WFA holds first meeting in Dubai

The WFA held its first MENA meeting in Dubai this February at the offices of Emirates.

The IMCFORUM meeting heard from Emirates as well as Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company and Jaguar Land Rover, who presented content marketing case studies, while Luxottica (Ray-Ban) and SAP discussed evolving measurement frameworks.

Seven example points from our discussions around content marketing included:

When it comes to content marketing, never overlook your owned platforms. In fact start with these. Your packaging real-estate is probably bigger than any print campaign you've run. Your vehicle fleet could equate to your biggest outdoor campaign.

It's critical to find a sustainable means of generating authentic, quality content. As one FMCG marketer put it; "the biggest crime today is to be silent"

Everything travels so "nothing is local anymore". To be truly relevant, you need a "local realisation of a global expression". But you still need to be open to except ideas from anywhere in the world.

Brand partnerships are often underrated. They can "offer an extension to core competencies" for example in content creation

The biggest factor in an effective content marketing approach is to have "a CEO and leadership who are inclined to taking risks" and who think longer term.

If you apply the 70/20/10 rule, be prepared to not understand the ROI form the 10%. But you must aim to deliver against one objective. Pick one area to focus on and analyse your ROO.

Listening capabilities are critical. They enable you to add relevance by adding value to your audience's lives.

The WFA's effectiveness partner Ebiquity also presented on managing and establishing a measurement framework that will produce credible and powerful integrated ROI metrics.

The event was attended by around 30 key marketers from the region and marks the next stage in the global development of the IMCFORUM.

The IMC group, which is designed to enable marketers to gain peer to peer advice and best practice on integrated marketing communications, was created in 2009 and now connects close to 500 senior marketers with global and regional responsibilities and meets on three continents.

Challenges tackled by the group in 2015 included how to optimise content generation, dissemination and ownership, how to better understand and map the customer journey, what kind of connections planning framework might work for your company and how to effectively evolve agency collaboration models to reflect the changing media and consumer landscape.

The next meetings are in London on April 21st, which will be hosted by Vodafone and include a guest presentation from Mark Adams, VICE Media, and May 19th in Miami.

For more information on the activity of the IMCFORUM, please contact Any.