Recognizing that truly creative and effective marketing lies in an agency’s ability to develop and execute integrated marketing campaigns, the Leo Burnett Group of Companies, Dubai, recently held an intense three-day workshop on the topic for nearly 70 employees.
“Brands no longer have passive, anonymous targets whose behaviour they can predict. Now they have cynical, savvy, elusive customers with real choices and power. We are responding by delivering a holistic approach to communications that is propelled by a big idea executed in a variety of new and fresh ways across multiple media,” said Miguel-Angel Furones, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide.
The seminar, the latest in an ongoing series of employee training programs, revolved around a case study workshop that presented small teams with one of several communications problems. With members from across the group’s disciplines – including advertising, shopper marketing, CRM, digital and public relations – on each team, the task was to develop an integrated campaign that would wrap consumers in layers of messaging.
Farid Chehab, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett Group MENA, said that an integrated campaign is not simply about “wallpapering a single executional idea across multiple channels but rather making the idea relevant and meaningful at each moment and contact point. By working as a unified team across our many disciplines, we build brands by reaching consumers with unexpected uses of media and displays of creativity”
The “Camp Leo” integration workshop was guided by Furones and Elliott Moss, Client Service Director, Leo Burnett London. Participants came from the Dubai and Kuwait offices of the group’s brand agencies Leo Burnett and Black Pencil, its CRM and digital agency Arc MENA and Manning Selvage & Lee public relations.
Raja Trad, CEO, Leo Burnett Group MENA, emphasized that integration is not a trend, nor is it “optional”, rather it is something needed and wanted by clients. “As a group we have begun to live integration and to see its power, both through successful campaigns and new business wins. With this training, we have endeavoured to make it a more automatic reflex that we all will put at the service of our clients and, more importantly, our brands.”
Added Kamal Dimachkie, managing director, Leo Burnett Dubai and Kuwait, “The training workshop is part of a fundamental commitment to our employees and to our brands. It’s only logical that in an industry where a company’s strength rests largely with its employees, we would ensure an ongoing training regimen to give our people new tools, perspectives and skills to help them strive harder and reach higher for that great idea that will serve their brands.”
During the workshop, which began with presentations on the changing communications environment, the role of big ideas in holistic marketing and other topics, the 68 participants were divided into teams of six people and provided a brief. They were tasked with developing a comprehensive communications plan and presenting it to the whole workshop a day later.
