Sunil Bajaj gives his round-up of the 2017 event.

1. Contagious Now, Next, Why Event 09.05.17
Talk 1: Talking Trust
Presented by Patrick Jeffrey – Head of trends at Contagious
Patrick started by commenting on the fragility of trust, how earning and retaining this connection with
consumers is currently in crisis. In Contagious’ annual Genius Survey they discovered numerous facts
about the mindset of consumers towards trust. Only 15% of people surveyed thought the current
‘system’ was actually working, this combined with the revelation that 74% of people have less trust in
society that ever before means we’ve got a real problem on our hands.
Events such as tax dodging scandals from the Panama Papers, fake news running rampant on social and
Yahoo avoiding to reveal the biggest data breech in history, has caused people to question their trust in
institutions. Fortunately, this trust hasn’t actually disappeared, it has just been redistributed. This trust
has been shifted from institutions to individuals, with vast online reputation networks such as Trip
Advisor and consumer reviews on Amazon being the new hubs for conversations in terms of what is
actually worth purchasing.
77% of US & 68% of UK consumers only buy products from brands that they trust, so how do brands
rise above this and build up a trustworthy reputation? Firstly, brands can focus on their expertise and
reliability, making sure that the product does exactly what it says on the tin, effectively. This is a
component of building trust that really comes down to your R&D, tech, innovation and product teams.
However, the components of purpose, honesty and transparency are very much in the control of us as
advertisers.
Acting with purpose:
A brand’s purpose can be instrumental in making a decision quickly when faced with a particularly
difficult situation. Being a source to draw upon for guidance and direction in how you as a business
approach the issue. Also, a solid purpose is an amazing differentiator when you’re in a highly-
concentrated market with many close competitors. The example of Lyft and Uber works well as two
brands who have completely identical services, but strikingly different beliefs.
o Uber “Make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone”
o Lyft “Our mission is to reconnect people through transportation and bring communities
together”
So earlier this year when Donald Trump’s travel ban on certain immigrants entering the United States
sparked a New York airport taxi drivers boycott at JFK Airport, both of these companies deployed a
strategy that was justified by their brand’s Passionate Purpose. Uber decided to continue picking up
passengers while charging these customers surged pricing to make it more expensive for to use their
service at this time. Meanwhile Lyft stood in solidarity with the taxi drivers and joined the boycott.

2. From this one decision, it caused an outrage from consumers with the hashtag #DeleteUber trending on
social and continued to snowball into a huge knock to the confidence of the brand’s image. However,
this strategic move from Lyft drawn from their connected values resulted in 7% upsurge in customers in
one months following the controversy. The message here is that trust trumps convenience, even when
another company has a first mover advantage.
Transparency:
How do the big four of government, media, business and NGO’s build transparency? This is becoming an
increasingly important component for younger people as they are gravitating towards brands that are
more transparent upfront.
The example given was Oxfam’s mobile app which gives back the control to people who donate. They
have sections on the app where people can see the news stories, live updates and allow people to adjust
their monthly donations to the charity with a sliding bar. Another clothing retailer called Everlane have
imposed a strategy of radical transparency in which all of their clothing is broken down into the cost of
materials, hardware, labor, duties and transport. Then the true cost is presented to the customer
including retail mark up and the estimated cost of what the garment would cost at a traditional retailer.
Essentially what these brands are doing is giving back control to their consumers, in essence, control is
transparency. When people are able to make more educated decisions based on all the facts as they
stand, brands are being rewarded for it.
Honesty:
61% of people surveyed believe that honesty is a key ingredient in building trust. Building this into your
brand is a very tactical way of turning your weeknesses into advantages. Guinness’ slogan of “good
things come to those who wait” and Stella Artois’ “Reassuringly expensive” are quality examples of
turning a trait which commonly be regraded unfavorably and making it into a strength.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) were the investment firm behind this year’s International Women
Days’ campaign ‘Fearless Girl’ which saw a bronze statue of a little girl standing defiantly against the
raging bull of Wall Street. The campaign was used to highlight the lack of women on corporate boards in
America, however SSGA themselves only have 5 women on their board while 23 spots are taken by men.
However, a communicator who describes a weakness early on is instantly seen as more honest. SSGA
brought attention to their own shortcomings to make a poignant point and it has earned them a lot of
praise and respect for it. “Money is the currency of Transactions, honesty is the currency of
interactions”.
Keep honesty, transparency and purpose close to your brand and make sure it’s echoed effectively
within your communications. It may just save your bacon one day.

3. Talk 2: Catching up with culture
Presented by Georgia Malden – Senior Strategist at Contagious
This talk centered around the importance of understanding what the behaviours, values and interests of
your audience, in order to really connect with them effectively. “Culture is one of the two or three most
complicated words in the English Language” – Raymond Williams.
The talk started with the video that Digby showed us at his McFilo on satire, the clip from SNL
skit where two out of touch advertisers keep pitching ridiculously OTT creative ideas for the Cheetos
brand and they absolutely eat them up. Of course, this is a dramatisation of what really happens, but
with the example of the Pepsi ad in recent memory, it’s very possible for brands to miss the mark by
quite a significant margin. “66% of marketers question whether they understand their audience at all”.
In the digital age, with the distribution of information everywhere instantly, there is now a bigger
canvass where culture can be created. So, given this new landscape, how do brands stay more relevant?
Well firstly, it’s useful to look at brands that people believe are currently upholding the highest caliber of
cultural relevancy. When asked people named the following brands: Ikea, Lidl, Spotify, Adidas, Patagonia,
Amazon, Uber, Everlane, Brewdog, Airbnb and Red Bull.
There was an interesting separation between brands who are ‘cultural leaders’ and those that are
‘culturally fit’, the separation between these two is defined by the brand’s attitudes towards the
behaviours, values and interests of their audience. Those who are ‘cultural leaders’ are setting new
benchmarks in expectations, committed to making the world a better place and getting under the skin
of the interest of their consumers.
Behaviours: Embrace and always developing mindset.
People comment 10x more on live videos than on regular videos – Facebook. You need to grow and
adapt with your audience, follow their evolution and connect with them in channels that will maximize
their engagement.
Young kids want to share their creations, many looking to engage in YouTube and Instagram. However,
lots of parents believe these platforms to be too dangerous and unkind for young kids to experience.
Given this insight, Lego created an online social network for kids called Lego life, on this platform kids
were able to show off their creations to the masses but also gave the parents peace of mind that their
kids had greater protection. 1.1 million kids signed up in the first two months… proving that if you build
it out of Lego, they will come.
Values: Live and breathe these throughout your organisation.
With value, you need to earn your position to play. The Brazilian beer, Skol, has a long history of
using extremely sexist ads of half-naked women to sell their product. To start fresh with a greater focus
on equality in their campaigns they asked people to Photoshop their old ads to be more representative
of real women. If you notify Skol of any of their old poster that still exist in the wild in Brazil, they will
come out and remove it, that’s serious dedication to living your values throughout the entire
organisation.

4. Another example is the Cannes Lion winning campaign from REI which spearheaded the Opt
Outside initiative during Black Friday 2015, which saw 143 of there retail stores shut and all staff given
the day off. REI are following this success by now focusing on gender equality in the workplace. They are
doing this by putting women at the center of their storytelling communications, investing $1 million
directly into nonprofits that get women and girls into the outdoors and increasing R&D into female
specific gear.
Interests: Set an agenda, rooted in your brand product.
Bajaj Motorbikes in India decided to recycle an old ship called the INS Vikrant, this ship is very important
for the people of India and a huge source of pride as it guarded the seas around the nation for 36 years
before it was retired in 1997. The ship was meant for the scrap heap as it was too big to be
accommodated by a museum, however Bajaj had other plans and decided to use the metal from the
warship into the Bajaj V, part motorcycle, part war hero. From this move the company’s market share
increased from 9% to 13%, a massive jump just from listening to what the consumers care about and
auctioning upon that.
It’s simply really, understand your audience, listen to their needs and desires, and then create content
which reflects your own and customer values. That is the winning formula to connecting culturally with
your audience.

5. Talk 3: Culture First, Clients Second
Presented by Mattias Ronge & Anders Hallén – CSO & CIO at Edelman London
The talk was kicked off by sharing Contagious’ ‘Biggest and bravest agencies on the planet’ list; Iris
worldwide was featured at joint 5th which is very exciting and interesting to see.
This talk centered on forgetting the client, as this is what our clients pay us to do. We need to divert our
efforts towards finding out what people really care about. Consumers do not have a constant desire to
interact with our client’s brands, they don’t wake up on a Saturday morning hungry for a big bowl of
branded content. We simply don’t get to hold them hostage, we need to be where they want and need
us to be.
An example used to demonstrate this in action was the partnership with the app Flic which was
repurposed by the Swedish firm Hovding who sell bike helmets with an airbag inside. The Bluetooth
enabled digital button attached to the bike handle can be pressed by cyclists to alert other motorist that
this is a particularly dangerous area for cyclists. The more people who engage and use the button, the
greater picture that the app paints of all the locations in the city where there needs to be increased
measures to make the roads safer for cyclists. Using this idea and execution helped bring attention to
Hovding’s product and reaffirm their passionate interest in keeping cyclists safe.
Instead of focusing on the product or brand, focus on the target market. Make sure that the product and
consumer truth aligns with the cultural truth, it’s very easy to assume you know what you customers
want, but the actual answer could be much further away that you realise. Then using this insight, don’t
just point at the problem, go out and find a solution.
There were 5 key tips that should help keep culture as an integral part of the creative process:
1. Stay Curious. Collect intriguing cultural facts every day, you never know when you might
need them.
2. Being interesting is more powerful than being exactly right.
3. Aim high. To aim much higher than you think is actually needed.
4. Use tech. Manifest and solve.
5. Create fame. There is no greater marketing investment than becoming instantly choosable.

6. Talk 4: Post Social Media
Presented by Kristina Dimitrova – Researcher/ Writer at Contagious
Today, social media has become a lot less social, and a lot more media. There has been a 21% decrease
in the amount people post on Facebook, however, this doesn’t mean that there has been a reduction in
use of social media. Instead, 84% of consumers are sharing content privately, on dark social.
To be successful as a brand in having a presence in dark social, you need to empower customers to
carry out your message. Essentially you need to let consumers be their own media channel. The example
they used to explain this was actually our own work from iris, the GIFeelings campaign from Domino’s.
This mouth boggling collection of GIFs were created so that people could communicate with one
another in the dark social space and allow Domino’s to have a presence there.
The other example given was for emphasising that brands shouldn’t necessarily focus on reaching the
most amount of people, but focusing on reaching the right people. The example given was for
the Adidas Tango Squad, which contacted many micro influencers who were passionate about the
Adidas brand. These groups of connected tech savvy teenagers are given exclusive content and new
products before anyone else. These groups are small, with each squad having between 100 & 250
people, however their reach is massive and by giving each one the access and ability to share content
first, they are simply more likely to. Don’t focus on reach, focus on the network!

7. Talk 5: Computational Creativity
Presented by Alex Jenkins – Editor at Contagious
The last talk of the event went further into the future and evaluated the rise is computation creativity in
modern times. Contagious editor Alex Jenkins asked us all the question of how threatened should we all
feel as creatives in a world where AI is getting vastly more intelligent. Could machine learning get
sophisticated enough where it is able to form its own ideas and put us all out of a job?
There were many fascinating and wacky examples given of computer algorithms creating
original screenplays, musical compositions and used to beat ‘Go’ Grand Masters. These machines are
also able to replicate anyone’s voice, create their own movie trailers and even bring dead Brazilian
rappers back to life.
Now this all seems like something out of a science fiction novel, but this is very much reality, however
there is one important caveat. This is that computers are great at working with constraints, putting in all
the information and asking them to create under the parameters agreed. However, these restrictions
need to be set by a human, the computer isn’t able to do everything alone, not yet anyway.
Thankfully the creatives of the world can rest easy that a computer isn’t going to take over their job any
time soon. However, what should keep them up at night is that a person who is better at using
computers, just might.