The pandemic has turned life and business upside down, challenged plans, and tested processes. In this context, companies need to seriously raise their game to be effective and succeed. The MENA Effie Thought-Leadership Program is your chance to Rise and Shine. Two mornings of sessions that will show you how to improve your performance and impress the Effie jury.

Leading up to the event organized by Mediaquest on May 18-19, Communicate presents a series of interviews with the speakers on what effectiveness in marketing means in 2021. 

Today, meet Sasan Saeidi, Global Client Leader – Nestlé at Wunderman Thompson. Sasan will lead a workshop around "The new paradigm shift and the new age of consumerism."

What has the pandemic changed in terms of marketing effectiveness?

As a starting point, the pandemic has exposed a lot of gaps when it comes to brand trust and loyalty. The good brands have found out what their loyalty base is all about, and consumers have re-evaluated their purchase desires towards brands based on functionality and trust.

There are positive signs of recovery globally but there is a long way [to go]. The advertising and marketing world will be operating based on confined budgets, which means that marketers will want to measure real outcomes more than ever before and be more agile in their measurement. 1) Taking a more holistic view on sales and cross-media channels as an integrated ecosystem where results are calculated; and 2) being more agile and changing things inflight and on the go, dialing up and down, and tweaking things constantly.   

What has been a salient case of creativity and effectiveness in the last year?

I have to talk globally about the work we are doing for Nestle on Starbucks Creamers out of our NY office in the US, and our 85^th-anniversary work on KK – both pieces of thinking that were creative-first, but data-driven, cross-channel, and highly effective due to their social appeal.

In a crisis, who reaps the biggest rewards and why: the brave or the cautious?

I think that, in a crisis, the caring reap the biggest reward. In a crisis, everyone is worried; you need to calm, to care, and to be human. There is no time for gimmicks and bullshit. No time to play awards game. In a crisis, brands and companies need to help people as, when things go back to normality, people will remember who helped them. Less opportunities, more problem-solving.  

What does the new normal mean to you?

The new normal, for me as a professional, means longer hours; more virtual, less physical; less suits, more jeans; and a greater effort to create and strategize. The new normal for marketers means more transparency, more e-business, more purpose, more value, and less ego.  

How prepared were you for the unexpected and how have you adapted to uncertainty?

You can never be prepared for what happened to us; nobody was prepared. Some adapted and got on their feet quicker. And some are still playing the tunes of things going back to the old days. Things will never go back to the old days. And even if certain things seem like they are going back,  business, humanity, vulnerability, health, security have changed forever. And some of these changes are actually better for us.

Some argue that limited budgets enhance creativity. What do you think 2021’s creative output will be like?

I think that, with a drought year in 2020, all agencies are now trying to build their gardens again. You can see that on all the LinkedIn, and posts, and accolade glorification. So, 2021 will be a good year for creativity and the world needs more of it. Creativity will save the world. Hey, the person who created the Covid vaccine used creativity. So, let's do more creative work, real work that adds to the world and makes the world a better place.

What are the top three skills the marketers of the future will need?

1- They need perspective so they can evolve and not stay in the past. This means understanding how they can digitize their offering, led by e-commerce and supported by personalization.

2- They need empathy to act human and create more human brands, and more so to build sustainable businesses and responsible teams.

3- They need humility to ensure they build a sense of purpose in everything they do.  

To attend the MENA Effie Thought-Leadership Program, book your tailored experience now.