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There's nothing like a crisis to force people to pivot and change: the world of travel, luxury and entertainment
168 Plays1 year ago
We'll break the rules because we're rule breakers
20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE:
It was one of those things where I've always believed that you need to look inside yourself and figure out will you regret saying no to this one. And this was just one of those ones where I said yeah, this one is something I have to do.
Global marketing director for De Beers diamond jewellers, an LVMH company, an amazing kind of training ground, because if anyone knows how to do luxury branding and marketing, it's LVMH.
Going into the hotel industry, I thought, oh you know, I stay in hotels all the time I totally know what goes on. But no, mornings I was with housekeeping, I was with banqueting, I was with kitchens, I was with stewarding, all these functions I didn't even know existed in a hotel. In the afternoon I did my job but, so it was a bit of a hotel school in six months that I got to do.
As Hong Kong started selling out of masks, I decided to go to New Zealand on the beginning of my sabbatical year. The sabbatical year didn't turn out exactly as I thought it was going to be, so I quickly kind of hurried back to Hong Kong as the pandemic expended around the world.
It was 20 jobs in 9 years for me.
If you want to make change, you have to figure out how the actual organization is structured.
I actually took a step backwards role-wise, but it felt like the right thing to do, because it felt like a really smart humble group of people, that were trying to do things really differently. And that began my almost 9 year journey at Netflix.
The way we live, the way we work is fundamentally different now, so I think retirement is now or never.
ON TOPIC: The world of travel and entertainment
If you look at travel and entertainment, we've gone through a boom and a bust exactly in inverse order.
The world of travel and entertainment do mix very, very well together, as evidenced by the White Lotus, and how everyone's obsessed by it.
The intersectionality of opening people's minds, whether it's via travel or telling stories from around the world and really, I think, Netflix allowed people to travel when they couldn't.
The thing right now is that everything changes so quickly and believe me, actually the hotel industry in general is not one for fast changes.
Every trend inspires a countertrend and so we will soon crave human contact and we will soon crave personality and senses of humor.
ON TOPIC: Entertainment, Netflix, AI and more
What's been so much fun about Netflix was just the tech forward mindset of it.
Netflix had been one of the early pioneers of pivoting and changing and starting new formats.
We pivoted probably every six months and with that came a reorg probably at least once a year, if not more and figuring out what skill set do we need from our team.
Netflix has been using AI since we started the service. All it did was that was what gave you the recommendations and it's a learning engine.
In some ways the future is the past
ON TOPIC: Marketing and branding with a capital B
I think everything that a company does is marketing and branding, right?
This advent of CMO to CEO starting to pick up speed is pretty prevalent
There's also a very kind of numbers and data-oriented nature in marketing. Being a very data-driven marketeer has served us both very, very well
Authenticity is never a bad value to have
References, mentions:
American express, LVMH, Peninsula, Rosewood hotel and resorts, Michelle Goss, Levi's, Starbucks, GAP, Vodaphone, Netflix, Mr Beast, Kim Kardashian, Anna Karenina (LeoTolstoy), The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Charlie Mackesy), Enlightenment Now (Steve Pinker), Tim Cook, Apple, Taylor Swift
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Republic of Insiat, the 20 years later O3D podcast edition. I am Milena Ivanova and will be your host in this limited series. So, here we are, 20 years later, hopefully all the wiser, naturally smarter and as charming as ever. There were 432 of us in the O3D vintage.
00:00:25
Speaker
And certainly there are 432 unique and very interesting personal and professional stories to tell. While I cannot physically cover all, I have tried to make a selection of stories that will keep you interested and curious and will hopefully convince you to join us on campus for reunion. Welcome to the Republic of Insead Podcast Edition and enjoy the show.
Introducing the Guests
00:00:50
Speaker
Hello, people.
00:00:52
Speaker
I figure the format here may be becoming a bit predictable, so today we'll mix things up a bit. I have a surprise and it comes in twos. Well, I figure summer is finally upon those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, and we may just as well pay a bit more attention to the travel and entertainment side of why. So, shall we?
00:01:16
Speaker
And since by now you're too used to me quoting from the yearbook, I'm changing tack. My guests today are a she and a he. And may I ask him to start by reading out her 20-year-old entry in the yearbook, please.
00:01:34
Speaker
With pleasure, Melina. Always impeccably dressed and with a witty comeback and a well-elaborated or downright long opinion to share with her class, few can match this tall, blonde, beauty-style elegance, intelligence, and poise.
00:01:51
Speaker
She is known for setting new records and running marathons and deceiving innocent Septembers as a Renaissance woman. But her true strengths have shown themselves in the fostering of cross-border relations, forming a Canadian Swiss-Italian union within weeks of arriving in Fonty, and now looking to set up residence in tax havens such as Monaco to leverage her newly-homed skills from her MBA and her advertising background. Yeah, right.
00:02:19
Speaker
It has truly proven to be a productive year for this international woman of mystery. Her constant grace and wisdom in moments of stress and crisis provide a haven for the likes of us who have been lucky enough to get to know her. Here we go, and now the Renaissance woman, may I ask you to please read his entry?
00:02:42
Speaker
I love that. I hadn't heard that for a very long time. My guest here, I don't think will be a hard one to guess, but here's, here we go. He's sophisticated, stylish, and at the heart of the INSEAD social set. But don't be fooled by the poster boy image. This man about town is a dean's favorite.
00:03:03
Speaker
At the center of every party, he is the quintessential social rep. With his New York attitude, this Canadian hunger is truly connected with access to holiday homes around the globe, from Marrakech to Mezhev. It is thought he supports his jet-setting lifestyle, partly through creative management of the E6 candy budget.
00:03:24
Speaker
One of life's little mysteries is how he manages to get top grades, party up a storm, shop till he drops and travel the globe while never forgetting his friends. The instigator of many section pranks, it is thanks to the efforts of our remarkably social social rep that ESIX enjoys their party reputation.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yep, and so we were in E6. Welcome to both of you. Very happy to have you. And if people haven't yet figured it out, I'm sure they will be figuring it out very soon, who my guests are. Great pleasure. I must say the Hong Konger is currently in Europe, which made it easier for us because otherwise it was Hong Kong, Europe, LA. And that was a bit of a, yeah, causing a bit of a logistical jam. So there you go.
00:04:15
Speaker
Let me shut up and let them speak and tell us where they've been the last 20 years and what they've been up to, whoever likes to start. Let the man a mystery start, shall we?
Career Journeys and Transitions
00:04:28
Speaker
The man is not so much a mystery, but no, after having graduated INSEAD,
00:04:33
Speaker
I followed the very traditional path, corporate path of joining American Express in their strategic planning group, which is the bootcamp for former management consultants, which began actually my career in marketing, which is something that I wanted to get into post in SEAD. So upon leaving the strategic planning group, I joined the operational businesses at Amex
00:05:01
Speaker
managing the Centurion Platinum and Gold card portfolios for them internationally, which was the beginning of my kind of marketing career, and doing kind of real work, as opposed to being a management consultant, no, no one says to the management consultants listening. But having after after working at Amex for about three, three and a half years, I joined the
00:05:24
Speaker
glamorous world of real estate development with the Candy Brothers in London for my sins. And after having worked in real estate for a couple of years, realized that it probably wasn't my cup of tea because it's quite a kind of doggy dog industry, but was lucky enough to then
00:05:46
Speaker
be taken in as the global marketing director for De Beers Diamond Jewelers, which is an LVMH company, which was really an amazing kind of trading ground because if anyone knows how to do luxury branding and marketing, it's LVMH.
00:06:03
Speaker
So did that for about three years in London, but spending every month pretty much flying to Asia, be it Hong Kong, be it Tokyo, be it China, because in the 2009, 2010 period, the heart of the luxury industry was really happening in Asia.
00:06:28
Speaker
So after having racked up many, many miles crossing from Europe to Asia, I decided to do something that I didn't think I wanted to do, which was move back to Asia. So with that in mind, I was lucky enough to have gotten a job
00:06:47
Speaker
with Peninsula hotels in Asia. And having not had any hotel experience, I was very, very fortunate that the COO took a chance on me and decided to give me a chance to work in the hotel industry.
00:07:05
Speaker
First, actually, he made me work in a hotel for nine months, where I was the head of marketing for one of their new hotel in Shanghai. So I got a chance to live and work in China. But more importantly, I got to learn all about the hotel business from the inside of a hotel. And when I first joined it, when I first was going into the hotel industry, I thought, oh, I stay in hotels all the time. I totally know what goes on.
00:07:34
Speaker
But no. Mornings, I was with housekeeping, I was with banqueting, I was with kitchens, I was with stewarding, all these functions I didn't even know existed in a hotel. In the afternoon, I did my job. But so it was a bit of a hotel school in, you know,
00:07:55
Speaker
in six months that I got to do. But luckily, after six to eight months inside the hotel, he brought me back to the home office in Hong Kong, where I then took over the global marketing function for that hotel group and worked there for six years, which was really one of the best experiences ever working with a kind of
00:08:23
Speaker
really well known heritage brand and being able to kind of expand them into Europe, being able to modernize them. But the one thing with Peninsula is that they work, you know, the most dynamic and most kind of fast growing companies out there. You know, they're finally opening the hotels that I announced six years ago. So after six years with Peninsula, I
00:08:48
Speaker
was lucky enough to join Rosewood Hotel and Resorts, which was another Hong Kong-based hotel group. And at that time, they were at the beginning of their journey to take over the world, led by a 38-year-old woman, brilliant leader, albeit with a billion dollars behind her.
00:09:14
Speaker
But we took that brand really from quite a small niche brand, well known in the US, but not very well in Asia. But in two years, we opened, I think, 15 hotels, which is double, almost increasing their footprint by about 50%, which was an amazing experience because it really was, and they really are kind of the brand of the moment. And we had to do kind of everything to really set them up both in Asia and around the world.
00:09:44
Speaker
But as these things go, it really did take a toll on me working 90 hour weeks for two, two and a half years straight to took a toll on me. And then actually I made a very kind of bold and in retrospect wise decision to resign at the end of 2019 actually. And my last day was end of January, 2020.
00:10:12
Speaker
Which if you think back, was very good timing. So literally as Hong Kong started selling out of masks,
00:10:21
Speaker
I decided to go to New Zealand on the beginning of my sabbatical year. The sabbatical year didn't turn out exactly as I thought it was going to be. So I quickly kind of hurried back to Hong Kong as the pandemic spread around the world. And in the last kind of three years, I have actually set up a small
00:10:43
Speaker
kind of branding and marketing consultancy, you know, and also working on various kind of nonprofit and pro bono work, which has been kind of my journey to date. Great. And how about she? What a story to follow. So leaving NCIAD on my side, I had, you know, all these expectations that the NCIAD connection would help me find, you know, the job at LVMH or, you know, something.
00:11:12
Speaker
And unfortunately, that wasn't my case, but I was able to land a job back in the UK at Vodafone in the group Global Function, which ended up being far more creative than I actually thought it would be. And I had some great opportunities, including spending some time in Tokyo integrating what we had bought JPhone, so integrating that into the Vodafone.
00:11:38
Speaker
So stable but it was really a brand and customer experience role but being in group one of the learnings i learn early on there was you really have to if you want to make change you have to figure out how the actual organization is structured and the group was what was not where the power set for a phone.
00:12:03
Speaker
So after two years, I realized that wasn't really what I wanted to do. And I was lucky enough. My former client at Nike was running Gap EMEA and called me up and said, hey, I know you've always wanted to get into fashion. How about coming and doing the job of actually
00:12:20
Speaker
developing the new strategy for Gap in Europe, where we are actually bringing in a design team to design for the Gap. We want to redo the stores, redo the whole brand in Europe.
00:12:35
Speaker
And that was a fantastic opportunity. Again, very disruptor, a little bit under the radar from the big US team. And actually, we started getting people across the globe in Asia and other places to try to actually, in New York, to buy off the European line, which was really fun and work with some amazing creatives there.
00:12:56
Speaker
But retail being as it is, the margins are pretty thin. And they decided after a couple of years that it was time to bring the design back to the US and offered me a role there. But I wasn't ready to go to the US. So I started looking again. And there was an interim position in Sydney where, again, there was an upcoming merger between Vodafone and the brand 3.
00:13:26
Speaker
So they needed someone to be a general manager for the brand and try and integrate those two companies over there. So I went over to Sydney less than a year and actually realized the real fun of Vodafone was being in the operating companies at a local level. So when I was offered a role to go and run brand marketing for the UK, I took that, moved back to London again.
00:13:51
Speaker
And there's a little bit of a story there. I've actually counted. Milena asked us to count how many countries and addresses we had. So we'll get to that one. So it came back to the UK, ran all of marketing there, reporting into a fantastic CEO, and had a brilliant time until the moment where I was
00:14:15
Speaker
in a Starbucks getting my morning coffee and met this amazing woman who was the then president of Starbucks EMEA. And we ended up having this amazing sort of connection conversation about
00:14:31
Speaker
what they're trying to do for starbucks across amia and would i come and be her cmo and it was one of those things where i'm i've always believed that you need to look inside yourself and figure out will you regret saying no to this one and this was just one of those ones where i said yeah i'm this one is something i have to do and had a brilliant time there. Working with this one michelle goss is now CEO of levis.
00:15:00
Speaker
But she was a real innovator as well. And I don't know if they're still doing it across EMEA, but I came up with this idea of having a seasonal espresso because, in my opinion, it was really hideous to drink the Starbucks espresso, so the whole seasonality of different coffees. And so launched that across EMEA, worked on the opening of drive-throughs and stores in Riyadh, the first store in Oslo,
00:15:30
Speaker
having some real fun doing all of that. And it was February of 2014 and my husband was then running sales for Microsoft in the UK and he got the offer to go over to LA to run the West Coast sales team for Microsoft. And for those of you who spent winters in Europe, you know,
00:15:54
Speaker
And the son of LA calls, it was a pretty hard one to say no to. I was also at the time commuting between London and Amsterdam, which was where my job ended up moving to at Starbucks. And that, for those of you who have done those commutes, it's pretty hard. After about a year, you start to sort of, I actually still am nauseous at the smell of Schipol because I was there at sort of 7 a.m. on Mondays, you know, getting my flights.
00:16:23
Speaker
Anyway, so we decided we'd move to LA. He was very worried I would spend my time doing yoga on the beach and not really working. And he knows that when I'm not working, I'm not a lot of fun. I have far too much energy and points of view as we talked about before.
00:16:44
Speaker
And so I was updating my LinkedIn profile and a little bug of Netflix came up and I thought, I'll apply there. Why not? Sounds like an interesting mix of tech with entertainment and I've always loved entertainment.
00:16:59
Speaker
And lo and behold, got a call. So I actually took a step backwards, role-wise, but it felt like the right thing to do because it felt like a really smart, humble group of people that were trying to do things really differently. And that began my almost nine-year journey at Netflix that, again, started in LA doing more of a global role, figuring out expansion at the time.
00:17:29
Speaker
2,000 people at the company. Fast forward, I left last summer and we were 12,000 people. EMEA, after doing LA for a bit, they realized, hey, this person has a lot of EMEA experience and the EMEA territory is going to be huge for us. We're going to start
00:17:53
Speaker
developing content over there, and we need someone who actually knows that they do speak Italian in Switzerland, despite what some of the engineers in Los Garros seem to believe. So Reed Hastings, our CEO, asked me if I would move back to Amsterdam, which my husband cried when he heard he after
00:18:18
Speaker
If any of you know my husband, you'll know sort of he's a he's a Londoner. And within three months of living in L.A., he started saying dude, which was really quite funny. Driving a big SUV around town. But anyway, so he he cried. He did not want to go back to Europe, but it was one of those opportunities again. We knew we would regret. So we went back there. I ran EMEA over there. I was the sort of de facto general manager for Netflix EMEA.
00:18:45
Speaker
and grew revenue there, opened up across EMEA, grew revenue six-fold. And by the time I left, we were a $10 billion revenue business just in EMEA. And we caught up subscription-wise to the US, which was a point of much, you know, celebration on our end, given, you know, the centricity sometimes of Hollywood entertainment.
00:19:12
Speaker
And also, you know, created content from across EMEA, which was a global platform for people to learn about the cultures and actually get a little bit of education too, which was something that helped me get out of bed every morning and give the, you know, high performance that was expected was just the level of opening people's minds.
00:19:33
Speaker
that Netflix has had the ability to do. Anyway, and then, yeah, went from Amsterdam, convinced management that actually I should spend some time in some of our smaller offices, so managed to get them to move me to Rome.
00:19:47
Speaker
So I spent the last two years in Rome, the start of which were in pandemic, which was also interesting, but definitely some upside of being able to see some of the beauty of Rome without all the tourists. And then I decided the journey was coming to an end. I really wanted to come back to LA.
00:20:09
Speaker
from a lifestyle perspective, as did my husband. So we left Netflix last summer, moved to LA, and I am now looking at my next journey and doing some advising, but basically a lot of networking. There you go. So now everyone knows why we want to talk about entertainment and marketing and travel, and they're all topics that are very suitable to the summer.
00:20:36
Speaker
Let's talk travel and entertainment first and then marketing. So whoever wants to start with the future or the recent trends in your chosen industry or field there.
Impact of COVID-19 on Industries
00:20:51
Speaker
It's actually quite funny actually, because if you look at travel and entertainment, we've gone through a boom and a bust exactly in the inverse order, right? During COVID,
00:21:05
Speaker
No one wanted to be in a hotel company or in the world of travel. We had a world of pain, and I was patting myself on the back for getting out of it. And of course, the world of entertainment was everyone's saving grace and saved us for many hours of boredom and quarantine.
00:21:36
Speaker
Of course, now that the world is open again, you know, the travel companies and the world of travel is booming and it's going crazy. Not exactly the way it was before, but so it's quite interesting, actually, the counter-cyclicality of our two industries.
00:21:56
Speaker
But I do think that on a steady state, I think these worlds coexist very, very well together. And I was actually remembering harassing my co-guest, who shall remain nameless for now. I would say, hey, we need to partner. We need to do something together. Because I think the world of
00:22:24
Speaker
you know, travel and entertainment to mix very, very well together as evidenced by the white lotus, right, and how everyone was inspired. I think the four seasons, Tarimina has been booked up for a year and a half out just with American guests. They stole our idea.
00:22:42
Speaker
I was there like right after they filmed but luckily before it had aired and I do recommend Tarmena is unbelievable as a place to go visit as is all of Sicily. Yeah the interesting thing as well as my co-host was mentioning is the
00:23:03
Speaker
We had to figure out, because it was great for watching as a consumer, but we still had to figure out, you know, how do we, for things that we had already filmed, how do we go into dubbing?
00:23:15
Speaker
where we're actually asking people again to come into a studio in the past and actually dub over for all the different languages we have available on Netflix and figuring out how to set that up at home for the talent that was doing all the dubbing and figuring that out was so much fun, just having the opportunity as everything else was really quite hideous going on in the world, but trying to understand how the technology could support this.
00:23:43
Speaker
And I think that's been what's so much fun about Netflix was just the tech forward mindset of it. And same thing for the filming of it, because it would have been fine to have all the stuff that had already been filmed, but there could have been a real gap in what was available.
00:23:59
Speaker
So figuring that out. But as we're saying, the intersectionality of opening people's minds, whether it's via travel or telling stories from around the world and really
00:24:14
Speaker
I think Netflix allowed people to travel when they couldn't and We heard so much from people saying like thank goodness, you know that we had that option It did also mean that our stock price went up quite high and because people just didn't expect us to be able to be able to do that and I would say the other the other trend at least that we've been seeing which is interesting is going from you know, the the flat screen to
00:24:43
Speaker
where entertainment is going as far as gaming.
00:24:48
Speaker
and the truly immersive piece, which I think all of the big players are figuring out and getting into gaming because, again, at some point, those are going to be far closer than they currently are, and IP rights. And then you've got the whole area of sports. How does streaming and sports rights go together? How do you make that economically worthwhile? So it's a super interesting space to be in.
00:25:17
Speaker
And certainly sitting here in the US, there are far too many streaming platforms out there. And I think from a consumer perspective, it's going to be very interesting to watch how that plays out, because I think people just don't.
00:25:31
Speaker
Consumers at the end of the day are lazy, and they don't want so much choice out there. So I think it will be interesting to see what happens. I was going to say that there's nothing like a crisis to force people to pivot and change. And I think we in the travel industry have had to do that during the pandemic. All of a sudden, we're like, OK, forget traveling. Stay cations, everybody.
00:25:54
Speaker
And of course, while everyone was working from home, you had a whole new generation of digital professional nomads that were born. And then the world of business travel took on a whole different meaning because you're actually going for months. And so hotel companies have managed to actually pivot quickly and managed to react to
00:26:22
Speaker
you know, changing lifestyles in the changing, you know, world were the ones who were successful. Right. And of course, the thing right now is that everything changes so quickly. And believe me, actually, the hotel industry in general is not one for fast changes. Right. They are, you know, they like things organized, they like things proper and prepared. So, you know, so it's it's interesting kind of what this current crisis with the world of
00:26:52
Speaker
with the world entertainment, what that will force, what changes that will force in those companies that will end up being successful. And obviously, Netflix had been one of the early pioneers of pivoting and changing and starting new formats.
00:27:08
Speaker
I'd say we pivoted probably every six months. And with that came a re-ort probably at least once a year, if not more, and figuring out, OK, so what skill set do we need from our team now? And it was fascinating. I mean, it was 20 jobs in nine years for me. But as you say, it does exhaust. And I'm really enjoying the little bit of a downtime now
00:27:37
Speaker
and just sort of detox time.
AI in Entertainment and Hospitality
00:27:40
Speaker
So if I may, a question to each of you, on the entertainment side, AI and the whole, how is this changing? Obviously now we still have the strike of the screenwriters and then art is gonna be on strike, et cetera, et cetera. So what is happening there in fact? And are we gonna be seeing films that are, or content that's totally,
00:28:05
Speaker
AI creators. So I mean, there's right. I mean, again, I wouldn't like we have some you had some amazing guests on here. And I think someone like Ollie is probably far more skilled at talking about, you know, AI than I ever could be.
00:28:20
Speaker
But there's generative AI, and then there's AI. And Netflix has been using AI for since we started the service. All it did was that was what gave you the recommendations, and it's a learning engine to do that. So this hype on chat GPT, et cetera, is much more around generative AI than AI, because AI has been around for a while. And I love the insights from some of your previous podcasts around it.
00:28:48
Speaker
what that means for biotech and all of that, because, you know, there is a lot of hype out there. So I would say that that on the side and in marketing, even there was a time, I think it was about two, three years ago, where where they did an AI generated car ad, right? And it was all the Oh, it's going to be replaced and all a norm of that. And I think, again, you know, there were, I think people said the same about TV about cars about everything, you know, their
00:29:17
Speaker
There may be some functions that change and actually just get better because of some of the sort of work that is not so intelligence-based, but is more pattern or repetitive. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to do that work anyway. But I come from a place of privilege on the things that I'm doing. So I can only speak from that side, that perspective.
00:29:46
Speaker
no i totally agree on travel what i was told by a friend who's been running hotels for the last 30 years is that the future of hotels is there will be two types of hotels once with people and once without people as you enter you help yourself yeah so where do you what do you see there or what
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's definitely, you know, the beginnings and actually you see that a lot in China, the, you know, the personless hotel, right? The ones that are where you have a robot cleaning your room, you do self checking, you know, obviously the other commonality we have, you know, in on this podcast is we're also kind of, you know, they started as the future of Luxury, right? We wanted to talk about that. So
00:30:33
Speaker
That's not the world I'm in. So people can, yes, there will be those who are the self-service hotels. And I think both AI also robotics and all of that will make
00:30:49
Speaker
One kind of travel more More easy, but I think actually it will every trend inspires a counter trend I believe and so we will soon crave human contact and we will soon crave you know personality and senses of humor and and
00:31:09
Speaker
If you think about your best holidays, what do you remember? Now, you don't remember actually the robot cleaning a room really well, right? And you remember, you know, the concierge giving you that really, you know, insightful, thoughtful kind of insider recommendation for that jewelry store around the corner in Taormina, right? You remember a person cooking you a, you know, a delicious plate of pasta, right?
00:31:36
Speaker
And I think actually in the world of travel, you know, AI in some ways will make a big impact, but in some ways actually will, especially at the higher end, make, you know, not actually make that much of a difference. I don't think, you know, marketeers have necessarily that much to worry about.
00:31:58
Speaker
because you still need someone with a point of view, someone that can connect the dots, someone that can develop a 360 kind of campaign to bring it all together.
00:32:11
Speaker
And I would add like marketing has actually already gone through a massive change with media buying as an example, right? So programmatic, there used to be a time where you'd segment your audiences, you'd figure out what you're going to spend on each audience, you'd go out, figure out where those platforms were, those hard media were.
00:32:32
Speaker
Whereas, you know, AI changed everything, and that was, I mean, at least Netflix eight years plus ago, seven years, where we started, you know, you actually decide what your cost per acquisition is, and then you start going and figuring out the next best acquisition. And segmentation was really important from a positioning perspective, but not necessarily on the media buying, right? And Facebook changed a lot of that.
00:33:00
Speaker
made it super easy to do that based on, you know, campaign metrics that you're going after. And we got to the point where we actually didn't even ring fence country budgets for the programmatic, you know, acquisition part of it. And we had a global budget and it would just crawl around and be like, okay, where are we going to find the next best acquisition for it? But you still need people sitting there deciding what you're optimizing on, what your priorities are.
00:33:28
Speaker
you know, where actually are you going to, you know, what is what, what is Netflix going to be famous for in Saudi versus in Norway? Right. And those aren't the same thing because people aren't the same and their tastes are not the same either. So marketing, marketing, marketing, let's talk marketing fan and branding.
Marketing Strategies and Evolution
00:33:50
Speaker
What would be the top three learnings for each of you on marketing? And ultimately, what makes a great marketeer if I may use this effect? You want me to go first, give you a little thinking time, my friend? Go ahead. I always listen to you anyways. You're my marketing guru. So yes, please go ahead. And I probably would be a little controversial, which is, I think, well, everything that a company does is marketing and branding.
00:34:22
Speaker
This advent of CMO to CEO starting to pick up speed is pretty prevalent because I think people who are trained in the marketing world also understand how important customer experience is. I used to joke that I said I would give my marketing budget to the customer service team because there's nothing worse than getting someone to like your brand, love your brand, come in and then have a really shit customer experience. It's going to cost three times.
00:34:42
Speaker
Right? And so. Hallelujah.
00:34:52
Speaker
more to get them back after they have that, or more, or they'll never come back. So I'd say that sort of first and foremost, and certainly doing more of a gym kind of role for Netflix. True, you know, across the board, there's internal brand experience, there's external brand experience, you got to keep your employees super, you know, tapped into what the vision is and all of that. And that's all at the end of the day, that's branding and marketing. But again, I am biased, of course,
00:35:22
Speaker
What else I would say, uh, something that my co-guess mentioned before, uh, I think it's absolutely true, which is word of mouth recommendations. No matter how much, you know, push marketing you get out there having someone, you know, or someone you trust recommend is worth more than the weight of gold. So something that I've held true over the years is, you know, always earn before you buy.
00:35:48
Speaker
So get as many sort of recommendations, however, and that's obviously the advent of influencer marketing and everything else, which also is often bought, but true, you know, true earn media, whether through PR or other words, I'd say is always your first
00:36:05
Speaker
point of call before you start buying impressions. And third, I would say the further upstream that you can get to influence, whether, you know, in the form of a CEO or influencing people. And I think, you know, there's there's also a rise of wanting people who have branding and marketing experience on boards, whereas it used to be a lot of, you know, finance and tech. People understand that slightly more
00:36:35
Speaker
360 view of stuff, not that IT and finance don't, but there is something about as, as my guest mentioned, you know, being in the trenches, and somehow, marketing always ends up taking all the other stuff, you know, and you end up doing it. So I think that those would be my three. I'm sure I'll think of more later, and I'll ping Milena on them. Yeah.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, so I think I completely agree with what my co-guess was saying. And don't forget, I also live in Asia. I've been working and living in Asia for the last 10 years. So, you know, the view of marketing and branding is even further behind than the rest of the world. So, you know, what marketing and branding isn't, let me start with it, is not advertising, just is not brochures. It's not logos.
00:37:32
Speaker
It is exactly as my co-guess was saying, it is actually everything. And I think that was what I enjoyed about my Royal Peninsula so much because we owned all the hotels. So it was everything from what we were communicating down to what the customer experience on property. And I think
00:37:53
Speaker
You know, and I do, and I, yeah, we are very biased, but I do think, you know, brand, like with Big B is everything, right? It is the complete kind of, you know, it's all the interactions that a consumer has with, with, with your organization, right?
00:38:08
Speaker
And it's not just the ads, it's not just what you say above the line, it's also how they experience it, what they feel. And I think, especially in the US and in Europe, I think companies are beginning to realize that and it's slowly coming across in Asia. And I think I was very lucky in that Rosewood, I think Sonia really believed also in the brand. And I think the all-encompassing nature of marketing and branding really is
00:38:38
Speaker
I think there's also a, you know, I think there is also a very kind of numbers and data oriented nature in marketing a lot of people think it's just kind of fluffy, you know,
00:38:52
Speaker
billboards that no one can measure, but actually, you know, being a very data-driven marketeer has served both, you know, my co-guess and me very, very well, right? Because there are hard numbers, even for PR, right? Even for, you know, social, which are things that don't necessarily traditionally get thought of as, you know, being very serious, you know, you know, have a measurable bottom line, right? And I think
00:39:18
Speaker
And I think more and more people are realizing that. And I think as more kind of our lives get more digital and more online or on mobile, it's very easy to see. And I think people are now starting also, I think the key to kind of
00:39:37
Speaker
great marketing. It's actually a very basic concept. It's really about customer centricity. And as fancy as you want to get, you always just need to think about your consumer and your customer. And how are they going to react? What are their lives?
00:39:58
Speaker
How are they going to consume the information you're trying to communicate to them? How are they going to consume your product or your service? And I think the best companies, the best brands really are those that kind of keep this in mind. There's a lot of times we talk to consumers the way we think about our company or what we're doing. We don't actually think about
00:40:23
Speaker
We don't talk to them the way they're going to take that information or what context they're in. So I think, you know, in some ways, the future is the past. And I think, you know, we're all kind of craving kind of someone to really talk to us like individuals, right? Who, you know. So with a sense of humor. Exactly. Seriously.
00:40:49
Speaker
Absolutely. Two questions there. Influence on marketing. Is it for real? Is it here to stay? I hate it. It evolves, right? It defines. People get smarter. They learn what's sponsored, what's not. There are
00:41:08
Speaker
more and more regulation around the need to actually disclose things that are actually sponsored posts that they're getting paid for. We had a lot of debates on do you ever, you know, early days, do you actually ever pay for influencers? But look at, look at Mr. Beast. It's real, right? There are there are eyeballs to be captured. But again, you know, there's no one size fits all for anything and everything evolves.
00:41:39
Speaker
And so just being, making sure you're understanding how that is evolving, I think is key to a marketer or someone running a company is understanding where's, where does that actually help? And where actually the newest advent, right? Is, is influencers who turn on products or services and, you know, that's, that's real as well.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's always important, going back to this consumer-centricity point, is also respecting your consumer. They're not dumb. And I think authenticity is never a bad value to have. So I think, especially in luxury,
00:42:27
Speaker
In early days, I would say we never paid for influencers. We would sponsor, we would provide things for free, which is obviously not necessarily paid, but we also made sure that you select the influencers that really had a
00:42:46
Speaker
an authentic connection with the brand, right? And not just because they had a gazillion followers, right? So, you know, I remember Kim Kardashian wanted to kind of us to host her party. We're like, no, thanks. But then she ended up coming anyway. So it was great. So it was kind of, you know,
00:43:05
Speaker
So I think there has to be kind of, you know, it has to be reflective of your brand values, right? But I think it's true. It is changing super quickly, right? And, you know, and now you have, you know, the world of TikTok and you have the world of, you know, so many influencers and micro influencers and nano influencers. It's, it's, it's getting pretty hard to keep track, you know? All right.
00:43:33
Speaker
Do you want to tell us the hotel guy, the hotel expert please? Do you want to tell us the best kept secret of hotels? Oh, the best kept secret of hotels. Don't book through Expedia or OTAs. I think always book direct actually because you probably get as good of a deal and
00:44:01
Speaker
you have more leverage that way to get an upgrade, right? And always actually be nice to the front desk person because they actually can give you an upgrade very, very easily unlike on an airport or give you a call. There you go. All right. So switching gears, switching gears.
00:44:25
Speaker
And we are going to be quick here. We have two people. One of them gives to inside. The other one doesn't. And both of them have a view on why they do things differently. So everyone knows I fundraise since graduation. And I'm passionate about this. But of course, in my fundraising, I often get the other argument of why not, because there are so many other causes out there and so many problems in the world. Fully agree.
00:44:52
Speaker
So why do you give? Why do you not give?
Giving Back and Philanthropy
00:44:55
Speaker
In one minute please. I'll start with why do I give? I think, you know, to be fair, I haven't given that much, right? And I think in how much insight has contributed to my life, not necessarily my professional life, but definitely my life, but in terms of friends and connections, you know, I want to be able to make sure that, you know, the next generation has
00:45:20
Speaker
has the access and can benefit from it. I also actually recently have started to give, not necessarily monetarily, but contributing more in services and what I can do, right? So I last couple of, you know, so I've actually talked to some of the INSEAD Singapore people to see if I can help give lectures because I actually, to be honest, like INSEAD shit at marketing.
00:45:45
Speaker
end up marketing curriculum is not great, right? So to offer some actual real, you know, lived and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and worked experience might be actually helpful for those who want to go into marketing after NCI because what I learned at NCI didn't really help me in my marketing career.
00:46:09
Speaker
But also I think actually contributing your functional expertise to any kind of philanthropic endeavor is good. And I've done that actually a lot in the last three years, not just in said, but to other organizations as well.
00:46:28
Speaker
I like that, thank you. And the opposing view? And I would say it's opposing, it's just prioritization, right? And I think, for me, you know, unfortunately, I haven't found the right IPO startup to make the decision. So maybe I'd come from a different perspective if I were in that
00:46:48
Speaker
situation. But I'm a huge sort of advocate on animal rights and they don't have a voice. And so for me, any extra, I've been spending a lot of time with both with time and any sort of extra cash at helping out trying to educate, trying to save, you know, trying to
00:47:09
Speaker
correct some of the animal cruelty that's out there. And so that that has been more my priority. I have to say I had a chance to work with Erin Meyer, who is currently she was after us, but she came into and she's a professor of organizational behavior. She wrote a book
00:47:27
Speaker
She co-wrote a book with Reed Hastings, a Netflix CEO. So I worked a bunch with her, which sort of re-wetted my appetite for INSEAD. And recently, I've been doing some of the webcast sessions, and I found that some of those super interesting. Just a note for people who are on the West Coast, they are always at like 1 or 3 AM, and then getting the recording takes forever. So if we could improve that, that would be amazing.
00:47:57
Speaker
But, you know, until I have more cash, then I would definitely, but like my co-guest mentioned, you know, the ability to lecture, share experience, all of that. I really don't think that we've done enough of that at INSEAD. I've gotten
00:48:15
Speaker
more approaches from UC Berkeley over here, you know, the Haas Business School to come and lecture there or UCLA or things like that. And I think there's a real missed opportunity there because I think there's I love Sylvia's, you know, rant about getting more case studies being more real time. I think there's there's a real way we can help.
00:48:39
Speaker
Academia moves at a different speed. I have seen, because I've been watching this the whole 20 years, I have seen some change a lot, but academia moves slow. On the webcast... It doesn't have to though, Milena, is my point. They used to say that about entertainment, didn't they? Yeah.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, on the webcast they now have lifelong learning and they've launched this and in this it should become so I'll add it into one of the newsletters because actually now it's easy, you log in and it's all there. And I started being a heavy user of the webcast during the pandemic
00:49:17
Speaker
And in fact, sometimes when it's super good, I even go and pay 20 euros, 30 euros because I would pay for a lecture, right? If I was doing it externally. So, but in any case, I highly recommend because there are topics, there's always a topic that would be of interest.
00:49:36
Speaker
Not everyone, not each and every topic, but quick round of questions. You want to take turns because otherwise it will become boring. So one answers one, the other one answers the second one. Sure. All right. You're in charge. Proudest achievement. Ladies. Maybe for me. I want that one. We'll break the rules because we're rule breaker. Go on.
00:50:04
Speaker
For me, my proudest achievement is actually having been able to change industries and continents kind of throughout the last 20 years. I think I'm on my third, fourth, that's fourth one, right? And every time being able to kind of parlay that into doing something interesting that enriched my life. I'm going to break the rules and answer that one as well. I'd say my proudest achievement is staying married.
00:50:35
Speaker
with 15 different addresses, seven different countries, you know, my, you know, work schedule, pretty, you know, I'm pretty proud of that. I like that. Successful you is? Being able to enjoy life beyond work. Okay, I see a nod from the other side, so I continue. Happiness is? Probably living in the now.
00:51:03
Speaker
And not sort of thinking too much about the future or the past, but actually appreciating the moment. Biggest regret. Not living in the now. What keeps you awake at night or you sleep well? Coyotes. I live up in the Hollywood Hills. They are real. When I run out of Ambien.
00:51:31
Speaker
Okay, wish you had known or someone had told you earlier. Be patient because you don't have to do everything at the same time now. For me, it's being graceful of the things that are not meant for you and letting go of them. Being graceful and letting go of the things that are not meant for you. If you had to do it all of you. I still haven't heard that yet. A good tip.
00:52:00
Speaker
tattooed on my wrist for a reason. If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
Retirement and Lifelong Impact
00:52:10
Speaker
Probably carrying a little less. I would agree with that and maybe getting my dogs a little bit earlier. Retirement ever, never? Define retirement. Well, I think I think retirement as the traditional
00:52:29
Speaker
way we think about it is something of the past. And I think the way we live, the way we work is fundamentally different now. So I think retirement is now or never. So I think we're always going to be doing something. I think that's just in our natures. And I think you can make an impact even if you don't have a nine to five job.
00:53:00
Speaker
If you had to pick one book, and here I want both of you, which one would you read or recommend? Yeah, which one should we read? Go on. Do you have a favorite? I always read Anna Karenina just because I'm a romantic. But I don't think that's actually what you want to hear. Why not? I have two.
00:53:26
Speaker
My two favorites right now, and I think they're both great from like a humanity and a business, actually gifted all of my direct reports, the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse, which is a Charlie Maxi.
00:53:44
Speaker
book. It's also, he did a short film of it, which is on Apple TV+. Highly recommend. It makes me cry. But it's life lessons on kindness and empathy. And then my second, which is far more cerebral, is Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, which is the case for reason, science, humanism and progress, which is brilliant, but tough to get through because it's very dated.
00:54:12
Speaker
intensive, but it's just a reminder that the world isn't getting worse as much as the geopolitics seem to make us feel that way on a daily hourly basis that actually we are in progress mode. I like it. And I do like Anna Karenina as an example, they do say, and I'm guilty of that because I love reading science and I love reading business books. I don't use enough of literature. And you know, they say for creativity, we need to read more.
00:54:44
Speaker
So it's totally fair game if you ask me. Okay. Most admired public person. I have two this time. Well, I do think Tim Cook is probably one of the most kind of creative, empathetic, visionary, and quiet leaders out there, which I think is, you know, he doesn't really get enough credit for.
00:55:07
Speaker
Uh, and my second person, um, it's not really a joke, but it's Taylor Swift, who I think is awesome. Not just because I have the musical taste of a 14 year old girl, but I do think she is, you know, quite a, an incredible visionary business woman, right? Who's really upended, you know, the music industry and entertainment industry. And it's fucking awesome. Oh, sorry. Can I say that?
00:55:39
Speaker
It's not G-rated. I'll take those. Maybe I'll say more than Taylor for me, but it's probably done more for people. But yeah. All right. Most despised public person. Well, having recently moved back to the US and having left when the then president was there, I mean, I try not to despise people, but that
00:56:07
Speaker
crazy orange man is just, but again, it's not him, you know, it's not Trump, it's people, supporters of it. So, you know, but there's, there's too long a list, unfortunately, right now. But that was going to be my answer as well, right? I think he has single handedly like lowered the tenor of global conversation, not just in the US, it's all the way over to where I am as well. So, yeah.
00:56:35
Speaker
I think that's the third one of your guests who said that. Yeah. OK, and the last one, are you coming to Reunion? Who's coming to Reunion? My kick is Bob. There you go. I'm more seat of the pants. I'm hoping to have a role, focusing on the role. And my deadline is there so that I can get on a plane and come over. But not committing yet. Fingers crossed. I have a spare room for you.
00:57:05
Speaker
All right. I'm going to start with my husband. All right. So listen, I can finally... Mine's not coming. I can finally say these two were Daniel Prick Davis and Rob Chang.
Reveal of Guest Identities
00:57:23
Speaker
And the shocking thing for me... I'm almost giving away twice. That was really, I tried so hard. I think people knew after two seconds.
00:57:35
Speaker
And the best part of this is guys and girls, I keep, I do apologize. And people. Yes. And people is that as I was sending them today, the respective profiles from the yearbook, they told, well, Rob told me, but I wrote the one for Daniel and she wrote mine. So I tell you what, 20 years later. With other people, with other people, with other people. Yes, yes, with other people. But 20 years later, somehow. I think we were putting Rob's, which was really embarrassing.
00:58:04
Speaker
It was Kathy who remembered. She's younger than I am. Credit where credits do. I managed to get them together on a podcast, but it all started 20 years ago and I'm very pleased with that. So thanks so much for making the time and for playing along. And thank you for organizing this, Milena. It's a huge endeavor. You've gotten us so organized and Rob and I were talking about how
00:58:33
Speaker
worried we were to do this one after the first three you've already done because I mean credit to those three they were damn impressive so hopefully we have we've kept somewhat of a good standard on it.
00:58:48
Speaker
Let me thank you on behalf of our class, not just for this, but for everything you do over the last 20 years, you know, of keeping us together, keeping us connected, keeping us inspired and harassing us without being harassing.
00:59:10
Speaker
and doing it with such charm and grace and success. So bravo and thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much. You were listening to the Republic of India 20 years later or 3D podcast edition. It is my hope to remind everyone what an interesting and there I say colorful bunch of people we are and how much we can contribute to each other, be it through ideas, knowledge or mere inspiration.
00:59:39
Speaker
The podcast is inspired by the original Republic of India, the yearbook produced on paper 20 years ago by Oliver Bradley and team. Thank you all and team for this contribution to our classes memory and for letting me continue in the tradition, title and inspiration included. Creator and author of the Republic of India, 20 years later, all three deep podcast edition. Am I Milena Ivanova, original music by Peter Dondaku with help from their films productions.
01:00:08
Speaker
Stay tuned for more and remember to book your tickets for the 20 year reunion in Fontainebleau October 6th, 8th, 2023. Thank you for listening.