Advertising is More Exciting than It Has Ever Been
The changes in the industry are definitely interesting, challenging and scary to a lot of people. I personally think advertising is more exciting than it has ever been. What we are able to do today and how we are able to communicate with our consumers is mind-blowing and this means the industry requires a completely new kind of agency model.
That is why we run République like a start-up. We provide our team with all the tools possible and see what they can come up with - literally asking them to spend time experimenting with film, animation, code and games. It’s all about creating engaging content that our consumer can interact with. We don’t believe in hard sell. If people like your brand, they will spend time with it; but if they feel that you’re constantly trying to sell them something, they will simply look the other way.
In order to stay ahead, République offers services that would’ve usually been outsourced. We develop all content inhouse because news and communication today is fast paced and so should brand response be to this. We’ve also spent a lot of time mastering our User Experience/ User Interface capabilities. Again, most engagements are happening online today, which means we need to be able to create the most beautiful brand experiences, quickly, without ever looking outside.
The biggest challenge we are facing today is talent. Technology and trends are changing faster than ever and universities aren’t able to keep up. I find the best talent to be self-taught and unfortunately there’s not much out there. The mass exodus of talent is still happening and the Lebanese brain drain is real, so it’s our duty as an industry to give the youth hope that Lebanon is still an exciting place to work and grow.
Technology and trends are changing faster than ever and universities aren’t able
to keep up.