Waqar Riaz

Opinion
11 August 2016 In general, when talking about the significant increase in structured and unstructured human data and the technologies capturing it, we can take two angles; we can debate over why marketing should use it OR we can try to understand how marketing should use it to deliver sustainable value for brands and agencies.
Opinion
10 August 2015 The words above were used in a speech given by Steve Jobs to his employees after his 1997 return to Apple.
Opinion
26 March 2015 Imagine someone persuaded Ferdinand Magellan and his crew to abandon the Great Big Victoria in exchange for 271 canoes to help them successfully cross the Pacific. Without a doubt, the agent selling the canoes would have made a very profitable deal, however, it is almost guaranteed that Mr Magellan and his crew would never ever be in the list of those who crossed the Pacific (though probably the first ones to successfully accomplish mass sinking of 271 canoes).
Opinion
09 September 2014 Nikolai Kondratiev made a wonderful contribution to economic history with his long wave theory. He argued that the capitalist development was made of long waves. These waves are 45 - 60 years long and represent one cycle of global economic growth. They are successive sine curves highly linked to innovations in technology. According to this theory, technology is pushing the economy of brands into their 3rd wave of development. The first era was led by technological advancement in the production of goods, such as, large-scale plants, the second wave came with the technological advancements in media such as TV, Radio and Print and the 3rd wave, the present one, is led by the advancements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
Opinion
22 February 2014 How relationships turn successful or end up as a failure? What makes them stronger or weaker? What keeps them together or tear them apart?
Opinion
05 November 2012 'The Wall', probably the best of Pink Floyd's conceptual work to-date and arguably one of the most successful communication strategies ever to communicate brand truth (conceived by the de facto Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters) – both commercially and creatively.
Opinion
22 September 2012 “For I see that then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever.”   Susan Hill, The Woman in Black Last week, I went to see a play at the theatre. It was nice to be transported back to the pre-digital, Victorian age, which to a great extent the theatre managed to keep as authentic as possible (aside from the audio and visual effects). Mobile phones off, tablets in their bags, texting on hold and no more status updates, yes – we were as Victorian as the theatre surrounding us.
Opinion
13 September 2012 I like reading children’s books. They are full of life, colour and imagination. Last night, I finished reading ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers once more. It’s the story of a boy who finds a lost penguin on his doorstep and then travels all the way to South Pole to return the stranger.  It is, by all standards, a pure story of curiosity and love from a child’s eye. In 2008, the story was adapted into a 24-min film and was first aired in the UK on Christmas Eve.
Opinion
06 September 2012 Recently, I was watching a TV mini-series The Thorn Birds. It was first aired in 1983 on ABC and became the 2nd highest rated TV mini-series in the US in less than 3 days. The series was actually adapted based on Colleen McCullough’s 1977 best-selling novel.
Opinion
12 February 2012 People like talking to other people and sometimes their talks also involve brands. However, people don’t talk about brands in a too-good-to-be-missed-life-changing advertising style, but in an open and honest way.
Opinion
16 December 2011 Without a doubt, the value of a channel is directly linked with the value of its content. The traditional model of broadcasting is based on single source content production. It simply doesn’t allow people any control over what, how and where they can receive content. The channel provider solely manages the value of what's broadcast.
Opinion
02 August 2011 What follows are excerpts from the essay I wrote on defining the Future of Brands as part of the IPA Excellence Diploma. The essay discusses three areas which play a critical role in building a successful brand:
Opinion
21 April 2011 These eight points are definitely not a final word on achieving social success.
Opinion
08 February 2011 What is a brand and why have one?
Opinion
14 October 2010 Through the Greatest Age Network Modelling: Planner agencies (This is first of the  series of articles introducing and modelling planner agencies and network  brands. This piece is an attempt to introduce the concept of planner agencies)
Opinion
08 July 2010 It's 8:37 a.m. the man turns on his machine - today he has a lot to finish; call an end to a social media strategy for that brand, dig some insights on how his brand's audience is behaving in those social environments. Check out the latest trends happening in social spaces. Convince his client that they must develop a social strategy for their brand ASAP etc. etc. In other words this is how modern ad men (who are living in agencies, which are desperately trying to create / eat ad spend of a recently born channel 'Social'), start their normal ad day.
Opinion
18 June 2010 ‘Take a look at the collaborative video we started, and then film what happens next. We'll rotate a selection of the clips we receive on this page, and add the best ones to the video. The final video will be featured on the Gmail homepage and seen by users worldwide’. In 2007, this is how Google started one of the best co-created communication pieces for Gmail. As a result – the entire world came out holding video cameras and letter ‘M’. Hats off to the thinking of Gmail Labs.
Opinion
15 June 2010 Less than a month ago Nike launched its classic world cup epic 'Write the Future'. From the moment of its launch I had a feeling that this work will soon be changing the future for Nike itself.
Opinion
07 May 2010 If there’s one thing Google has accepted after giving China to Baidu, then that would be 'paying more attention to creating bonding with its users, whilst offering them a playful ‘Value’ driven experience'. We all know that Google introduced the most powerful algorithm in the search engine market and on the basis of that it's leading its category. However, technology served Google well in attracting the users, but failed to create any bonding with them. The recent change in Google search results page further strengthens the argument. Nevertheless, the good thing is that Google is ready to change and adopt the look and feel of its products according to the evolving needs of its markets.
Opinion
30 April 2010 It’s not Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter or Microsoft which worries the world’s no.1 brand “Google” but a strong local Chinese brand ‘Baidu’. Yes – the brand which kicked Google out from China. According to BrandZ top 100 brands of the world Baidu stands at No.2 in top 10 risers with 62% rise rate and also part of the top 10 list in terms of total brand value. If you look at the Architecture of Baidu, it is, if not similar, exactly the same as Google – in fact, replace the logos and it’s Google. It works around the same technology and offers results in the same fashion as ‘Google’, plus, it focuses on the local culture and give high priority to local search terms.   Nevertheless, the idea is that it’s not the technological difference behind Baidu’s success story, but the bonding it has with its users.
Opinion
18 April 2010 I feel like thinking planning, which agencies usually find pretty interesting for selling their creative stuff. They consider it as a ‘thing’ to shut their client up, and make them sell their ideas easily and consistently.  Unfortunately, this attitude of agencies has put limitations on the role of planning – and the sad part is, that even our expectations from it are limited.  Jon steel, Planning Director for WPP, in one of his papers published on WARC mentioned, ‘“So what exactly do you do?” I recently asked the same question of the planning director of one of America's most famous creative agencies. (I knew the agency's founder had a deep, unflinching loathing of account planning and research.) He told me it was his job to “look cool, be smart, and hang out with the creative department”’.  How sad would it be for people like Lever, Jobs, and King to hear this definition of Planning.
Opinion
26 February 2010 Of course, the ‘prosumer’ challenge faced by brands today demands a change of thinking from client’s as well as from the agency’s side.  It is fundamental for brands to change the way they plan and execute their processes. This makes the job of a Planner more interesting and even more challenging, as the planner of the future has to be an expert thinker of every link between the Brand, Audience and the Agency.
Opinion
24 February 2010 Apparently, most o f the times the answer seems to be the latter, and it all makes sense for the agencies. It’s quick, pleasurable, and without any long-term commitment or responsibilities. On the other hand, having a relationship means something, as relationships demand going through tough times to get to the good times . They seek understanding and love – relationships are connections beyond reason.   Without a doubt, agencies are realising the shift of control to the people. However, instead of actually understanding this new state-of-mind of the people, brands and agencies have started to use it as another selling technique. Unfortunately, they don’t understand that the customer has all grown up – they know how unkindly communications have betrayed and ripped them off in the past. They can actually  spot the difference between advertising slogans ‘positioned on you’  and companies actually working for them.
Opinion
18 February 2010 In recent posts I have discussed, how successful planning was for other industries (i.e. Pyramid of Djoser, Google ) and how it helped them in gaining a competitive advantage. However, unfortunately, today we are repeating the same mistakes, which were part of communications curriculum back in 1930s – we are not taking planning as seriously as we should. It’s time that we stop confusing our clients with a new name for Planning every day, and stick to the original ‘Planning’.
Opinion
10 February 2010 Peter Fisk, in his book Marketing Genius wrote, ‘the blurring of boundaries, of virtual and real worlds, and fusion of previously unrelated industries, is a daunting challenge but also a fantastic opportunity’.