Cover Story
A Welcomed Change
Advertising and marketing have been around for a long time. And if you think that prostitution is the oldest business in the world, well Joe Ghossoub, former CEO of Y&R MENA and media giant MENACOM, will tell you otherwise. During 'The Inspiring Passion', the first Symposium on Communication that recently took place at the ALBA university in Beirut, Ghossoub stated that since Adam pitched the apple to Eve, advertising was born.
But what is certain nonetheless, is that advertising has come a long way. Today the entire industry, has been flipped on its head.
Yes, Marketing and Advertising are changing. But we have known that for some time. And yes, the advertising world isn’t what it used to be, but you will see while you go through the pages of this special report, that’s not necessarily a bad thing for most.
True, today there is less money, less time and less adventure than advertising had in its 'golden' days. But it's only because that traditional model of the advertising agency became a casualty of the digital revolution.
The fragmentation of media resulted in fragmentation for the agency world, so there's no shop that's as singularly important as it once was.
"Once upon a time, the advertising agency was the center of the universe for the marketer," said Bill Duggan, exec VP at the Association of National Advertisers. "It was the key partner ... they used to be the keepers of institutional knowledge on an account. There are always peaks and valleys in relationships. Before, clients were more willing to ride out the valleys because they knew that the peak was around the corner. Unfortunately, brands don't value agencies as much as they once did."
True there are more tactics, media and data than ever before. And the delivery on which we see and consume content and advertising has changed.