated. When an idea is too complicated, consumers lose interest – marketing directors need to encourage their agencies to design campaigns that are simple, engaging and responsive.

Measure the right things

We all know digital is exciting because it’s so measureable, this is one of the main reasons clients are shifting focus away from traditional into this space. However, too much of a good thing can have a negative effect and one of the most common mistakes clients make is to want to measure, investigate and analyse every single metric. This inhibits the process and usually translates into agencies spending more time explaining which metrics are important and which are not versus spending time optimising and adjusting the campaign based on the key result factors. Clients need to be thoroughly involved in setting up the measurement plan so that it links directly to their business key performance indicators (KPIs). They also need to ensure they understand clearly what metrics are significant and why, then focus their attention on those metrics.

Work with experts

The shift from traditional to digital marketing usually means that clients are learning new skillsets, techniques and mediums quite quickly. This can result in feeling a bit like a jack of all trades, master of none — take the time to select your agency partners carefully. You do not need to be ‘all knowing’ across digital, but you need to trust that the agencies you have supporting you are experts in their field. Look for partners who come recommended for solving your particular problem, ask for specific case studies and client references, and understand from them what kind of results can be expected prior to launching.

Don’t be afraid to fail

Even writing the word ‘fail’ is scary — especially when your marketing investment usually represents a significant portion of the company’s revenue. The advice here is ‘NO’ to bet it all in red, and hope for the best. What clients need to do is test, test and test! Set aside testing budgets not just at the beginning, but also across your campaign so that you have the flexibility to explore different techniques whilst isolating any loss of opportunity. If you don’t give your campaign and your agency the ability to seek out new ways of doing things, eventually growth will stagnate.

In conclusion, change is good and evolving your marketing strategies will only ever reap rewards in the long run. Embrace the change and don’t be afraid to ask questions — the digital space is here to stay so marketing directors need to understand and benefit from it.

Middle East Brand Summit to be held in Dubai

The Middle East Brand Summit is to be held in Dubai on June 2 2015. The summit will debate a range of topics including brand experience in the financial services sector, social enterprises and how aligning brand values with corporate social responsibility strategy can pay off.

Organised by Transform magazine, the second edition of the summit will bring industry leaders together for a programme that includes case studies, best practice examples and discussion around the industry’s pressing issues. Transform will also share the findings of its latest research, in association with YouGov, on the attitudes towards brands in the Middle East. Highlights of the summit will include a panel with Wael Bittar, Manager of branding agency Tonic Internaional, and Altaf Ladakm, COO of Roshan, an Afghani telecommunications provider, discussing ‘Social business: Putting social purpose at the centre of an overall business strategy’.

“The Middle East region has seen a positive transformation in branding and advertising over the last five years or so,” says Liz Foggitt, Publishing and Events Manager, Transform. “The region is not only breaking new ground in terms of international benchmarks for advertising and communication, but it is also home to some of the world’s best advertising and branding communities.”