By: Dina Dretvić
The most impressive edition of the Days of Communication festival ended this weekend in Rovinj. Once again, the festival broke all its previous records. Beautiful Rovinj, and the unique Hotel Lone, hosted advertising professionals from across the region and beyond, who came to listen to 65 speakers and celebrate awards together with the winners of Effie Croatia, IdejaX, Mixx and Young Lions Croatia.
Below you will find a brief overview of some of the most interesting lectures.
On the first day, we learned what happens when you combine social engineering with absurd stunts, in a lecture by journalist and prankster Oobah Butler.
The man who has fooled TripAdvisor and made his fake The Shed into London’s most prestigious restaurant, is known for his bizarre projects that brought him huge popularity.
Butler spoke of how he had broken all the boundaries in his mission of proving the bizarre nature of the modern world.
“I always want to do the unexpected, to bring chaos into the ordinary atmosphere, and to cross the borders of absurdity.”
The “Content Creator of the Year for Online Media Award”, awarded to him by The Drum, was received no less than by his doppelganger, by which he confirmed his ultimate prankster status.
“Why would I spend my time in interviews when someone can make me sound smarter on the radio? I want to be the first person to have my own avatars made of skin and flesh – more versions of myself that will present me in the public the way I want,” Oobah said, but as far as we are aware, he didn’t prank anyone at Days of Communication.
The audience was also addressed by the winner of the world’s best advertiser award, and holder of the incredible 88 Cannes Lions, Matt Biespiel.
To best present the idea that charisma is key to brand success, he prepared for his lecture at the festival weeks ahead. In addition, he prepared a little surprise for the participants – part of the presentation was held in Croatian language.
Biespiel said that the secret of effective marketing is in charisma and added that: “Statistics confirm whether you are right, technology gives the purpose to what you do, but only creativity makes you special.”
In his lecture titled “Why Your Brand Needs Charisma to Grow”, he presented the 10 creative guidelines for any brand to become, and stay, charismatic. Apart from charisma that brands need to have in order to grow, they also need charm that brings brand authenticity.
The audience also had the opportunity to listen to the most famous ethical hacker of the world, Ralph Echemendia, who showed in Rovinj how simple it is to hack anyone today, and how we can protect ourselves from cybercrime.
In a world where cybercrime is on the rise, this ethical hacker is doing the opposite – he is hacking to protect businesses, governments, and people from the various dangers of the online world, and at Days of Communication, he revealed what the role of an ethical hacker is.
Echemendia lives partly in the real world, and partly in the virtual world. He offers consultancy services to global companies of the likes of Google, Microsoft and NASA, and when he is not working for multinationals, he helps create digital content for the series Mr. Robot to make it look as realistic and accessible to viewers as possible.
Echemenida explained to all the participants why hacking is actually happening and what we can do to protect ourselves. He stressed that every data is precious, but also that there are no limits in the cyber space and that we shouldn’t share our data lightly.
Lone’s main hall also hosted Phillip Morris International’s Aaron Sherinian, master of UI Yifei Chai, and design innovator Che-Wei Wang.
On the last day of the festival, the audience had the opportunity to listen to the greatest star of this year’s edition of the Days of Communication, Sir Martin Sorrell, which you can read more about here, as well as Ali Ali and Mark Adams, who shared their experiences and views on the advertising industry.
Ali Ali, one of the world’s top directors according to The Gunn Report, talked about the “ten painful years” he spent in an agency, and Mark Adams, vice president and head of innovation at Vice Media, talked about the issue of innovation in the industry.
Mark Adams, thanks to his achievements, is on the prominent list of “Top People in Britain”, of the London’s most influential magazine, Sunday Times. In his fun and provocative speeches, Adams argues that successful digital thinking requires first of all emotional intelligence.
“We are living in an era of innovation expansion and we are fascinated by the emergence of any innovation. It’s time for a great clean-up. These lectures change our view and that’s what I’m most looking forward to,” commented Nikola Žinić, a member of the organizing committee of the festival, about the lecture “Enter the Cult of Extreme Innovation” in which Adams spoke of the war that he openly leads against people who like to listen , talk and read about innovations, but never actually act to change their behavior.
“We must drastically re-examine the way we approach the conversation about innovations if we want to avoid tragedy in the coming decades,” Adams concluded.
Lecture “Ten Stupid Things I Learned in Advertising” by Ali Ali was immensely useful to anyone who worked, works, or plans to work in an agency.
He described the key knowledge he had acquired during those years and discovered that advertising really doesn’t have to be complicated.
“You shouldn’t trust clients or research in this industry, because it’s not science fiction. You just need to have fun and do great things,” Ali Ali pointed out.