Before coming to Singapore in 2013, I spent a large part of my career across different European markets in account management. Step by step, I started focusing more on growth. Which is much more than new business and pitching but looking at a holistic approach on how to find sources of growth for the agency as a business.

For me, Asia is the most interesting region on the planet and offers a unique blend of lifestyle and professional experiences. I’ve been with MullenLowe for 15 years and during that time I also set up my own start-up business. It’s been a really fulfilling process working within a culture so different from the one I grew up in.

Diversity of thinking is a must-have to enhance creativity. If you think of engineering, computing or medicine, people become experts in those fields by specifically studying to adopt technical knowledge. Even an expert in philosophy has probably studied the work of noted philosophers for years. Marketing is an exception, many people who end up in marketing do not have specific marketing degrees.

This should change…and it’s changing. However, it will always be a specialism that requires constant updates. If you want to be a good marketeer you must be curious, it’s an exercise of constantly observing what’s happening in the industry and the world and how they match. Being surrounded by diversity and living in different places is great for exercising curiosity and observational skills and breaking away from your own confirmation bias.

The most exciting challenge in the APAC region is that it’s not monolithic and has the biggest growth potential on the planet. Yet, it is the most fragmented and diverse part of the world. Typically, regions are built over time around shared values and approaches to life. Despite having a history of division and war, LATAM and Europe found common values to unite around. For APAC this is not the case.

This makes advertising in the region a challenge. Just think of the number of languages, ethnicities, and religions. Today most organizations approach the region as a federation of markets, with local marketers usually wanting their independence and demonstrating their understanding of market nuances to adopt a different approach. This might result in tactical, executional work that lacks an overarching strategy.

In this sense APAC is too big and complex to ever act as a region, but Southeast Asia is the one area that may be able to. However, a big shift is required. Local markets still put too much emphasis on shallow nuances and temporary trends that make their markets “different”, ignoring and longer-term cultural trends that could bring the region together

Cultural diversity should not be neglected, but if marketers are able to find common ground and unifying values when working in Southeast Asia, they would be able to save a lot of money and focus on bigger picture brand growth.

The foundational driving force of a reinvention exercise is business growth; brands exist to generate demand, which means their core purpose is to drive business. This means a brand reinvigoration occurs when a business is forecasting where growth is going to come from in the future and realigning its own brand positioning in response.

Culture and human values are constantly evolving, which is the basic principle for how we approach reinventing a brand—it’s important to understand where the culture is headed and work out what role your brand can play in that space. Too much focus is placed on what people think today, and too little on the cultural shifts happening and why.

Yet, at the same time, the important thing is trying to be true to your heritage, as everything else can be copied by competitors.

‘Chronocentrism’ refers to the belief that our moment in time is more significant and defining than any other, which can lead to pessimism about the times we live in. However, this can be a trap for advertisers, mainly because the tendency provokes everyone to overemphasize short term results and be more reactive than proactive. ‘It’s just the times we live in’ is a simple way to deflect responsibility and not take a deeper look at the root cause of problems.

Somehow, it can create a culture of not having to fight for things or doing deeper thinking, because it’s out of our control. But that’s a fallacy…and this industry requires a lot of fighting.

To me, ‘Positive Dissatisfaction’ is about not stopping at ‘good enough’. It’s a driver of ambition and a source of motivation.

As an example, a client recently shared that their growth is steady, the KPIs they are tracking are improving. In this situation, you would normally say they don’t need to change anything. Yet, using a ‘Positive Dissatisfied’ lens can help us start seeing gaps. We can ask questions like: Are their KPIs right? Will they be relevant in two years given changes in the category? Are they leaving money on the table by ignoring a bigger opportunity someone else will tap on sooner or later?

‘Positive’ is key, because positivity brings people together in a more sustainable manner than negativity, which is focused on the short term because it plays with fear and anxiety.

Sustainability is on its way to becoming hygiene, rather than a side conversation that a box brand needs to check. It’s no longer enough for brands to make generic statements about sustainability being part of their DNA; to me the start is more specific, brands need to make sure their people are trained and well-aware of the sustainability impact their products have.

The kind of disruptive thinking happening in sustainability innovation is impressive. BioCarbon Engineering is one example but there are hundreds. The thinking behind this is not simply about creating a business that makes financial sense and is profitable, but also making sure it can be scaled to drive global impact. Such a mindset is a true embodiment of ‘Positive Dissatisfaction’.

The notion of ‘personalisation’ sees people being addressed as robots who constantly need content to interact and engage with, and whose actions regarding an ad will be monitored and recorded. However, often, those actions are non-consequential and even accidental; they don’t mean anything for the brand or the business, they are just a tick or a number in a box in someone’s report.

This goes to show weekly performance metrics are not always a true driver of business.

What we do is fight for memory. Our work is only as valuable as our capacity to be remembered by our audience during a key moment in time. I always advocate for metrics that might be more complex to track but have a truer and more differentiating business impact.

For example, if you are a brand in a highly competitive category, what makes a difference to growth is product superiority and level of customer service. You might want to track which percentage of your audience spontaneously feels you are a superior product that offers a better service. If you measure it well, you will realise that metric will be correlated to your growth over time.

This industry is about being constantly curious about something and distilling knowledge and advice from people around you. If I could give one piece of advice, I would encourage young team members to come into the office to sit with their teams and have conversations with others, because in this industry you grow through meaningful interactions with people. Also…keep reading, keep asking questions to yourself.

Wine is an experience, so I would go with a bottle I drank with my dad, from whom I inherited the passion for wine. It’s a very affordable bottle — surprisingly value for money. It’s called Son De Arriero, Ribeiro.