As Memac Ogilvy’s Group President for MENA, Jon Marchant is at the forefront of a creative transformation, blending his rich experience from Manchester, England to the dynamic landscapes of the Middle East. His journey, marked by serendipitous beginnings and strategic mastery, paints a vivid picture of leadership driving transformative change, setting the stage for a new era of creativity and innovation in the region’s advertising world. In this candid conversation, Marchant shares insights into his visionary approach, the transformative power of asking the right questions, and his ambitious plans to help steer Memac Ogilvy towards a creative renaissance, underscored by a philosophy of borderless creativity and collaboration.

Congratulations on your new role as Group President MENA at Memac Ogilvy. Can you tell us how you have evolved in your professional journey and your current role?

Thank you! It’s great to be here.  I fell into advertising by chance at 21 when I got a secretarial job at McCann Erickson Manchester, and after hitting it off with the team and being beguiled by the enigmatic Creative Directors, I never looked back!  

Drawn from my early passion for team sports where I was always made team captain, I realized I had a knack for getting the most out of people, galvanizing teams and making things happen, so roles in account management and business leadership felt very natural to me.  The other trait I learnt early on was the importance of questions.  Asking clients the most thoughtful, deep questions can eventually lead to solving the most complex of problems, and being in business leadership roles allowed me the opportunity to lead from the front on this.  

I spent almost two-thirds of my agency time within McCann Worldgroup and IPG, where I’ve had some great times and some excellent bosses & mentors.  After six years of growing brands in the MENA region leading FP7McCann, the timing felt right to explore another agency network, and the lure of Ogilvy proved too enticing to turn down.  Always a true creatively-led company at heart and consistently in the top 2 or 3 at Cannes for over a decade, I had admired Ogilvy over the years from the competition trenches.  Over 75 years of heritage and culture, defined so much by David Ogilvy himself, yet always with the ability to reinvent themselves over the years as our industry evolved.

I was also inspired by Memac Ogilvy’s proud legacy of being an innovator in the MENA region, often the first to launch new capabilities and venture into new markets for the first time, led by their charismatic and entrepreneurial leader, the great, late Eddie Moutran.   And so here I am as Memac Ogilvy’s new MENA Group President. Alongside CEO, Ghassan Maraqa, we oversee a regional network of over 450 talented individuals, creating and innovating at intersections to create value and solve our clients’ problems every single day.

You have operated in the UK for a large proportion of your career and now UAE market for the last 6 years, can you give us some insight on how both these markets have evolved over time and how are they different?

I would prefer not to compare the two markets, since we live in such a connected world today, where the lines between geographies are becoming more blurred. Creative talents are both mobile and agile, and time differences are no longer a barrier to collaborative work. This is Ogilvy’s underlying philosophy of how the best work is conceived – the conception of ideas at intersections, whether that be different capabilities, cultures, or geographies.  We call this Borderless Creativity.  

This narrowing of markets is backed up by how far the UAE and the wider MENA region have progressed in such a short space of time.  Work from this part of the world is breaking stereotypes and redefining conventions in communications and marketing.  This upward trajectory is underlined by the increase in international creative awards won by the MENA region, and having Cannes Jury Presidents and Lion Grand Prix heralding from this part of the world.

Driven by in-country visions, the region is busy transforming its economies and taking its social and cultural dynamics to new levels, and marketers in the region are ready to deliver this with vigor!  From tech adopters to trendsetters and everything in between, there’s a crop of young, dynamic and smart marketers entering our industry in MENA all the time.

In a cookie-less world and an ever more fragmented media landscape, how do you help advise clients on how to approach their marketing strategy, so that their budget is invested in the right areas?

The digital age has revolutionized commerce at scale resulting in more products coming into the market.  Brands must operate at blinding speed, competing with fast-rising disruptive rivals while establishing profoundly responsible, sustainable, and enduring ways of behaving and operating.  

But this also means, that in an increasingly commoditized world, creativity becomes the force multiplier and the differentiator for how a brand stands out and is able to grow.  

Ogilvy firmly believes in the ‘creative multiplier’ effect: we know that creatively awarded work is 11 times more effective than non-awarded work.  Hence simply doing great work for our clients is a sound business strategy.  

So, I advise clients that backing brave creative has never been more important because it will create an unreasonable impact versus their competitors’ efforts.  This could be an impact that simply creates brand preference, like our Proudly Second Best campaign for IKEA. Or an impact that solves societal issues such as Ogilvy South Africa’s Bread of a Nation, where the bi-products from brewing Castle Lager were used to make bread and literally feed an entire nation!

With your extensive experience, how do you see the role of digital media evolving in the next 5 years, and what steps is Memac Ogilvy taking to prepare for these future trends?

Digital marketing now demands new skills for managing data and designing effective strategies, especially for digital natives who rely on instant information and have more spending power in the workplace. 

The rise of digital media has led to a digital revolution, where digital capabilities are integrated into existing systems, resources and capabilities.  Furthermore, advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are enhancing collaboration between employees and technology in terms of serving customers, paving the way for the Fifth Industrial Revolution. 

With all this in mind, marketers and agencies need to work harder than ever just to keep up with innovations and new skill sets.  David Ogilvy said, “Change is our lifeblood. Stagnation is our death knell”, and as a network, Ogilvy certainly subscribes to this mantra to learn fast or else.  

Our adoption of AI is a great example of this –  not just in helping us produce more compelling content and work more efficiently, but also in the conception of ideas previously not possible without AI as a tool.  Specifically, using AI to generate ideas that will win a greater share of voice in the future.  In fact, our Global CEO of Advertising, Antonis Kocheilas, recently defined AI as the ‘dawn of the inspiration economy’, one which promises to reward those whose creativity knows no bounds.  This makes it an incredibly exciting time to be in our industry.

And can you tell us about some of the key digital trends that will shape the industry in 2024?

In addition to AI’s profound impact that I touched on above already, I am excited about how advanced Ogilvy and WPP are on the journey of recognizing its value in several areas.  

Expect to see the greater application of machine learning into agency workflows, helping businesses identify better efficiencies and reduce costs. It will also be used to predict marketing and media outcomes more accurately.  But then there are the opportunities to enhance creativity, which is the really exciting bit. We will shift from creating generative pieces of work to more complex outputs, such as 3D design.   

The golden era of ad-free streaming will be over, and we will see a greater proliferation of advertising in online streaming services.  Prime has already started that; expect more to follow as publishers look to maximize further revenue opportunities. 

 Another trend will be the uptake of “spatial experiences”.  When Apple enters a category, disruption, innovation and growth usually follow. So, with the upcoming launch of Apple Vision, expect an increase in attention to spatial experiences in augmented and VR worlds.

 Last but not least, more devices than ever before will be connected and networked.  Most of those won’t be smartphones, but everyday appliances, gadgets and tools. And  each of these will enable brands to be more personalized and open up unique engagement opportunities and enhanced customer experiences.

The UAE market is quite saturated and fiercely competitive when it comes to agencies, what would you say is Memac Ogilvy’s point of difference over your competitors?

As a regional network, we are fully committed to our global strategy of Borderless Creativity.  We believe we can create better ideas and solutions for our clients through collaboration.  Operating as one team, Memac Ogilvy has the ability to quickly bring together a diverse set of talents across capabilities and geographies to solve business problems for our clients, through the power of creativity.  

This collaboration is ingrained in our people through our culture, which we refer to internally as ‘Connected for Creativity’.  With strong leadership across disciplines and in-market, over 450 incredible, young and diverse talents, a desire to do the best work of our lives for our clients, whilst doing it together, and all backed up by 75 years of Ogilvy heritage,  I’d say we have an incredibly compelling proposition.   

Collaboration with our clients is also what sets us apart.  We explore the market to identify where we can formulate the strongest and deepest partnerships, adopting a growth mindset for brands and businesses at all times, to continue to serve as the ‘trusted advisors’ of our valued client partners.