[MUSIC] >> Hello, we have the pleasure of being here today with Jose Maria Rull. He's the President of DDB Spain, one of the main advertising agencies in the world. Jose Maria, thank you very much for having us, Coursera and myself. >> Thank you Maite, it's a pleasure to have this interview here today. >> Could you share with us, what is DDB and your role in this big advertising agency? >> DDB is one of the top three creative agencies in the world. Founded in New York, it has more than 200 offices in 100 countries. Here in Spain, we have offices in Madrid and Barcelona, and we work for important clients such as Volkswagen, BBVA, Audi, also Movistar, MediaMarkt, Cola-Cao, etc. My role in this company today, as president and CEO of the company, is to develop our business model because we have to be the best partners for our clients in the future. And also, from this office, we also control and help Spanish multi-nationals with their global communications abroad, with BBVA and Movistar. For example, in the case of BBVA, more than 400 people are working in 10 countries for their global communications and local communications. >> That's the advantage of being a big and multi-national agency, no? >> Yeah. >> And, how are you structured? What type of departments do you have? >> Today, we are structured with three main areas, three main services. The first service is our integrated communications, it's where we were founded, communications, advertising. Today it's very important, our second area of services, it's called "consulting for digital transformation and digital sales". Companies are transforming and we need to help them in this transformation and to optimize their detailed sales. Third is expperiential marketing actually very important in a world where people are in contact every moment with the brands. >> Talking about the industry, do you see differences among industries and countries, or are we really having global problems and looking for global solutions? >> What is true at the moment is that all categories of industries will transform in the next years. Some of them has started transformation, others will do it later, but will do it. That means that everything is changing with marketing and communications for all the categories. Also, when we talk about countries, it's very important to know that because the knowledge today is of the same time for everyone and everywhere. It means everybody is changing very fast and at the same time. Now distances are getting closer between countries. >> And what about the consumer? I guess there is a huge revolution, no? Is it also really affecting really the way the clients communicate with them? >> The most important thing about consumers is that we live in an era within contact of four different generations. >> From Baby Boomers to Millennials, even the 5th generation, these are starting to grow now. That means that we need to understand how they think. It means that our generation, Generation X, are people who really think, then do things and then feel. But millennials are more impulsive. >> Yeah. >> And then they first do, they feel, and then they think. >> [LAUGH] >> That means that a brand that is really working for different generations has to adapt and understand these different generations >> And this is a key point. It's also very important that the new consumer that is hyper-connected is more chameleonic, is really not forseeable, is not reversable, is demanding. Its very occupied. It has a lot of things to do everyday with the mobile. >> Yeah >> And with high expectations, and we have to adapt to this new consumer that demands more things in real time. >> So, the people working with you, you have probably all type of ages and nationalities, and it has to be very diverse, I guess, no? >> Of course, that is the important thing now, even we really finesse the departments inside the agency We create clusters of people working together with different specialities it means people are more oriented with creativity, or they love strategy, or they are more technical and digital, others are project managers, and we work as clusters. No more, or no longer as departments. That means that they are organized by projects, by client projects, working as clusters. With this we will get better solutions in a more agile way. >> Okay. Yeah, that's a big change, yeah? >> That's a big change. What is key then, in designing and managing or implementing this communication? >> The most important thing today, where the marketing is getting complex, and we work with marketing. We work with digital sales, we work with experiential marketing. The first thing is we need to understand better the problematic situation of a company, and this is a war in collaboration between the agency the client, who knows more about the business. To fix the real goals, the real challenge is the key issue first. Second, and very important, is that we need to take decisions, long-term and short-term, and organize them just to really focus on the problem and to really deliver better ideas after that. But key strategic decisions, have to be tested and have to be shared. Then of course there's a lot of people who can deliver good ideas in different original ways. Today ideas are a sum of strategy, creativity and technology. >> Yeah. And some people know about one technology others know about aother technology but we need people working together to deliver really good plans, good ideas. And also those people need to be specialists in the design and delivery of every idea. Because we need people who know more about ups. We need people who know more about CRM. We need people who are good in analytics today, big data. And we need people who are good in story telling as always. And can you measure more precisely the results that the client can get with this communication company? >> It has always been a mission to build better ideas to get better results, but in this era, we have much more tools to measure everything, tools that are today available and free for everybody. There are a lot of different tools from Google, from different social media that can really help us to know how something is working, we can test things and then decide, if it's good, adjust and then continue. Learning, learning from this small test and all that is the new culture to make the things better. >> Yeah, it's faster and you don't spend so much. >> It's faster and you don't spend so much, yeah. >> And, could you share with us, any example of success, big success that you had here and also a failure from which you learned. >> For me it's the last big project we have been working on during the last year in Spain. It's the new campaign for the BBBVA bank to talk to Spanish consumers about the digital transformation of BBVA. >> It's not easy, is it? [LAUGH] >> It's not easy. The most important thing here is that the bank works a lot inside the bank to create a lot of new products and functionalities. Develop first the product and then start to explain the new functionalities of the product. It means they take the time and now we start to communicate. The most important thing also here is that we have been working together, both in developing a communication platform and developing a marketing plan and communications plan in all the areas. Also with all the mass media. >> Yeah. >> But also with the media webs, apps, tutorials. >> Completed integrated, no? >> Completed integrated. Probably it's one of the most ambitious integrated campaigns this last year in Spain and it has been a success. Today BBBA is considered the bank that has done more in this digital transformation for the consumers. This is good. This is the first step of this revolution for banks, and banks need to change because they have a lot of competitors. Not only banks, but other companies that develop and other functionalities and other products that compete with the banks. >> So what would you tell us, Jose Maria, are the big challenges for the future in communication? >> The most important thing about the future is that the power is in the consumer. Consumers are hyper-connected. They have a lot of new tools. They have a lot of info. And they are going to be the judge of the brand. Brands needs to be transparent, honest and need to develop a real value to add to people's life. And this is the new era. It means this era of influence where the consumer is the main media because they are sharing a lot of info about brands. This is the key. We need to understand that that the relationship, that new relationship of brands and customers, and that's all. >> That's all but that's a lot. >> Yes. >> Also thank you very much. We have learned how important the consumer is We are in the age of the consumer and in the digital age. So everything together means that we need to work together. There are a lot of multi- discipline types of jobs. We have to be constantly changing. And I think that there's one thing that is very important about DDB here in Spain that they have customers that have been with their agency for more than 30 years. So in this area, in these times where everything is changing, I think it's a huge success for you. >> And we are really lucky. Thank you. >> So we are very lucky and we have a lot of work to do. [LAUGH] So we should start from now on. Thank you very much Jose Maria, and I hope we can interview you again maybe in a few years and you tell us what has changed Thank you. >> Thank you. [MUSIC]
