Havas Bruno Araldi: Crafting Brand Narratives Across Continents
Bruno Araldi, the seasoned Strategy Director at Havas Middle East, shaping brand narratives from Brazil to the vibrant landscape of the UAE. With a wealth of experience, he seamlessly blends creativity with cultural resonance, crafting campaigns that leave an indelible mark.
In this interesting conversation, we uncover his journey and explore the innovative strategies propelling brands to new heights in the dynamic world of advertising.
Congratulations on your appointment as the Strategy Director at Havas Middle East. Can you please take us through your journey and share some noteworthy experiences with us?
I began my career in strategy in my hometown of Porto Alegre, Brazil, fueled by a passion for advertising and an interest in both the business and creative aspects. I was fortunate to work in reputable advertising and branding agencies during my early experiences and, most importantly, to benefit from excellent mentorship.
From there, I transitioned to Rio de Janeiro, where I spent three years at a content hotshop leading Nike’s digital communication in Brazil during the World Cup and Olympics period.
Following my time in Rio, I moved to São Paulo, where I spent approximately five years at creative agencies such as BBDO and Wieden+Kennedy, crafting strategies and contributing to the creation of award-winning campaigns for clients including AbInbev (Corona and Skol Beats), Motorola, Audi, CBN Radio, Unilever (Omo), and Airbnb.
Seeking international experience, exposure to diverse cultures, and professional growth as a strategist, I relocated to the UAE and have resided in Dubai for the past four years. Initially, I worked at Leo Burnett, collaborating with a wide range of clients with a focus on local and regional markets. Recently, I embarked on a new role at Havas Middle East, an agency renowned for its strong creative reputation in the region. I am thrilled to now be a part of it.
As someone with a solid background in advertising, having worked in the Brazilian or LATAM market, as well as relocating to UAE (MENA), how did you connect with the audiences in both markets?
People are people all over the world, so I firmly believe that continually striving to understand human beings and demonstrating empathy are essential attributes for anyone working with strategy in creative environments. This involves drawing from our own life experiences and cultivating an interest in fields like psychology and sociology.
Additionally, cultural behaviors and consumption habits naturally vary from country to country and region to region. Therefore, research is indispensable. Utilizing digital tools, engaging in social listening, conducting market assessments, seeking insights from experts, and conducting consumer interviews are pivotal for adapting to the diverse nuances of each market.
Moreover, when collaborating with different cultures, being an outsider places us in an intriguing position to offer fresh perspectives that can enrich the work.
You are passionate about helping brands find their voices and resonate with their audiences, so what are some of the key components you keep in mind when formulating strategies?
I prioritize the brand voice and product truth above all else.
Brand voice encompasses what the brand stands for and how it communicates and behaves in the world. It must be carefully crafted, nurtured, and consistently maintained, shaping people’s experiences and memories of the brand.
Product truth entails ensuring that we stay true to the essence and unique attributes of the product. This is what captures people’s interest and motivates them to take action.
Building on this foundation, brands must uncover insights and opportunities related to people’s lives, culture, and industry. These elements are integral to every strategy, revealing opportunities to be more meaningful and establish differentiation.
In today’s era of abundant content consumption and diminished brand connections, it’s more crucial than ever for companies to refine their voices and delve deeper to create memorable and resonant experiences for people.
In Ramadan, brands are looking to invest a significant amount in their marketing strategies. How is Havas building around this and what do you think about advertising during Ramadan?
To build differentiation during such an important and competitive moment as Ramadan, it’s essential to delve into the cultural forces shaping each year’s holy month. Although it holds fundamental values, people’s mindsets continue to evolve, new behaviors emerge, and there are significant differences in how people experience it in key markets across the region.
At Havas, we believe in placing meaningfulness at the core of everything we do, and Ramadan presents a pivotal opportunity for brands to deliver meaningful messages and experiences. To achieve this, we consistently access data, studies, and develop our own research methods to stay closely connected to people and abreast of the latest behaviors and trends. We utilize this knowledge to generate insights and ideas for our brands across disciplines—Creative, Media, and PR.
In the MENA region, the Saudi Vision 2030 is set to disrupt the advertising and media industries. How is Havas preparing to adapt to this and what are your opinions on this?
All the transformations occurring in the kingdom present opportunities for new business and for creating meaningful work for our brands operating in Saudi Arabia.
People’s lives are changing at the fastest pace ever, with significant transformations across all areas of society, culture, and the economy. While the nation’s vision propels these changes, there is an ambitious and creative energy emanating from a largely young population, making Saudi Arabia an effervescent country. Emerging behaviors and new initiatives are being launched across the nation. All of this necessitates continuous learning and adaptation to create new, meaningful ways of connecting with people in the country.
It’s no longer possible to stay ahead of the curve without technology. With the burgeoning growth of AI and Metaverse, especially in the MENA region, how can you achieve a competitive advantage?
Technology enhances the possibilities for brands to connect with people, and it also facilitates and amplifies the ways we work. It’s not an enemy but an ally of human intuition and creativity.
Being open to it and experimenting, the possibilities are endless. Using AI as an example, it can assist in everything: from extracting initial learnings from large volumes of data, exploring different insights, enhancing processes, finding new segments and niche audiences, to creating more effective content, and even to developing new products and services.
Ecommerce Industry Bet High On Performance Marketing In This Pandemic.
Manufacturing units always trusted retailers to sell their products in the market. Retail stores proved themselves worthy of manufacturers’ trust. They met the demands of the market and earned money for the manufacturers. Marketing teams working for verticals like CPG, apparels, and electronics made sure that they portray a brand vision to the topmost funnel of the market. Resellers handled profound funnel and generated permanent customers from window shoppers. They resellers used performance marketing strategies to achieve results.
Coronavirus forced humans to stay inside the houses. Many are depending on e-commerce for our necessities. Even before this outbreak, e-commerce was an effective part of our lifestyle. Manufacturers were well connected with their buyers directly. The marketing tactics focused on performance promotion leaving behind their old methods or brand construction.
We are looking forward to a larger and broader e-commerce culture. Those who invested in planting the seeds of e-commerce platforms are now reaping the fruits of their success due to the rapid growth of e-commerce sales. The people who backed off are now regretting their decisions. It doesn’t matter if your e-commerce is leading the market, evolving, or starting at the bottom of the pyramid, getting connected with the right audience is even easier with the help of the right ad channels. Ad channels prove beneficial in converting the demands of users in sales, developing new ways to enhance the flow of supply by reducing the gap, and bonding a seller and buyer.
Retailers focus on advanced performance marketing channels for marketing.
E-commerce advertising took a big leap, with Amazon and Walmart offering their marketing channels. E-commerce advertisement becomes the third-largest channel of the online market, helping the manufacturers to connect with its customers via advertisement.
The inheritance of data based on customer purchase and auction, search triggered ads are providing wonderful results. They are better and faster-growing options compared to any paid search and social media platform.
By advertising directly to the customers, manufacturers evolved a new strategy called “encouraging the consumer to the edge” where they get compelled to make purchases. It doesn’t matter from where he makes that purchase, ultimately the manufacturer benefits from it directly.
It’s easier than ever to market your product with E-commerce advertising. Amazon and Walmart provide opportunities to manufacturers with limited budgets. They can make an impact on the market with their products and can achieve targeted businesses. Millions of customers are rushing and scrolling through these websites daily. Hence, it doesn’t matter if your product is in the front line or at the centre row you can get a clear view and encouraging sales.
Meanwhile, well-prepared manufacturers expanded their benefits from current crises. Ad channels can help them advertise their products helping them reach the right audiences.
Few tricks and tactics for manufacturers:
As the manufacturers and their marketing teams shift their focus on performance-driven marketing strategies, there are few tricks and tactics which they can apply in their strategy.
Staying focused on the bottom funnel of the market.
Connecting to their customers can help performance marketing teams generate better sales. They should understand customers’ needs and desires. Encouraging them for new purchases and giving them options for purchase coupons, promotions, limited edition notification, fear of missing out (FOMO), and other triggers to get their customer’s attention.
The performance market is a step by step process and an integration of all three platforms ie. social, commerce, and search. Therefore, the customer should be provided with information on every step of his purchase. Moreover its the path of guidance that is needed to be provided to the customer for his purchase with the help of all three channels by the performance marketing teams. This purchase process can be completed in hours, can take days or even months.
Applying a short-term approach to performance marketing.
Marketers have to understand the difference between brand marketing and performance marketing. Brand marketing is a long term goal that tends to achieve the future perspective of the customer. However, Performance marketing is more about today.
Performance marketers must check the feasibility of their brand growth, and aspects that may decrease their sales. They should keep recycling the waste which can cause blockage in the perfect flow of sales.
Performance marketing is all about focusing on customers.
Performance marketers should help their customers in the navigation of the purchasing ladder. They must understand the psyche of the customer and understand the problem faced by their customer. They must come up with effective solutions to help their customers.
With these steps, they will be able to convert a window shopper to a lifetime buyer.
Effects of Covid-19 on the e-commerce market.
Due to the current crisis, several new customers have shifted their focus to e-commerce platforms. They are entering into a new lifestyle and will retain this even after the crisis ends. Due to this fact, several manufacturers are seeing this as an opportunity to move to the e-commerce market. They are also opting for performance advertising themselves a push in the market.