The GDS Group CMO Digital Insight Summit sales pitch is a lie

UPDATE:  This post was originally written in January 2018 and GDS hired a new CEO in November 2018. She responds to my experience in the comments below and describes actions that she has taken in response as of June 2019.

Are you planning to attend a GDS Group CMO Digital Insight Summit in North America or Europe this March? If so, you won’t see me there. However, GDS sales people are informing prospective sponsors and attendees that I will be attending and looking to network and hire service partners. Nope.

Multiple prospects have asked me about this and it’s just not true. Here’s a screenshot from a sales webinar, showing proof of the lie. No surprise, they messed up the logo.

GDS CMO Digital Insight Summit
Supposed GDS CMO Digital Insight Summit attendees, North America 5 – 7 March 2018

GDS, stop with the fake news. I have contacted your sales people about this blatant misrepresentation and they refuse to acknowledge the situation. Not surprising, as it appears that this is business as usual.

If you are considering sponsoring or attending this event, it might be worth your time and budget. But if you expect to connect with a specific attendee, it’s worth the effort to check references before committing. A simple search and inquiry on LinkedIn will give you plenty of information.

For anyone who’s been lied to by GDS and wants to hear about my digital agenda for 2018, here are some initiatives my team is working on:

If you’re visiting Austin this March, enjoy. If it’s your first visit, here are some things you might want to know.

I wear the same thing to work every day

For twenty years, I wore the same mix of what most white-collar workers wear to work: “business casual” on most days and a suit once in a while, depending on the day’s meetings. Maybe even “casual casual” when going into the office on a weekend, when few people would be around and the air conditioning turned off.

In 2014, I moved to Korea and started working for Samsung Group, which has a rigid corporate culture (by Western standards) and dress code to match. I started off wearing grey, navy, and black suits five days a week in the middle of monsoon season, the kind of weather that leaves you dripping sweat down the insides of your suit sleeves and dress slacks. Most people would look forward the office air conditioning at this point, but Samsung adheres to government energy guidelines and its office buildings will not be cooled lower than 26c (79f).  Moreover, every day feels like I’m getting dressed for a wedding or a funeral, which is a weird mindset to carry into work. I’m not Big Shaq. Man was hot.

The weather got to me, along with my dry cleaning bill. When the seasons turned, I had to plan ahead for the next round of summer sauna. Well, Steve Jobs was famous for wearing the same outfit every day. I read about Obama and Zuckerberg doing the same. So I decided to simplify things and when I returned to the U.S. for the holidays, I bought five white shirts, five blue shirts, and five pairs of jeans. Two colors of shirt? They look the same to my dogs, good enough for me.

Starting in January 2015, I started wearing the same thing to work (and work functions) every day. Pictures or it didn’t happen?

March 2015, the seventh year in a row and last time I spoke at SXSW in Austin

May 2015, work dinner in Dubai

June 2015, on stage at Cannes Lions

June 2015, at the Samsung seeing eye dog school outside of Seoul

September 2015, Global Network Team photo at Cheil

March 2016, SXSW

October 2016, at LEGO in London

May 2017, spark.me in Montenegro

June 2017,  internal digital conference in Billund, using Google Tilt Brush

Any lessons learned?

  • Like other people who’ve done this, I can tell you that it keeps everything simple. Fewer decisions to make; it’s easier to get out the door in the morning or pack for business trips.
  • The same clothes don’t fit so well if you put on weight — I don’t need a scale to tell me that I should eat fewer bagels.
  • I do try to wear a different pair of shoes every day. I once met a podiatrist who told me that shoes need a day to regain their cushioning. So I’ve rotated every day ever since.
  • If people care about what I wear to work, no one’s saying anything about it. I haven’t heard a word about this for three years and counting!

Expatriates and the Patriots

Expat living in London is easy. Almost everyone speaks English, you can watch Westworld on Sky Atlantic, and Ocado brings groceries right to your front door. However, this isn’t enough for some people. In which case Starbucks inhabits every other corner of the city and NFL GamePass allows you to watch “American” football teams like the New England Patriots, live every Sunday evening. The incessant spread of capitalism has created a commercial monoculture in which an expat can find the comforts of home, until realising that the sameness is terribly boring.

Of course, not everything in the UK is the same as the US, beyond the typically cited differences: driving on the left instead of right side of the road, replacing many z’s with s’s, Boris Johnson’s hair vs. Donald Trump’s hair, et al. If you haven’t lived in the UK, you might not know that:

  • You often pay for consumer service calls.

"calls charged at 7 pence per minute"

I needed to change the mailing address on my British Airways Executive Club membership from New York to London. This wasn’t possible online due to technical difficulties on BA’s side. After exhausting all free options, I called the service center. About £15 later, my account address was finally changed. “Business rate numbers” can cost you 6p to 51p.

  • You can usually withdraw money from any ATM without a fee.

On a more consumer-friendly note, when you have a UK bank account you can withdraw money from almost any UK ATM without paying additional bank fees. This is unlike the US where you might go to a bank’s ATM advertising “free” withdrawals, only to have your own bank charge you a $1 or $2 service charge. I was surprised to find that even the ATMs at Heathrow Airport — which seems like a place ripe for price-gouging — were indeed free of service fees.

  • The tax year starts on 6 April.

The current tax year runs from 6 April 2016 to 5 April 2017. Not the calendar year. It’s been this way since 1800.

  • You need an annual £145.50 ($180) TV license.

You can check whether you need one, but basically if you intend on watching a moving picture on any screen, you need to pay £145.50 every year to the government. While this may seem odd to Americans who are used to watching PBS for free (and taking this for granted), the visibility of this fee seems to make many UK residents defensive and proud of the diverse programming the BBC offers.

  • Mobile phone pricing is competitive.

I pay £60 ($75) per month for a wireless data/text/minutes plan for four iPhones that cost $160 from AT&T for similar service levels. The UK and US have roughly the same number of large carriers, but regulation seems to have reduced prices more in the UK consumer’s favor.

  • Transferwise is the best option for normal people to transfer money across borders.

Despite the number of Britons who live and work abroad, banks still charge hefty fees on foreign currency transfers. Some of these are transparent (e.g. “wire fee”), but there are absolutely hidden costs buried in unfavorable exchange rates. I’ve found that Transferwise is the best option for getting rates close to public quotes, wth clearly outlined fees.

  • Contactless payments are a thing.

In the U.S., it appears that chip-based credit card transactions have finally caught on. However, some retailers I visited over the holidays had handmade signs over their chip readers indicating that cards could only be swiped. But just when the US seems to be catching up, the UK is already far ahead as chip-and-PIN payments are ubiquitous and contactless is accepted almost everywhere you’d need it — the Underground and fast food outlets, in particular.

Life as an expat is full of looking for similarities and appreciating differences; for Americans, life in the UK can lull one into a false sense of familiarity, which is when frustration or something a pleasant surprise usually finds you in situations like these.

Minority Report: Chapter 3

tower_bridge_2

In mid-2014, I left Austin to work and live as an expat in Seoul. In late 2015, I repatriated to New York. Now, it’s time to start a new chapter of the minority report, this time across the Atlantic Ocean in London.

I’m taking on a new role at LEGO, leading digital consumer engagement. I grew up with LEGO and everyone I meet has positive impressions of the brand. Starting today, I’ll be leading our global team to help connect with individuals and build the brand across digital channels.

So we Brenter in the midst of Brexit, trading pennies for pence, AT&T for BT, Chelsea for Chelsea, and so on. Let Chapter 3 commence.

Bye bye, Barbarian Group

the barbarian groupI took over as CEO of Barbarian Group in December 2015, tasked with turning an agency around that was in worse shape than anyone (i.e. executives, employees, clients, media, auditors, holding company) realized.

Despite the beating that the agency has taken in the media, the actions we’ve taken over the past three quarters have allowed the agency to continue producing great work for global brands and left the financials cleaner and more transparent than they’ve been for many years.

With this phase of transformation complete, I made the decision to separate from The Barbarian Group and Cheil Worldwide. Businesses require different management styles depending on the challenges they face — one size fits all doesn’t work. Now TBG needs a new leader to take its cleaned-up slate and write a new future into reality. Will it be awesome? For all of the Barbarians still on board, I hope so.

One more thing: don’t believe everything you read in the trades. Many articles are tipped by people with personal agendas and written for today’s Gawker-engendered media environment, designed to maximize clicks, shares, and gossip. The truth is out there, but only half of it will ever make Agency Spy.

But don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be awesome!

Beat the algorithm

It’s election season and impossible to escape round-the-clock coverage of everything the candidates do. If you’ve already decided on your choice for November, you might prefer to consume your content from a partisan source. Most online platforms claim neutrality and an unbiased presentation of content…except for the fact that your own actions (e.g. likes, shares, click-throughs, time spent) signal what you prefer, which results in a more relevant – and biased – feed. To see just how stark of a difference this can become, visit Blue Feed, Red Feed.

A few years ago while doing research for a client, I found some strangely dissonant reviews on TripAdvisor, like this:

TripAdvisor review

The reviewer had great things to say about the hotel and rated all six elements as “excellent,” yet the overall rating is one circle, which means “terrible.” If you look at the other one circle ratings, you can see language that’s more expected: “disappointing,” “ridiculously bad service,” “horrible experience.” If you want to understand the worst about this property, you’re going to see this review and maybe write it off, but maybe think twice about the others.

When individuals share content on social media, Facebook in particular, it’s filtered for relevance. When people share the latest political update in support of their candidate or in rejection of the other, the posts are always going to be “preaching to the choir.” Campaigns woke up to the power of digital and social media during the 2004 election and have refined strategies since then to fundraise and get out the vote.

So after 12 years, why are we still seeing what’s expected, rather than operatives who can game the system effectively? Where are the tactics like that one circle review that shows up where you’d least expect it – and where it’s not supposed to be? Maybe Facebook would simply filter out dissonant content as clickbait and does already. I try to follow a wide sample of sources, but can see that filters still limit discourse. Maybe there is no way to beat the algorithm. We helped create it and now it’s in control.

Predictions: from trash to treasure

Trash

Usually, year end “what’s next in marketing” predictions are a bunch of BS. Last November, I was asked to contribute thoughts to a roundup of The best ads of 2015. Here’s what I wrote:

“My favorite advertisement of 2015 was the New York Times declaring that it’s not dead yet. Its promotion with Google Cardboard, MINI, and GE to launch the NYT virtual reality application was a pioneering step forward for a brand built in a different era. Enough with emoji, femvertising, and consumer generated everything. NYT VR is an idea that moves people forward in a medium built for now.

http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2015/nytvr/
or
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/20/new-york-times-google-nyt-vr-cardboard-virtual-reality“

Unfortunately, my thoughts didn’t make it past the cutting room floor, perhaps because I didn’t choose a 30-second spot. However, The New York Times just won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix award in the Mobile category for its VR efforts. The entire marketing world should’ve seen this coming.

Marketers and their agencies need to start thinking differently about a lot of issues — including diversity, renumeration, and what’s “best” — before the answers become too obvious to miss. There’s always next year, right?

Cannes Lions 2015: The Next Ten Years of Social Media

With Cannes Lions just around the corner, I revisited my presentation from last summer. So I guess it’s now “the next nine years of social media.”

The ten trends for the next decade:

  1. Gone
  2. Shoppable
  3. Snackable
  4. Automated
  5. Connective
  6. Filtered
  7. Integrated
  8. Chinese
  9. Subcutaneous
  10. Empowering

For a summary of coverage and media takeaways from the speech, click here.

Ten years of Being Peter Kim

Last week marked ten years of existence for this blog. I set a reminder in iCal but I missed the actual date because I was busy with things. Like my new job after moving to New York after a year and a half in Seoul. And finishing up at the office in time to make it home for dinner. So I forgot to write a post on the actual “blogiversary.”

10th BirthdayIf you weren’t around for the early days of this blog, you didn’t miss much. Maybe the post that explains how I got into blogging would be an interesting read. Most of the other stuff was written in a different age of social media. However, if you’re interested in reading some posts that I enjoyed writing, here are some off the top of my head:

A couple years ago I switched platforms from Typepad to WordPress for long-term stability. WP Engine isn’t cheap, so if you’ve made it this far, maybe click on a banner ad to help me celebrate a decade of blogging!

So long, Seoul

Seoul Sunset

After 18 months, my life as an expat has come to an end. In January, I’ll be returning to the U.S. as CEO of The Barbarian Group.

Some final observations on life in Korea:

Everyone has a mobile; everyone is on KakaoTalk.

Kakao_friends

KakaoTalk is a way of life, just for communicating with friends, colleagues, clients, and beyond. The app auto-adds users based on numbers in your phone, so I ended up with friends ranging from the CEO to the lady who reads my gas meter.

Korea is rewriting history, literally.

Koreans are proud of the rapid ascent of their economy, especially after the 1998 IMF crisis. The phrase “never been done before” is one that’s often used to describe the country’s recent history, the only nation that has gone from IMF loan recipient to donor. However, these days history is being revised as history textbooks are being rewritten under government supervision. Everything moves quickly and changes often here, not just pop culture and fashion trends.

You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.

A lot of English words have made their way into the Korean language, mostly because there aren’t words to describe unfamiliar objects or concepts. A few in particular that took some getting used to include “service” (in a restaurant, getting something for free; not being waited on), “digital” (something new; not necessarily tech-based), and “beyond” (more; not an evolution from, but more akin to incremental progress).

Korea Immigration

So long, coffee shops on every corner. So long, paying on your way out at restaurants. So long, ubiquitous high-speed internet. So long, televised EPL and MLB games featuring Korean-born players. So long, yellow dust. So long, Für Elise alerts. So long, heated toilet seats. So long, Seoul.

(For earlier posts in this series, read the Minority Report.)