Panel
Disruptors, Innovators and Entrepreneurs
- Panel Definition of Disruption: Defined as entities relentlessly changing the status quo, rewriting industry culture, and transforming traditional business models (e.g., The Huffington Post surpassing The New York Times in five years).
- The "Legacy" Barrier: Traditional corporations face dual barriers to disruption: financial legacies from existing revenue streams and an "emotional legacy" where employees are punished for thinking differently or failing.
- Mondelez's "Intrapreneurship" Strategy: Launched "Mobile Futures," a mobile accelerator requiring startups to launch pilots in 90 days while Mondelez employees spend up to two weeks at the startups to internalize the culture.
- Mondelez Investment Outlook: Committed 10% of total global media spending to mobile (not just digital) to capture the "mobile-only" consumer, specifically targeting locations near points of purchase.
- Mondelez Mobile Tactics: Utilizes location-based services to deliver real-time coupons (e.g., scanning cheese to suggest Ritz crackers) and leverages "Social TV" to run simultaneous digital and TV campaigns, doubling effectiveness.
- Graphic India's Mission: Aims to create a "Marvel Comics of Asia" by mining 5,000 years of Hindu mythology to provide indigenous heroes for South Asia's 550 million youth, countering the outsourcing culture prevalent in the region.
- Ken Lair's Investment Thesis: Lair Ventures invests approximately 40 times annually, prioritizing the "human" element and "obvious" macro trends like mobile, social, and content over specific sectors.
- Ryan Holmes on Hootsuite: Hootsuite expanded to 300 employees and the "Fortune 100," but actively created a dedicated internal team for ideation and side projects to maintain an entrepreneurial spirit before bureaucracy sets in.
- Hootsuite Education: Hootsuite University certifies professionals on organizational social media strategy, aiming to integrate social media into every external-facing role (sales, HR, PR) rather than treating it as a siloed marketing channel.
- The Future of TV: Traditional 30-second ad models are becoming obsolete due to DVR ad-skipping and multi-screen usage; the future requires "must-see" episodic content and real-time engagement (e.g., the "Trident Trending 10" show created from Twitter trends).
- Real-Time Marketing Example: The Oreo "Dunk in the Dark" Super Bowl tweet demonstrated the necessity of "war room" operations capable of creating and publishing creative content within minutes of a live event occurring.
- College Education Debate: Panelists agreed that while the social experience of college is valuable, current curricula lack digital and coding skills; Peter Thiel's model of paying students to drop out was cited as a potential solution for high-potential entrepreneurs.
- Future of Business Schools: Criticized for failing to evolve, with less than 1% of top 100 business school course descriptions mentioning "digital," leaving graduates unprepared for the current mobile-first economy.
- Social Impact of Technology: Technology is agnostic; mobile and social media are currently being used to combat fraud (text-to-verify pharmaceuticals in India), fight family violence, and drive political change in the Middle East.
- Ten-Year Vision: Executives aim for organizations to remain as agile as startups, with Graphic India aspiring to be an open-source creative lab where Indian creators can reach a global audience.