Ad Week Europe roundup – quotes marketers need to know

“I think advertising is beginning to discover who we are and what we want [rather than] before when they were saying ‘this is what you are supposed to be’. We are empowering ourselves more and more and the consumer is changing the advertising."

Yannick Bolloré, chief executive of Havas, on why there aren’t more women in senior roles in ad land: “I’m a huge believer in gender equality and it’s very important to be able to find a way to integrate more women into top management.

“[But] the problem lies in the people themselves, they [women] are too cautious. Men are taking more risks…I think it’s important that women become confident about themselves.”

Jonathan Allan sales director, Channel 4, on the shift of audiences to YouTube and the threat it may pose: "YouTube is for kids, there's no content at YouTube at scale that’s for adults, no one watches it at scale.

Programmatic can seem deeming when you’re just starting out but Kellogg’s associate media director Amaya Garbayo revealed her top tips on how to get it right. A mix of transparency around cost and inventory is key alongside internal expertise that is backed by strong ties to third party vendors.

Garbayo said: “[Marketers] can’t think of programmatic on top of their [normal] jobs. If they have to do everything else that they already do and then become an expert on [programmatic] then its difficult. You have to limit your leadership and create the white space for your internal teams to build that expertise although depending on the different markets its hard to determine what an expert is these days.

“it’s not in an advertiser’s DNA to be engrained in the technology. If I had a penny for every time someone told me that they had the best technology then my bank account would be very different. The reality is we don’t know [about programmatic technology] but you have a excellent tool. You don’t need to know what the best technology is because you have the ability to test it all and work out what works best for the business.”

Chris Marsh, social media manager at Converse, on how the brand plans to convert online chatter into brand experiences:

“When social is used in ways where you listen to fans and give them a voice then it allows them to do the talking for you.

“Geoff Cotterrell our CMO likens our social spaces to a cocktail party in that we as a brand are just a welcome guest. If you follow that analogy through, we started listening to what the other guests at the party we’re saying and it quickly became apparent what we needed to offer them. They were already using social as a playground but what they didn’t have was a community to share ideas and find like-minded souls and inspire each other.”

Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry on why there’s no recipe fro creativity.

“Coolness is a form of orthodoxy. It’s a set of rules already coalesced around something. Being uncool is a powerful creative force.”

“I’m a bit of a detail freak. I learned to put in the hours when I was a teenager working on model airplanes and that’s led through to the work I’m doing now.

“You’ve got to take all of your little musings seriously. That little doodle in your sketch book might seem inconsequential but down the line it might turn into a major idea.”

Former Red Bull UK marketing director Huib Van Bockel on why marketing is like Tinder:

“People are not really reacting to that [disruption] at the pace that they should be. 10 years ago you had a brand positioning and you would communicate that brand positioning once or twice a year.

“In that sense marketing has become like Tinder; in one second you decide to engage with that content or swipe it away, and that’s what brands have to get used to.”