UAE

Only communications company to be selected as top employer

Dubai, February 8, 2012 Omnicom Media Group MENA, the holding of communications planning networks OMD and PHD, has been recognized as a top employer in the UAE for 2012 by the Great Place to Work® Institute, ranking sixth overall. It is the only communications holding company to appear in the global research and management consultancy’s ranking of the country’s 10 best employers. The list is based on the confidential feedback of employees and an audit of management practices. Winners were revealed at a ceremony held last night at the Monarch Hotel in Dubai.

To pick the “Top Companies to Work for in the UAE”, the Great Place to Work® Institutes conducts an evaluation of each participating company. Two-thirds of the company’s score is based on the results of the Institute’s Trust Index survey, which is sent to the employees from each company. The survey asks questions related to their attitudes about the management’s credibility, employee engagement and job satisfaction. The other third of the scoring is based on the company’s responses to the Institute’s Culture Audit, which includes detailed questions about pay and benefits programs and a series of open-ended questions about hiring, communication, and development.

The Institute identified Omnicom Media Group MENA’s focus on creating a tailored, flexible and supportive working environment, notably through its HR roadshows and its approach towards women, as best in class. Besides being in the top 10, the holding group was also highlighted as one of the best places to work for women in the UAE.

“In our business, our people truly make the difference so we have long established that the happiness of our teams at work is a key KPI and success factor,” Elie Khouri, CEO of Omnicom Media Group MENA, commented on the announcement. “Having our processes, policies and performance as an employer independently validated and ranked highly is a massive endorsement of the work we’ve produced collectively over the years.”

“More than just the recognition and the differentiation we get out of this exercise, we now also have a benchmark to work with,” added Tamela Scotcher, group talent director at Omnicom Media Group MENA. “Not only do we have an independent assessment of what we do well and what we can improve on, we also know where we stand across all industries in the country. After years of focus on this, it feels like a new beginning.”

Commenting on the Top Companies list, Dr. Farrukh Kidwai, CEO of Great Place to Work Institute UAE, said: “We would firstly like to thank everybody who participated in the program and congratulate each of the 10 companies that have been recognized as top companies to work for in the UAE. Our Top Companies program measures the strength of an employer’s brand. By evaluating levels of credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie between employees and their managers, their jobs and their colleagues, we are able to help organizations improve their productivity and profitability.”

The full list can be found at www.greatplacetowork.ae or in the February issues of Business Pioneer and Executive magazines.

Copenhagen November 16th – Media Communication Specialist PHD has won the Nordic L’Oreal media consolidation pitch.

The world’s largest cosmetics producer L’Oreal awarded the media contract to PHD following a comprehensive pitch process involving four shortlisted agencies.  As per the contract, PHD will be the agency for all online and offline media services in the Nordic markets.

Frederic Herlin, CEO for L’Oreal Nordics said; "The media agency pitch was initiated to pursue Nordic synergies and take advantage of changes and new opportunities in the media environment, in particular within digital media. We think PHD has proven during the pitch that they can deliver on these criteria and look forward the collaboration"

Peter Gottfredsen CEO, Omnicom Media Group Nordics said, “We are proud and delighted that PHD has been chosen for this exciting partnership with L’Oreal who is one of the largest advertisers in the region and recognized as one of the world’s most professional marketing organizations”

The new arrangement will start on January 1st 2012.

Sony Ericsson today announced it has selected PHD as its new global media agency following an open pitch process. The cooperation will commence 1 January 2012 and the agreement comprises all Sony Ericsson’s media investments globally for an initial period of two years. 

“PHD has impressed us with their comprehensive strategic thinking and insight. Moreover there is a strong cultural and structural connection between our two teams,” said Steve Walker, Chief Marketing Officer at Sony Ericsson. “Our Xperia™ smartphone portfolio will be a cornerstone of Sony’s four-screen experience, and PHD is the right agency to partner with in bringing consumers an experience that goes beyond smartphones”.

 Mike Cooper, CEO of PHD Worldwide said, “At present there are few categories more dynamic than the global mobile handset market. Sony Ericsson is an incredibly vibrant and future facing company and is in a great position with its latest Xperia™ products.  This combined with PHD’s renowned strategic capabilities and track record for innovative and creative thinking is a formula for a winning partnership.” 

The agreement with PHD replaces a successful 10 years global partnership between Sony Ericsson and the media agency MEC.    
 

Dubai, November 2, 2011: The commoditization of computer chips will lead to the omnipresence of the internet, with our clothes and walls being connected. In turn this will not only create countless new communications channels, it will also produce an enormous amount of data, which, when harnessed, will allow brands to communicate with every consumer on a one-to-one basis.

This over-arching summary of the presentations by Dr Michio Kaku, renowned physicist, author and broadcaster, and Mark Holden, global strategy and planning director at PHD Worldwide, masks the details of the hundreds of predictions they made at the 2011 edition of PHD BrainScape, the network’s regional conference, at the One&Only Royal Mirage. Designed to cover the way we will live, work and communicate in the future, the event provided its 192 delegates with a vivid and exciting preview of the technologies about to come out of the labs and into our lives.

Starting with flexible screens and contact lenses, all connected to the internet and giving us access to the information we want or need, Dr Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics and the City University of New York and host of “Sci-Fi Science” on Discovery Science, delivered predictions with a 20 year horizon, such as our ability to control machines by thought rather than by action. “Because computer chips and the internet will be ubiquitous, consumers will have perfect knowledge of prices and products everywhere in the world. Our knowledge of how much things cost will become infinite,” Dr Kaku predicted. “This will revolutionize society and lead to perfect capitalism.” He advised countries and companies to move from commodity capitalism, where wealth is measured in goods with prices that fluctuate or fall, to intellectual capitalism, where the mind produces wealth.

Dr Kaku also offered his vision of what success will entail in this technology-driven future and while it presents challenges, it also offers countless opportunities. “What we will see is another version of reality, through extra layers or immersive media. This is where “The combination of a scientist and a strategist of the caliber of Dr Kaku and Mark Holden has proved extraordinarily powerful, in that it has allowed us to dream wide awake,” commented Elda Choucair, the general manager of PHD Dubai. “Not only have we visited the future but we’ve also been given the means to manage the transition and capitalize on the opportunities these new technologies will create. This is eminently actionable and precisely what our clients expect of us.”

“This has been a fantastic eye opener and brought technologies into a great deal of perspective in terms of timing, impact and implications on the way we need to communicate with consumers,” added Fadi Assaker, regional category manager at Arla Foods. “It has been a privilege to listen to such gifted and insightful speakers such as Dr Kaku and Mark Holden. I also enjoyed Ms Jeffrey’s pragmatic and useful take on this. PHD must be applauded for putting on such a show!”

The event was produced in association with Rotana Media Services, Ipsos and The Economist Group.

"PHD details how a social approach to technology will drastically alter institutions from government to gaming, from media to marketing," says Facebook’s David Fischer

Dubai, October 10, 2011: The new technologies that will become prevalent over the next five years and their impact on society and the marketing and communications industry is the subject of a new book recently released by global media and communications agency PHD, part of the Omnicom Media Group.

2016 explores the likely developments within areas such as connected TVs, markerless augmented reality, enhanced voice-recognition, Natural User Interface (NUI) and NFC (Near Field Communication) and how, coupled with the acceleration of social media usage, they are changing the actual physics of marketing.

With one in every two people in the developed world connected to a social network, there are now 1.2 billion independent media owners all linking to each other. They are influential, given that peer recommendations are more trusted than any form of advertising, and since social networks don’t stop at their own boundaries but instead affect the entire web, they leave a print on ‘social graphs’. This is leading to a complete change in how society functions and all of this activity is increasingly mobile.

David Fischer, Vice President of Advertising and Global Operations, Facebook commented; “In 2016 Beyond the Horizon, PHD takes us through a fascinating and detailed look back at how technology has brought us closer together even as geography has pushed us farther apart. PHD details how a social approach to technology will drastically alter institutions from government to gaming, from media to marketing. The future PHD outlines is a place where technology enables us to connect with our friends and harness their collective wisdom to make better decisions. It is a future that is connected, networked and, while uncertain, certainly better.”

2016 looks at how technology will affect the areas of infrastructure, interface and internet as well as the implication on society in 2016, including:

-The most defining difference from 2011 will be people looking through their devices and holding them infront of their vision to augment their surroundings. It will be a common sight in the street, in shopping malls, in front of outdoor ads, in shops and in cinemas.

-An increasing amount of purchases will be made after a device has been held over the product to see a summary of user reviews and even brand sentiment. As people enter stores, they will be peering through their translucent devices and seeing hovering ads and user reviews – but all organised and ‘iconised’ so that the information is attractive and easy to digest.

-The smart device will commonly be used to find out more information about what is on screen and make purchases there and then – an increasing amount of the products within content are embedded with more information, socially enabled so they can ‘Like’ them and connected to an e-commerce engine so they can buy there and then.

-A large percentage of youths will abandon any concerns about data-privacy, as the desire to be witnessed will prove overwhelming. They will be further incentivised by the additional benefits that they receive such as micro-payments, tailored content, pay-wall access, free wi-fi and the kudos of belonging to well-branded groups. These super-socialisers will allow more of their activities to be witnessed by their social networks.

-TV viewing will be done in some connection with people in the same social graph – people will get used to knowing who they are watching TV with. This will become the central fireplace around which social networks will gather. A large percentage of people will consume TV with their smart-device in their hands and have the content working across both screens – this is particularly the case for appointment-to-view content.

-Voice controlled smart devices will act like personal assistants. We will speak naturally into them to book restaurants, flights or even to find out specific pieces of information. Computation will be done in the Cloud and every single engagement will improve the overall algorithm for all. By 2016, the experience will begin to deliver on expectations.
 

Finally, based on the observations of technology’s impact, PHD has predicted how this will manifest itself in media agencies in the future:

-By 2016, the advertising industry will largely be considered as much a technology industry as it is considered a creative industry. The communications agency of 2016 will be increasingly considered to be a digital-based agency first and foremost and in many of the developed markets, communications agencies will also consider themselves as data agencies.

-Agencies will take client data and combine it with their pools of existing data and social data to create high propensity segments – therefore increasing the bespoke nature of audiences and increasing the potential scale. This will present an increasing challenge for advertisers and for auditors in terms of assessment.

-Some communications agencies may divide themselves into two halves with one side focusing on Upscale services and account management and with the Automation half being centrally ‘pooled’ within the holding companies. The Upscale half will be ultimately on a road to compete with the existing creative agencies. The Automation half will be on a road to compete with the algorithm-based software/investment houses.
 

Mark Holden said, “We will see as much change in the next five years as we have done in the last 10. Technological development will enable us as people to move one step further on our journey towards abundance – where we are able to be everywhere with everyone with everything in the moment. With this paradigm, we can assess the technologies that are likely to gain traction over the next five year – technologies that are distributed across infrastructure, interface and the internet. Successful developments will be those that liberate and empower people. The result of all of this will be that by 2016 ‘media agencies’ will be a greater determinate of marketing success. And by 2016, marketing will be a greater determinate of business success,” he continued. Mark Holden will speak at the PHD BrainScape conference in Dubai on October 26, along with Dr. Michio Kaku, a renowned physicist and broadcaster. “It would be a mistake to think the region is lagging far behind that curve,” added Elda Choucair, general manager of PHD Dubai. “We’re already witnessing some of these changes here and are adapting our approach, systems and people accordingly.”

The book, which has been authored primarily by PHD Worldwide’s strategy and planning director Mark Holden, alongside a number of PHD executive co-authors, is available to buy on Amazon at a cost of £15.99 with all proceeds going to Unicef.