Dentsu Aegis Global is one of the world’s largest marketing communications companies, operating in 145 countries and employing about 70,000 staff. In Ireland, Dentsu Aegis Network comprises the Carat and Vizeum media agencies, the iProspect performance agency, technology, experience and creative agency Isobar, growth consultant Dentsu Consult, and branded content specialist The Story Lab. The company employs 160 people in its Haddington Road, Dublin 4, office and plans to expand to 180 by the end of the year.
“The communications landscape is changing all the time and we help clients navigate this complexity, helping them connect their brands with audiences using creativity, insight, planning, strategy and data to drive business results,” says Dentsu Aegis chief strategy officer, Dave Winterlich. “We look at all aspects of communications including paid, performance, content and even user experience to make sure we drive business results for clients.”
The US and the UK tend to be quite a bit ahead of Ireland when it comes to marketing trends
The Dentsu Aegis Dublin hub plays a significant role in the global business. “Marketing is a pretty small industry in Ireland and a lot of major brands see the country as an executional market with campaigns being run out of London. We view it in a different way, and we are serving our global clients out of our Dublin hub. We’re also pitching for global clients and 24 per cent of our revenue next year will come from global clients being serviced from the local Dublin hub. That’s really exciting.”
This is a view which should be shared by the marketing industry generally, he believes, and this prompted the partnership with Irish Times Media Solutions. “The US and the UK tend to be quite a bit ahead of Ireland when it comes to marketing trends,” he notes. “These trends usually arrive here as a result of a global campaign being run from overseas. We believe the Irish marketing community should move ahead of that and bring in the best of what’s happening globally whenever it is appropriate.”
An Irish perspective
The content series will see marketing experts from around the world looking to analyse those trends from an Irish perspective. “Every market is different,” says Winterlich. “What you can do with data in the US is very different to what you can do in Ireland or Europe. The UK and the US can be ahead of us by as much as 18 to 24 months when it comes to new trends and techniques. The series will look at global issues and put an Irish lens on them.
One of the problems faced by marketing is the unconscious bias among many media planners in the industry
“We will ask what Irish brands should be thinking about,” he continues. “Take voice search, for example. Lots of brands in the US are using it at the moment but if I am an Irish marketeer I want to know if it’s a fad. What relevance does it have to me? Is it in the UK yet? How is it working there? That’s just one topic. We want to deliver a series of intelligent, thought-provoking articles which will give the Irish marketing industry valuable insights into what is happening globally.”
The Irish Times was chosen for the partnership because of its strength as a media brand. “One of the problems faced by marketing is the unconscious bias among many media planners in the industry,” Winterlich notes. “They can ignore established great brands like RTÉ and The Irish Times while focusing on other, younger brands which probably deliver far smaller audiences. We wanted a partner which is relevant to the industry and which could become a place for marketing professionals to go to find what they need to stay abreast of the latest developments, so we chose The Irish Times.”
A range of topics
The series, which has already commenced, will focus on a range of topics of interest to Irish marketing professionals. “It’s not going to be me or other people from Dentsu Aegis giving their points of view on these topics,” he adds. “The series will feature subject matter experts with deep knowledge on various aspects of current marketing practice. We will have contributors from Ireland and overseas who will discuss a broad range of topics such as the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in marketing, the future of publishing, and the need to move beyond data acquisition to value-creation.”
Another key topic is brand building. “There is a lack of investment in brands at the moment and we are seeing a race to the bottom in performance advertising. Esports is a really fascinating area; people are playing computer games for a living now. We will look at consultancies and agencies and ask ‘what’s the difference?’ and why you need them anyway. The great advantage of being part of a global network is that we get access to world-class experts and we are leveraging this for the benefit of the Irish marketing industry through this partnership with The Irish Times Media Solutions Team.”
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