July 29, 2025 • 43 mins
David Balfour: Redefining Brand Experiences
In this episode of EventNewsDXB, we sit down with David Balfour, co-founder of LightBlue and one of the pioneers of experiential marketing in the Middle East. David shares his desire to help redefine brand engagement in Dubai - shifting the focus from traditional activations to emotionally driven experiences that resonate long after the event is over.
From big and bold stunts to more intimate and curated brand moments, David explains why emotion is the new metric and why bravery, strategy and cultural insight matter more than ever.
We also explore the future of live experiences in an AI-driven world, why authenticity will become a brand’s greatest asset and what it takes to build strong, trust-based client relationships in a fast-moving market.
If you want to create events that inspire, engage, and truly connect, this episode is packed with ideas and insights you can’t afford to miss.
EventNewsDXB is powered by -45dB - Sound Reduction Specialists.
Production Credits:
Presented by: Ian Carless
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producers: Ian Carless & Joe Morrison
Produced by: EventNewsDXB & W4 Podcast Studio
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast your
behind-the-scenes look at theevent industry in Dubai, the UAE
and the wider MENA region.
I'm Ian Carlos, and each week Isit down with the people
shaping one of the world's mostdynamic event markets, whether
you're an event planner,supplier, agency lead or part of
an in-house team.
(00:21):
I hope that this podcast givesyou some practical takeaways,
fresh perspectives and a deeperunderstanding of how things
really get done in one of theworld's most fast-moving event
markets.
And for season two, I'm superpleased to let you know that
Event News DXB is brought to youby Minus 45DB, the team
transforming noisy event spacesinto slick, sound-reduced
(00:45):
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From full-size conferencetheatres to compact meeting pods
, minus 45dB builds modularspaces that are quiet,
customisable and completelyturnkey, and they're sustainable
too smart design with zerowaste.
Check them out at minus45dbcom.
In this week's episode, we sitdown with one of the most
(01:08):
influential voices inexperiential marketing in the
region, david Balfour,co-founder of Lightblue.
David has been in the UAE eventspace for over two decades and
in that time he's championed ashift in how we think about
brand experience not just assomething to be seen, but
something to be felt.
We dive into why creativebravery is essential in today's
(01:30):
saturated market, how data andemotion can work hand in hand to
drive impact, and why agenciesneed to be more strategic
partners, not just suppliers.
David also shares how tobalance creative ambition with
commercial realities and whynurturing team culture is key to
long-term success.
But what really stood out forme is David's belief that
(01:51):
emotion is the new metric, thatexperiences are measured not
just by footfall or impressions,but by what people remember and
how it makes them feel.
If you're in the business ofbuilding experiences that can
move people, then thisconversation is packed with lots
of hard-earned insight.
Let's get into it.
David, welcome to the podcast.
(02:20):
Thank you very much for havingme.
Hey, welcome.
I guess the first question iswhere I always start, inevitably
is how did you end up in Dubaiand how did you end up in events
?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I'm going back a long time now.
So I worked in events in the UKspecifically working for an
agency called Brand Ambassadors.
At the time they were anin-house agency for tenants'
lager, so we looked afteractivations for T.
At the time they were anin-house agency for Tennant's
Lager, so we looked afteractivations for Tina Park, which
was Scotland's biggest musicfestival at the time.
(02:52):
We did the Scottish Cup rugbysailing and then, through the
buyout of Bass Brewers and InBev, we moved into a lot of their
brands.
I'd been doing that for aboutfive years.
My dad had just passed away andhe traveled the world and lived
in the US and Brazil and Ithought to myself you know what,
(03:14):
it's probably a good time.
Yeah, I believed at the time Iwas working for one of the most
advanced agencies there therewas in the UK from an
experiential perspective.
Yeah, and it wasn't even a term, it wasn't a word, there wasn't
anything that we use.
It's quite a recent toexperiential thing, absolutely
it was just seen as events andsponsorship and there was a real
(03:36):
merger of that and I thoughtyou know what this is.
This is cool.
I like it.
Originally, when I started withthem, it was a one-year
contract and I was goingsupposed to go back to uni right
five years later I didn't, tothe displeasure of my father,
but yeah.
So when he had passed away, I Ithought you know what, I'm
going to spread my wings and Ididn't want to stay in the uk.
(03:58):
I don't want to do the whole.
Let's go to london.
Yeah, I come to dubai in 97 fora schoolboy rugby tournament and
I really enjoyed it.
But also had an opportunity inNew York for Glenn Fiddick, and
Heineken was the other job thatwas looking for a brand manager
at the time.
So I applied for both.
(04:18):
Heineken flew me out and I justthought this is great, I love
it.
I was quite young at the time.
Heineken were like you've gotfive years worth of experience
in delivering exactly what wewant to do, and they offered me
a role.
Basically, by the time I gotback to the airport I got an
email with an offer letter and Iwent back and within a month I
(04:41):
moved out, and it was.
You know.
I thought in my head and I knowwhat you're gonna say.
Like everyone else, it's acommon story two years, and then
I'll go back somewhere, I'lltravel and go somewhere else.
And you've been here how long?
21 years in August.
(05:01):
Yeah, it goes quickly, doesn'tit?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
it goes quickly, yeah , so fast forward, because I
mean I really want to dig intothe whole experiential side of
things.
Let's fast forward to LightBlue.
Yes, how did Light Blue comeabout, and what sort of gap in
the market had you seen in orderfor you to embark on that
journey?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So I was working for Momentum.
Momentum came into the marketthey're part of the IPG network
and their vision was toreplicate what they do in london
, new york and asia in thismarket.
Uh, they rebranded one of thepromo seven agencies called
seven below, who actually was myagency at heineken.
So I knew the team at promoseven and mcn and I got offered
(05:42):
to go in as event director there.
It was a very different timewhere the in this market it was
still not quite what they wantedin terms of.
I didn't think clients wereready not all clients, but a lot
of clients just didn'tunderstand what experiential was
.
So I felt that momentum werepushing water uphill.
(06:04):
So the projects that we weregetting wasn't the experiences
that we were known for globallyyeah and myself and ian, who was
my creative managing directorat momentum, my boss at the time
we decided, you know what,instead of having these brands
coming to us expecting a certainkind of delivery and we were
(06:26):
then having to do we were doingit at home.
We were doing pushing mediadigital radio at the time and
then the experience bit was thistiny little execution at a mall
space.
So we decided, you know what,let's do ourselves.
Let's go out into the marketwith a true belief of connecting
the consumers with the brand,taking them through this journey
(06:49):
.
And the journey was anexperience and for us that was
the key.
That was always where webelieved we had this sweet spot,
where there wasn't anyone inmarket at that time doing what
we were wanting to do, anyone inmarket at that time doing what
we were wanting to do.
We had event agencies who weredelivering music events or brand
activations to a certain level,but what was missing was the
(07:13):
narrative, the storytelling, theemotional element, and that's
what we were trying to bring tothe table.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You talk a lot.
I mean, I did a little bit ofresearch not too much, but a
little bit of research and Ithink in a few of the interviews
with you over the past that Imanaged to read, you talked a
lot about creating culturethrough experience.
Yeah, what does that mean forclients and audiences?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
We do a lot of data analysis and research.
You know we look at theaudience segmentation.
How do we make them feel as abrand?
So we have to put ourselves inthe brand's shoe first, and I've
said this many times.
You know, the brand sometimesfeels as if they're the king of
the castle because they're intheir hq offices.
(07:53):
They believe everyone knows whowe are, they believe our ethos,
they believe everything that wepush out.
Then there's a reality drinkingtheir own colite absolutely,
yeah, absolutely you know.
So then we have to put ourselvesin the consumer, who has a
number of brands saying the samething.
So our vision is really abouthow we can connect the dots
(08:15):
between the brand and theconsumer to ensure that the
journey that the brand wants togo on, the client and the
consumer can also go through it.
So it's, how do we bridge thatgap between that narrative, that
storytelling, the emotion, andthat's the culture bit?
So, understanding what ishappening from a cultural
(08:36):
perspective aligns yourself witha brand and the brand.
It's not that we're asking themto change the brand, but we
need to find sweet spots andthese nuggets of insights that
allows the consumer tounderstand.
That's for me.
So how do we do that?
And a lot of it's emotion whenwe look at metrics.
(08:59):
Metrics at a very, very earlystage, there wasn't, it was a
gut feel, feel.
So emotion became our metric.
You know, when you go to aconcert and you meet your
partner for the first time,that's that's emotion, that's a
story, that's a moment thatyou'll never forget.
What we try to do is bring theculture element, art,
(09:23):
entertainment, technology intothe storytelling, the narrative
that allows them, the brand, totell its story to that consumer
Because the brand doesn't own it.
It's the consumers that own thebrand.
That's the reality.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
We talked just a little bit before the podcast
started, didn't we, about thewhole term experiential being
relatively new.
When do you think this reallysort of the whole experiential
thing really took off?
I mean, I remember I used towork in television video
production and I remember Ithink it was around, I'm going
to say, somewhere around 2012,2014,.
Around that period, and Inoticed a big drop-off in the
(10:01):
branded content that we weredoing with brands around that
time and that, for me,correlated very much with a rise
in events and experience.
Yeah, was that a similarexperience for yourself?
Where do you think that camefrom, that that shift?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think, especially in this market it was.
We had a huge amount of liveevents, from rugby sevens to the
big music concerts that werehappening from.
You know, the likes of LiveNation or Redfest Brands were
buying into that because theiraudience were there, yeah, and
for us it was about creating theexperience that resonated with
(10:36):
the clientele.
So what we were doing wascreating a narrative and using
content to drive that experience.
Creating a narrative and usingcontent to drive that experience
so even the experiences that wewould design was very much
based around the content that wecould pull out, and I think we
were one of the first agenciesin this market to actually use
(10:57):
content as part of theexperience.
So not only were we creating,you know, unbelievable
experiences for the brands, youknow real standout moments and
you know executions that soldthe XB as an example.
You know big, big spaces andbig experiences that we were
creating for the brands wherevisually it was appealing.
(11:18):
You know people are looking atgoing, wow, that's cool.
Yeah, this is only here forthree days.
You know the money they spent onthis and they're three days.
You know the amount of moneythey spent on this and they're
smoking mirrors.
You know, because we can buildthings very, very smartly here,
yeah, but the finish, thequality and what was actually
being delivered from anexperience, every touch point
had an experience.
But we filmed it all and at thetime, we were bringing out guys
(11:42):
from the UK to come and filmbecause we didn't have that type
of content producers in thismarket.
So we were flying out guys fromthe UK to come and film and
shoot because we'd seen whatthey were doing.
So we used that as inspirationand we brought it out.
And then that's when Facebookwas the big platform at the time
(12:03):
and we were pushing throughcontent through that or paid ads
yeah, so we connected the liveexperiences with content, which
is now really fast forward intoeverything that you do is
content based, and you mentionedcontent and you work across a
number of formats, don't you?
Speaker 1 (12:20):
digital, hybrid, physical.
How do you decide whichexperience is right for a
particular brand story?
Is that something that youengineer, or is that more
organic, that has to come fromthe client, from an existing
experience that you can theneither extraplicate or expand
upon?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
it does vary, you know.
Sometimes we get a very clearbrief.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, sometimes we get a whatsapp brief we've all
had a few of those, aren't we itbrief, I do remember getting
one that said we'd like to do atelevision commercial.
How much, no brief, that wasjust it how much?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
pluck a figure out there, absolutely so for us, it
then it's the onus is on us,yeah, to create whatever the
concept, the way that we alwayslook at it is, do we want to
experience that ourselves and Ithink we're probably one of the
hardest audience to please.
When you work in the experienceof delivering experiences, you
(13:18):
become really, really picky.
You know you turn up at eventsand you're looking around,
you're touching walls.
My wife's like what are youdoing?
You know I'm like, oh, that'squite nice, take a picture of
that, keep that for later.
So for us, you know we want toexperience.
We put ourselves in.
You know, not all brands that wework with.
You know, from finance toautomotive, to giga projects,
(13:41):
we're not necessarily theaudience.
So we have to audience profile.
What does that audience want?
What are they looking for?
What's the engagement?
How does that fit in with thebrand essence of what they're
looking to do?
Or the product.
You know, getting the productin the consumer's hands.
How do we connect those dots?
That's really important.
So we really start with theconsumer first, what's right for
(14:03):
them?
And I think that was this bigswitch from why we went and
started Lightblue.
It was always about theconsumer, what they want, how do
they want to feel about theproduct, the experience that
they're in.
If we can get that right,that's the KPI, that's our
metrics.
If they walk away with they dotwo posts, three posts by
(14:27):
themselves, organically, orthey're all walking around going
this is cool, this isunbelievable.
You know we can see the clients.
They're looking at this andthey're going this is impressive
.
You know we've had at the endof events.
You know clients are buyingchampagne.
You know clients are buyingchampagne.
You know we had clients cryingat the event end of the event
and we're like this is coolthat's a winner.
(14:48):
It's a winner right because youknow, our job is also to make
them famous.
That is the job of the agencies.
Make your client famous, makethem need to use you because of
what you've delivered.
Everything's about delivery.
It's really, really simple.
If you, you might create anunbelievable experience.
You have the strategy, you haveall the insights, but if you
(15:09):
fail in delivery, you're done.
That's the last time they'lluse you.
Yeah, and you've wastedeverything.
Because for us, it's aboutpartnerships.
We want to keep thosepartnerships, we want to keep
those clients on the long-termbasis, because then we
understand the brand better, weunderstand the client better, we
understand their kpis and thatallows us to have fun.
(15:30):
You know, because that's whatwe want.
We want to turn up at ourevents and have fun with it.
You know.
So life's not as serious or itshouldn't be as serious as what
it is but if you have everythingin order that allows you to
actually enjoy what you'redelivering as well, and you can
see it in the clients, you cansee it in the consumers faces,
(15:51):
and that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
We want to have fun.
We'll come on to the topic oflong-term partnerships in a
minute.
I had paul berger on recentlyfrom the arena group talking
about basically how difficulthe'd found to establish
long-term relationships in thismarket versus the UK and the US,
where they also operate.
Before that, though, I wantedto ask you this I think it's
(16:12):
fairly safe to say we live in aregion that's fairly risk averse
, yeah, so how do you findbrands when it comes to their
attitude towards experientialbriefs and taking a risk?
Are they for it?
Do some jump on boardwholeheartedly and say, david,
do what you want, and do othersgo no?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Look, I think I wholeheartedly believe that most
of our clients are brave andthat's why they come to us.
Right, you know we've had someunbelievable moments branded
moments with clients but wherewe've had senior directors
signing off on things that legalin the us or in europe have
(16:53):
gone against you know.
So, you know when we're.
You know playstation and welaunched playstation 5 and we
were throwing two guys off theburj khalifa flying around at
night tandemly and then flyingthrough the address hotel,
landing on shakeside road.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Legal we're like no way I'm not gonna happen,
especially in the us, especiallyin the us.
It's just, it's not gonnahappen they're a bit litigation,
happy, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
it's like, yeah, I mean, I had tickets to panama
ready for me just in case.
But we have brave clients andour playstation client, you know
, robert and may areunbelievable.
You know, visionaries they're.
They always want to push thingsto the next limit, which is the
ethos of playstation.
So for us having these type ofclients you know even mashrick
(17:47):
we've got a wonderful clientthat's been a client of mine for
, I'd say, about 15 years Suaj.
He's very senior now.
You know we had the FrenchSpider-Man climbing up
Bershklyfa with his protégé.
It was a six-hour climb.
He's a tiny, wee guy and wewere like, is he going to be
(18:07):
okay?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
climbing this.
He's the one that does it liketotally freestyle, isn't he?
Yes, no, safety, nothing, no.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, but the concept aligned with what the brand
wanted, you know, and that's themain thing.
So it's not just about anexperience, you know, coming up
with something wild and crazyall the time.
It has to make sense.
There has to be a reason whywe're doing something.
You know, is it part of a kpiperspective?
(18:34):
You know, we, when we launchedthe bmw not too long ago, we had
it flying in in the helicopterthrough, you know, palm java
alley and blue waters and thenlanding on Sky Dubai for the
launch.
That was a pure content pieceas well.
(18:55):
As you're one of the hungrypeople there watching this
arrive.
It's impressive, rather thanthe usual kabuki.
There's the car, so it's.
How do we take that to the nextstage?
How do we change things around?
And that's what we try to workon.
You know it's.
It's.
We've had, you know, since allthese experiences or stunts that
(19:17):
we've pulled off, we've hadclients come to us.
What have we got?
What we got, and we've neverworked with them like can you
give us five ideas?
It's like, no, it's not how itworks.
Yeah, you know, we need toreally understand everything.
We you know.
Have you got a brief?
No, I just I've been asked todo a stunt.
(19:39):
Okay, come back with a briefyeah and then let's sit down and
talk and talk.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
It has to be part of a much bigger picture it has to
connect, otherwise it's uselessand I, and I'm sure the longer
you're with a client, the morethe trust builds, obviously, and
then they're more willing torelinquish some of that
handholding and let you takesome of those punts that perhaps
others wouldn't.
So, on the long-termrelationships, I mean, how have
(20:03):
you been able to manage those?
Because I mean, obviously welive in a very transient region.
You know, I mean I'm the same.
You know you have a client andthen you leave it 12, 18 months.
You call them up and you'relike, oh right, they've moved on
.
Now, in the best case scenario,you think to yourself oh,
that's great, they've moved toanother company, we've
potentially got another client,but in many cases they leave the
(20:23):
country.
So how are you able to navigate, maintaining those long-term
relationships?
I mean, obviously, like you say, if you get lucky and somebody
stays with an organization for along time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Obviously great, but I'd have to guess that people
jump around a lot here in thisregion, especially in the last
four to five years We've seen ahuge shift where we had clients
staying in their roles for anumber of years, a bit like the
UK at this stage.
Now they're moving.
We've had one brand that wework with.
(20:57):
I've had two marketingdirectors, three group sales
directors in nine months.
That's tough Challenging.
So you're constantly rebuildingthat relationship.
I mean, thankfully we're kindof embedded in the conversation
and they look at us as themainstay of the project and you
(21:20):
know.
So in that sense we're good.
In another sense, where youmight not have a long-term
contract with them and you arepart of the roster, so every so
often you have to go back inrepresent.
This is what we've done, thisis what we do, this is how we do
, this is our approach.
And then it's procurementbriefs.
The relationships have reallymoved, especially, I would say,
(21:43):
in the last two yearsprocurement driven, which means
the relationship with a clientis only after you've won the
project.
So to actually understand theclient, understand what their
wants and requirements are forthem, the business, the business
KPIs, it becomes defunct.
(22:04):
And for me that then shows alack of real business marketing
decisions and why we're doingsomething.
Because from my perspective youshould be able to look at a
full brand plan for the year andthen be able to work everything
out, what needs to happenthroughout the period of time,
(22:27):
and I feel that doesn't workanymore.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
no, it seems to come a little bit more down to sort
of like you're ticking boxes onan excel sheet, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
that's it so your conveyor belt.
We try to get away from that.
We only want to work with anumber of clients that we
understand.
We get them, they get us.
You know we're trying to getaway from pitch cultures.
We have a quite stringentqualifications sheet internally
that allows us to really dialinto how much time we want to
(22:57):
give on a project on the pitch.
You know, do we have thatcapability, do we have that
scope?
Do we want the team to actuallyhave a bit of downtime?
Because, I mean, you could bepitching every day if you, if
you took everything on, and froma business perspective that
makes no sense.
From a team culture perspective, that isn't fun either.
No, because then the ideasaren't there, because you're
(23:21):
constantly just what's next,what's next, what's next.
So let's reduce that and that'swhat we found, you know, by
reducing the number of clients.
I think before covid we had 52clients.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
In the past couple years we're averaging around 20
to 25 clients a year, right,which is much easier to handle I
want to talk a little bit aboutum, success and how you measure
success, because obviously someof our conversation so far has
been about the sort oftouchy-feely elements and the
emotional side of things, andbrands are very used to having
(23:54):
very defined KPIs, aren't they,and very defined ways of of
whether or not they've got ROIon whatever it is that they
happen to have put their moneybehind.
Yeah, how do you manage that inthe field of experiential, then
, when, like you say, so much ofit is about the emotion side of
things and how you make peoplefeel, how do you measure that?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
we always look at and we talk to the clients a lot
about this what we're sellingbecause then they were selling
something you know.
So tom ford as an example anumber of years ago we launched
their fabulous and ood productrange.
It wasn't even a kpi of ours,it was a pure brand awareness
play.
Within two weeks we sold outacross Dubai Mall and Mall of
(24:35):
Emirates.
That, for us, was unbelievableand it was unbelievable for the
client as well.
We worked with Fixed Chocolate.
And again, how can we sell out?
What's the opportunity?
How can we make this?
Put the brand in danger of nothaving anything by day three?
That's, that's Nice problem tohave.
Yeah, you know so for us, that'show we'll look and approach.
(24:58):
You know it's they want to sell.
How do we make that the bestopportunity for consumers to
come and buy?
And that's driven by theexperience.
But our job is to put the brandin danger of being sold out.
If we can do that, we've.
We've also hit the kpi ofsellout right.
So we, we try to connect bothright?
(25:20):
Not every brand is there's arequirement for it, yeah, but we
look for it because that'sthat's how we change the
relationship between the agencyand the brand into our
partnership, because we're nowasking the questions of what's
your kpi, what's the masterobjective of the brand for this
year, how can we engage withthat, how can we move forward
(25:41):
with that?
And a lot of clients will belike, ah, okay, well, actually,
here you go.
This is, this is what we wantto do for this year.
So it's breaking those barriersdown and it's just it's
relationships, you know, and Ithink when you look back from
that covet period, we're stilltalking about covert five years
(26:02):
later.
I know it's crazy, isn't it?
It's purely because we didn'treally think about zoom calls
team and whatever platform thatyou may use.
We went to their offices, theycame to our offices, we went and
had coffee in the morning, wehad lunch, we had dinner.
That doesn't happen anymore, orvery, very rarely, you know, to
(26:23):
actually go and see the client.
I was in a meeting three daysago with a client of ours for
five hours.
It was a one hour meeting.
That was what was scheduled inand we just rolled on because
the opportunities, theconversations, everything you
know and you're for want of abetter word you're getting shit
done.
Yeah, we're moving the needleyeah you know.
(26:44):
So that's, that's our job tohelp the client to move their
needle.
So we can do that and spendtime with the client.
I much prefer that than havingthe team in the office sitting
around, you know.
So spending time with client isso important and you know, over
the last couple years look, myfinance director would be it's
great having zoom, because youdon't need to fly somewhere, you
(27:07):
don't need to drive somewhere,you don't need a part somewhere
travel bills went down you know,so it's claims went down
absolutely yeah, you're notpaying for their coffees, their
lunches, their dinners coffee,yeah, so it's.
It's um.
So from a finance perspective,great.
From a relationship perspective, terrible yeah you know, I like
to see people.
(27:27):
I like to go and meet myclients face to face and I
always believe, once you look atsomeone's in the whites of
their eyes, you know you'regoing to work with them or
you're not.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, I think there should be.
I mean, for me, I think thereshould be an expectation,
certainly when you're doingbusiness development, that you
need to put in that face-to-facetime in those initial stages.
I think once you've built thatrelationship and once you've
established a bond and trust,sure that you can then sideline
some of those face-to-facemeetings and replace them with
Zoom or WhatsApp or whatever itis.
(27:57):
But initially there really hasto be that face-to-face contact.
Listen, which kind of dovetailsinto my next point.
I'm sure you've been across someof the trade papers recently
and will have seen Mark Cuban'srecent predictions, shall we say
.
I'm going to read it out for thebenefit of the listeners that
haven't seen it.
I mean, I'm guessing thateverybody knows who Mark Cuban
(28:19):
is, but in relationship toevents and where he's putting
his money over the next fewyears he said this quote within
the next three years there willbe so much AI, in particular AI
video people won't know if whatthey see or hear is real, which
will result in an explosion offace-to-face engagement, events
and jobs.
(28:39):
Unquote.
What's your reaction to that?
I mean, he talks about amillivanilla effect, which is
quite cute as well, and againI'll explain that.
So what he was saying was Imean, obviously it's a reference
to that, to the 80s pop groupthat got found out for miming,
and I guess what he's saying isthat you know same thing, that
you know people will get foundout with all the fake stuff and
(29:00):
they want to see it for real.
What do you think to hisstatement there?
I thought that was quite aneye-opener, absolutely I I
actually agree 100.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I think there's gonna be a real shift.
Because of the way that socialamplification works, content
works, people start doubting it,is this real?
Like?
We've kind of gone, wentthrough that little phase of uh,
the cgi's, the floating shoesdriving around the city, the
balloons coming up from whereverthey're coming up from, or
(29:30):
things dropping from the sky bigbed with a north face jacket on
great easy content to push out.
That's done.
Ai will improve, it will getbetter.
It will allow design agencies,creative agencies, to come up
with ideas much shorter yeah, interms of, you know, from an
(29:53):
agency time frame, whichultimately saves money for the
clients because you're you'respending less time.
But everything has to be rootedon insights and strategy.
So, whatever you do, from an aiperspective, it might be quick,
easy, cheap.
Let's go, you know, when youdon't have time to do something.
But I think a lot of brandswill hold off and rather do
(30:13):
something in person in a eithera boutique scale, 30 hundred
people to a 30 000 consumerevent.
People want experiences, peoplewant to remember, they want to
take family time, they want tospend time with their friends at
events, not on their phone, andwe can see it now with you know
(30:37):
the gen zeds and what they'rewanting to do and how they want
to engage.
Yes, their phone's always intheir hands.
My kids, it's exactly the samething.
Yeah, but they also want to goto a concert.
They also want to go to afootball game.
They want to experience it.
My 12 year old loves football.
I took her to the arsenal manunited game in la when they were
(30:59):
doing pre-season.
She half the time she was justlooking around and not even at
the football.
I.
I don't blame her, it wasn'tgreat football, but it was the
experience of being in thestadium with 70,000 fans.
For her that was unbelievable.
The football by the by.
Trying to get her to watchfootball on the TV impossible,
(31:25):
unless it's YouTube versusSidemen that she knows all these
, you know influencers.
So from our in real lifeexperience and we've seen, you
know the boutique dinners, eventhe projects that we've
delivered of late with Gucci,dior, tommy Hilfiger, burberry
(31:45):
it's intimate moments that arecurated experiences.
For that selected group thatmeans a lot more than anything
else.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
I mean, I noticed a shift.
I mean, obviously we haveWarehouse 4, which is an event
venue, and I noticed a big shiftfrom pre-COVID to post-COVID
just in the size of events.
And some of that, yeah, okay,admittedly, is budget concerns,
but I think what I saw was amove towards much smaller, much
more intimate events and I'dlike to think that, as well as
(32:17):
budget, that was also arealisation from clients that
actually, you know, that facetime that you get with a smaller
number of people is a lot morevaluable than just a quick
handshakehake to, you know,amongst a few thousand people.
I mean, you're always going tohave your banner events your big
, huge ones.
Are you seeing that that?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
shift, absolutely, yeah, we're seeing a lot more of
these and more frequently.
Yeah, exactly so.
It's not the same audience, andthat was a phase that we were
going through a while back.
Used to turn up to four eventsin a week, same faces.
Dubai, the ues, got bigger, youknow I think I read the report
the other day there was athousand new residents moving to
(32:56):
Dubai a day.
Yeah, I could see them all onshakeside road.
Yeah, you got stuck in traffic.
So the, the demographics, sothe demographic's changing.
The audience is changing.
It's getting bigger.
We're attracting a lot moremillionaires and laborers and
everything in between.
Dubai, the UAE, is booming, sobrands have got to evolve on how
(33:21):
they engage with the newclientele, and it's not always
the same people now.
So people are getting let offlists at the moment because
there's so many more people toengage with.
So for a brand, it's like okay,we've got a new audience to
talk to.
We want to talk to this newaudience rather than the same
faces constantly.
So there's a real shift towardsthat, which I personally love,
(33:45):
because it's curated experiencesspecifically, so it's designed
experiences for 30 people, for100 people, perfect.
So, which means the level ofdelivery has to be perfect every
time?
Yeah, because you get one shotnow I'm conscious of time.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I know we could go on and on.
Well, I can certainly go on andon about the whole experiential
thing for a long time, but wedo try and keep these to around
30, 35 minutes.
So before we wrap up, I've gota couple of quick fire questions
for you.
Three or four Biggest on-sitechallenge you've ever faced and
how did you overcome it?
Oh, traffic, we've had otherones being weather.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, traffic.
We've had other ones beingweather.
Yeah, well, yeah, weather was.
I remember rugby sevens, whenwe had the floods, of course,
years and years ago, yes, and wehad painted everything green
and obviously the paint isn't itwas roller paint.
Yeah, I mean, from a heinekenperspective, it was great.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Everyone's walking around, absolutely yeah turn a
negative into a positive.
Yeah, so that that was a goodone okay, next one, one thing
you'd ban at events, if youcould you said we've got 35
minutes one thing okay, do youknow?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
do you know those?
I don't even know what they'recalled.
It's like the thing that youstand in the middle and the
camera goes round.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Oh yeah the photo booth, the photo booth, yeah,
360 photo booths, the 360.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Oh my God, get rid of that, get rid of that, Go, gone
All right, that's gone, that'sout of here.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Okay, next one Most underrated job role event role
oh, the permit man.
Good one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Permits.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
If there's no alcohol in your event, that should have
alcohol or permit for the liveDJ entertainment.
If we don't have the permit guy, we're done.
Yeah, we are done, but no onethinks about that and no one
wants to pay for the permit guy.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, true, okay, slightly more.
No one thinks about that and noone wants to pay for the permit
guy.
Yeah, true, okay, slightly moreserious one for you now, one
thing clients should do beforethey look to work with you
Understand the business.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think that's really important to understand the
agency that you're working with,their capabilities of what they
can deliver and that's you know.
When you look at procurementversus brands team, the brands
team should be the ones tellingprocurement.
This is the agency we want, notprocurement going out on Google
and events agency experientialGetting 27 quotes and picking
(36:18):
the cheapest, and pickingwhatever it is.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Last one and again, this is probably a topic we
could dedicate a whole podcastto, but one message for the next
generation of eventprofessionals or people wanting
to get into experiential it's aninteresting one, isn't it to
see?
Whether you know peopleactually want to come into our
industry now that I, you know,want of sounding a little long
in the tooth.
Uh, you know there's a lot ofthe younger generation that
(36:42):
don't seem to want to put in thehard yards.
Well, I was going to say thatwork ethic.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, you know that little four-letter word.
Yeah, you know, my first job wasworking in a bar.
Yeah, and I was collectingglasses, ashtrays, doing the ice
.
You know everything in betweenthat you had to do for a bar and
a nightclub.
You know everything in betweenthat you had to do for a bar and
(37:08):
a nightclub, that graft ofmaking sure that whatever has to
happen at the event needs tohappen.
And it's tough because you knowwe've got we've got an
unbelievable team and the workethic is unbelievable from from
what they deliver day in, dayout.
But that next generation that'scoming through, that see all the
(37:28):
shiny elements of the eventsbut not realize what it takes,
that blood, sweat and tears ofbeing on your feet for 18 hours
a day and then driving home orhaving a kip in the car because
it's not worth going homebecause you're up in the morning
to go back.
So it's hard work, experiences,experiential is not an easy gig
(37:53):
and being live on site for meis the most fulfilling part of
the job, seeing it from day oneto delivery, standing back.
And I always say this stand,stand back, be proud of what
you've done.
You know, take that moment andit's.
It's a bit like you know, whenyou get married, that you know
(38:13):
everything's happening at thesame time.
Everyone wants you.
Everyone wants a bit of actionfrom the time to savor the
moment savor the moment, enjoythat, you know, and I think
that's the key thing, and we tryto make sure that there's a
moment within each of the eventswe do that there's a
celebration moment, you knowwhen it's deserved, which most
of the time it is.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
And then last one.
A little frivolous, but I'veasked all the guests this, so
I'll not make an exception here.
I'm guessing you're a music fan.
I know.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I am.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, what's on your playlist at the moment?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
This morning was Bossa Nova.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, I'm off radio.
I've not listened to the radiofor about six months.
I just got bored of switchingfrom all the channels, which is
terrible, because I really enjoyradio in other markets.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It's got a bit stale here, hasn't here it's got?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
stale music, you know , and anyway.
I could go on a bit for thisone, but I've now got my
playlist set.
You know from.
Yeah, this morning was BossaNova.
Brilliant yeah it was reallynice.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And then finally, what's next for yourself in
Light Blue Good question.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
We're opening up in london, oh is this public
knowledge?
It is now we we've beenspending a lot of time in london
and we've been talking to a lotof our partners, a lot of
brands that we have been workingwith for a number of years.
We've picked up we've picked upthree projects already on the
(39:46):
pnq and we will be going live.
Actually, something went liveyesterday, the day before right,
that will come across oursocial channels pretty soon.
And uh, yeah, so we we've gotour business director.
We're recruiting for the teamin london and uh moment, I'm
flying to London a lot, which isgreat, it's good fun.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Get your air miles up .
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Air miles are going up, which I need it because it's
tough right now to get my airmiles up, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
funny how things come full circle.
You mentioned at the very startof the podcast how you know
when you were looking to moveaway.
You didn't want to make themove down to London.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
No, instead of from Scotland.
And now I'm setting up scotland, you've covered.
You're going back there fromdubai.
Yeah, I mean it's.
It's so.
Originally the plan was to setup a creative studio to service
the work that we do in themiddle east.
You know, we've got officeshere.
And then riad, and then, quitequickly, the conversations that
we're having with a lot of thebrands there there seems to be,
(40:42):
especially at the time, therewas like this doom and gloom,
rinse and repeat, you know, thegovernment, what was happening,
and with pensions, and it wasjust everyone was just like, oh,
and we were going in and wewere actually downplaying this
whole.
We're from Dubai and Riyadh,this is all the kind of stuff
that we do flying cars around,right, and we were like really
(41:02):
playing it down.
And then we accidentally showedone client the wrong video, the
showreel, which had everythingin it, and he was just like that
is unbelievable.
And then we want some of that,yeah, and he started slagging
off his own agency.
(41:23):
I'm like, oh, awkward.
And then we had another clientwho took us to a premiere of one
of their events, saying so thisis what we're doing right now
and I want you guys to do thenext one.
So that was awkward when ournames are in the list of getting
into this event, this premiere.
(41:43):
But it's a great series seriesand we were standing there and
we're like you know it's yes.
Yes, I mean the series is great,I loved it, but it it was like
the event itself was a bitformulaic.
And maybe it was formulaicbecause we're here in this
market and we've seen it andwe've done it and it's's like
(42:04):
how do we take it to the nextlevel?
And I think that's what ourclients in the UK are really
excited for.
It's how we can move the needlewithout preconceptions of the
market.
Of course, we're not flying acar around London, we never know
.
But yeah, I think it's for us.
We want to go in.
We want to change the narrative.
We're going to be brave,clients us.
(42:24):
We want to go in.
We want to change the narrative.
We're going to be brave.
Clients are loving the bravery.
They're matching that for us.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So yeah, lots to come .
Great, look forward to it.
Well, david, thank you verymuch for coming in and talking
to me on the podcast, and bestof luck with your ventures, both
here and in london.
Thank you very much.
Event news dxb is brought toyou by minus 45 db, the team
transforming noisy event spacesinto slick, sound, reduced
(42:50):
environments.
Check them out at minus 45dbcom.
This episode was presented bymyself, ian carlos, the studio
engineer and editor was roy demonte, the executive producer
was myself and joe morrison, andthis podcast was produced by W4
Podcast Studio Dubai.
And if you haven't done soalready, please do click that
(43:12):
follow or subscribe button.
See you next time.
You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast your
behind-the-scenes look at theevent industry in Dubai, the UAE
and the wider MENA region.
I'm Ian Carlos, and each week Isit down with the people
shaping one of the world's mostdynamic event markets, whether
you're an event planner,supplier, agency lead or part of
an in-house team.
(00:21):
I hope that this podcast givesyou some practical takeaways,
fresh perspectives and a deeperunderstanding of how things
really get done in one of theworld's most fast-moving event
markets.
And for season two, I'm superpleased to let you know that
Event News DXB is brought to youby Minus 45DB, the team
transforming noisy event spacesinto slick, sound-reduced
(00:45):
environments.
From full-size conferencetheatres to compact meeting pods
, minus 45dB builds modularspaces that are quiet,
customisable and completelyturnkey, and they're sustainable
too smart design with zerowaste.
Check them out at minus45dbcom.
In this week's episode, we sitdown with one of the most
(01:08):
influential voices inexperiential marketing in the
region, david Balfour,co-founder of Lightblue.
David has been in the UAE eventspace for over two decades and
in that time he's championed ashift in how we think about
brand experience not just assomething to be seen, but
something to be felt.
We dive into why creativebravery is essential in today's
(01:30):
saturated market, how data andemotion can work hand in hand to
drive impact, and why agenciesneed to be more strategic
partners, not just suppliers.
David also shares how tobalance creative ambition with
commercial realities and whynurturing team culture is key to
long-term success.
But what really stood out forme is David's belief that
(01:51):
emotion is the new metric, thatexperiences are measured not
just by footfall or impressions,but by what people remember and
how it makes them feel.
If you're in the business ofbuilding experiences that can
move people, then thisconversation is packed with lots
of hard-earned insight.
Let's get into it.
David, welcome to the podcast.
(02:20):
Thank you very much for havingme.
Hey, welcome.
I guess the first question iswhere I always start, inevitably
is how did you end up in Dubaiand how did you end up in events
?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I'm going back a long time now.
So I worked in events in the UKspecifically working for an
agency called Brand Ambassadors.
At the time they were anin-house agency for tenants'
lager, so we looked afteractivations for T.
At the time they were anin-house agency for Tennant's
Lager, so we looked afteractivations for Tina Park, which
was Scotland's biggest musicfestival at the time.
(02:52):
We did the Scottish Cup rugbysailing and then, through the
buyout of Bass Brewers and InBev, we moved into a lot of their
brands.
I'd been doing that for aboutfive years.
My dad had just passed away andhe traveled the world and lived
in the US and Brazil and Ithought to myself you know what,
(03:14):
it's probably a good time.
Yeah, I believed at the time Iwas working for one of the most
advanced agencies there therewas in the UK from an
experiential perspective.
Yeah, and it wasn't even a term, it wasn't a word, there wasn't
anything that we use.
It's quite a recent toexperiential thing, absolutely
it was just seen as events andsponsorship and there was a real
(03:36):
merger of that and I thoughtyou know what this is.
This is cool.
I like it.
Originally, when I started withthem, it was a one-year
contract and I was goingsupposed to go back to uni right
five years later I didn't, tothe displeasure of my father,
but yeah.
So when he had passed away, I Ithought you know what, I'm
going to spread my wings and Ididn't want to stay in the uk.
(03:58):
I don't want to do the whole.
Let's go to london.
Yeah, I come to dubai in 97 fora schoolboy rugby tournament and
I really enjoyed it.
But also had an opportunity inNew York for Glenn Fiddick, and
Heineken was the other job thatwas looking for a brand manager
at the time.
So I applied for both.
(04:18):
Heineken flew me out and I justthought this is great, I love
it.
I was quite young at the time.
Heineken were like you've gotfive years worth of experience
in delivering exactly what wewant to do, and they offered me
a role.
Basically, by the time I gotback to the airport I got an
email with an offer letter and Iwent back and within a month I
(04:41):
moved out, and it was.
You know.
I thought in my head and I knowwhat you're gonna say.
Like everyone else, it's acommon story two years, and then
I'll go back somewhere, I'lltravel and go somewhere else.
And you've been here how long?
21 years in August.
(05:01):
Yeah, it goes quickly, doesn'tit?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
it goes quickly, yeah , so fast forward, because I
mean I really want to dig intothe whole experiential side of
things.
Let's fast forward to LightBlue.
Yes, how did Light Blue comeabout, and what sort of gap in
the market had you seen in orderfor you to embark on that
journey?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So I was working for Momentum.
Momentum came into the marketthey're part of the IPG network
and their vision was toreplicate what they do in london
, new york and asia in thismarket.
Uh, they rebranded one of thepromo seven agencies called
seven below, who actually was myagency at heineken.
So I knew the team at promoseven and mcn and I got offered
(05:42):
to go in as event director there.
It was a very different timewhere the in this market it was
still not quite what they wantedin terms of.
I didn't think clients wereready not all clients, but a lot
of clients just didn'tunderstand what experiential was
.
So I felt that momentum werepushing water uphill.
(06:04):
So the projects that we weregetting wasn't the experiences
that we were known for globallyyeah and myself and ian, who was
my creative managing directorat momentum, my boss at the time
we decided, you know what,instead of having these brands
coming to us expecting a certainkind of delivery and we were
(06:26):
then having to do we were doingit at home.
We were doing pushing mediadigital radio at the time and
then the experience bit was thistiny little execution at a mall
space.
So we decided, you know what,let's do ourselves.
Let's go out into the marketwith a true belief of connecting
the consumers with the brand,taking them through this journey
(06:49):
.
And the journey was anexperience and for us that was
the key.
That was always where webelieved we had this sweet spot,
where there wasn't anyone inmarket at that time doing what
we were wanting to do, anyone inmarket at that time doing what
we were wanting to do.
We had event agencies who weredelivering music events or brand
activations to a certain level,but what was missing was the
(07:13):
narrative, the storytelling, theemotional element, and that's
what we were trying to bring tothe table.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You talk a lot.
I mean, I did a little bit ofresearch not too much, but a
little bit of research and Ithink in a few of the interviews
with you over the past that Imanaged to read, you talked a
lot about creating culturethrough experience.
Yeah, what does that mean forclients and audiences?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
We do a lot of data analysis and research.
You know we look at theaudience segmentation.
How do we make them feel as abrand?
So we have to put ourselves inthe brand's shoe first, and I've
said this many times.
You know, the brand sometimesfeels as if they're the king of
the castle because they're intheir hq offices.
(07:53):
They believe everyone knows whowe are, they believe our ethos,
they believe everything that wepush out.
Then there's a reality drinkingtheir own colite absolutely,
yeah, absolutely you know.
So then we have to put ourselvesin the consumer, who has a
number of brands saying the samething.
So our vision is really abouthow we can connect the dots
(08:15):
between the brand and theconsumer to ensure that the
journey that the brand wants togo on, the client and the
consumer can also go through it.
So it's, how do we bridge thatgap between that narrative, that
storytelling, the emotion, andthat's the culture bit?
So, understanding what ishappening from a cultural
(08:36):
perspective aligns yourself witha brand and the brand.
It's not that we're asking themto change the brand, but we
need to find sweet spots andthese nuggets of insights that
allows the consumer tounderstand.
That's for me.
So how do we do that?
And a lot of it's emotion whenwe look at metrics.
(08:59):
Metrics at a very, very earlystage, there wasn't, it was a
gut feel, feel.
So emotion became our metric.
You know, when you go to aconcert and you meet your
partner for the first time,that's that's emotion, that's a
story, that's a moment thatyou'll never forget.
What we try to do is bring theculture element, art,
(09:23):
entertainment, technology intothe storytelling, the narrative
that allows them, the brand, totell its story to that consumer
Because the brand doesn't own it.
It's the consumers that own thebrand.
That's the reality.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
We talked just a little bit before the podcast
started, didn't we, about thewhole term experiential being
relatively new.
When do you think this reallysort of the whole experiential
thing really took off?
I mean, I remember I used towork in television video
production and I remember Ithink it was around, I'm going
to say, somewhere around 2012,2014,.
Around that period, and Inoticed a big drop-off in the
(10:01):
branded content that we weredoing with brands around that
time and that, for me,correlated very much with a rise
in events and experience.
Yeah, was that a similarexperience for yourself?
Where do you think that camefrom, that that shift?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I think, especially in this market it was.
We had a huge amount of liveevents, from rugby sevens to the
big music concerts that werehappening from.
You know, the likes of LiveNation or Redfest Brands were
buying into that because theiraudience were there, yeah, and
for us it was about creating theexperience that resonated with
(10:36):
the clientele.
So what we were doing wascreating a narrative and using
content to drive that experience.
Creating a narrative and usingcontent to drive that experience
so even the experiences that wewould design was very much
based around the content that wecould pull out, and I think we
were one of the first agenciesin this market to actually use
(10:57):
content as part of theexperience.
So not only were we creating,you know, unbelievable
experiences for the brands, youknow real standout moments and
you know executions that soldthe XB as an example.
You know big, big spaces andbig experiences that we were
creating for the brands wherevisually it was appealing.
(11:18):
You know people are looking atgoing, wow, that's cool.
Yeah, this is only here forthree days.
You know the money they spent onthis and they're three days.
You know the amount of moneythey spent on this and they're
smoking mirrors.
You know, because we can buildthings very, very smartly here,
yeah, but the finish, thequality and what was actually
being delivered from anexperience, every touch point
had an experience.
But we filmed it all and at thetime, we were bringing out guys
(11:42):
from the UK to come and filmbecause we didn't have that type
of content producers in thismarket.
So we were flying out guys fromthe UK to come and film and
shoot because we'd seen whatthey were doing.
So we used that as inspirationand we brought it out.
And then that's when Facebookwas the big platform at the time
(12:03):
and we were pushing throughcontent through that or paid ads
yeah, so we connected the liveexperiences with content, which
is now really fast forward intoeverything that you do is
content based, and you mentionedcontent and you work across a
number of formats, don't you?
Speaker 1 (12:20):
digital, hybrid, physical.
How do you decide whichexperience is right for a
particular brand story?
Is that something that youengineer, or is that more
organic, that has to come fromthe client, from an existing
experience that you can theneither extraplicate or expand
upon?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
it does vary, you know.
Sometimes we get a very clearbrief.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, sometimes we get a whatsapp brief we've all
had a few of those, aren't we itbrief, I do remember getting
one that said we'd like to do atelevision commercial.
How much, no brief, that wasjust it how much?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
pluck a figure out there, absolutely so for us, it
then it's the onus is on us,yeah, to create whatever the
concept, the way that we alwayslook at it is, do we want to
experience that ourselves and Ithink we're probably one of the
hardest audience to please.
When you work in the experienceof delivering experiences, you
(13:18):
become really, really picky.
You know you turn up at eventsand you're looking around,
you're touching walls.
My wife's like what are youdoing?
You know I'm like, oh, that'squite nice, take a picture of
that, keep that for later.
So for us, you know we want toexperience.
We put ourselves in.
You know, not all brands that wework with.
You know, from finance toautomotive, to giga projects,
(13:41):
we're not necessarily theaudience.
So we have to audience profile.
What does that audience want?
What are they looking for?
What's the engagement?
How does that fit in with thebrand essence of what they're
looking to do?
Or the product.
You know, getting the productin the consumer's hands.
How do we connect those dots?
That's really important.
So we really start with theconsumer first, what's right for
(14:03):
them?
And I think that was this bigswitch from why we went and
started Lightblue.
It was always about theconsumer, what they want, how do
they want to feel about theproduct, the experience that
they're in.
If we can get that right,that's the KPI, that's our
metrics.
If they walk away with they dotwo posts, three posts by
(14:27):
themselves, organically, orthey're all walking around going
this is cool, this isunbelievable.
You know we can see the clients.
They're looking at this andthey're going this is impressive
.
You know we've had at the endof events.
You know clients are buyingchampagne.
You know clients are buyingchampagne.
You know we had clients cryingat the event end of the event
and we're like this is coolthat's a winner.
(14:48):
It's a winner right because youknow, our job is also to make
them famous.
That is the job of the agencies.
Make your client famous, makethem need to use you because of
what you've delivered.
Everything's about delivery.
It's really, really simple.
If you, you might create anunbelievable experience.
You have the strategy, you haveall the insights, but if you
(15:09):
fail in delivery, you're done.
That's the last time they'lluse you.
Yeah, and you've wastedeverything.
Because for us, it's aboutpartnerships.
We want to keep thosepartnerships, we want to keep
those clients on the long-termbasis, because then we
understand the brand better, weunderstand the client better, we
understand their kpis and thatallows us to have fun.
(15:30):
You know, because that's whatwe want.
We want to turn up at ourevents and have fun with it.
You know.
So life's not as serious or itshouldn't be as serious as what
it is but if you have everythingin order that allows you to
actually enjoy what you'redelivering as well, and you can
see it in the clients, you cansee it in the consumers faces,
(15:51):
and that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
We want to have fun.
We'll come on to the topic oflong-term partnerships in a
minute.
I had paul berger on recentlyfrom the arena group talking
about basically how difficulthe'd found to establish
long-term relationships in thismarket versus the UK and the US,
where they also operate.
Before that, though, I wantedto ask you this I think it's
(16:12):
fairly safe to say we live in aregion that's fairly risk averse
, yeah, so how do you findbrands when it comes to their
attitude towards experientialbriefs and taking a risk?
Are they for it?
Do some jump on boardwholeheartedly and say, david,
do what you want, and do othersgo no?
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Look, I think I wholeheartedly believe that most
of our clients are brave andthat's why they come to us.
Right, you know we've had someunbelievable moments branded
moments with clients but wherewe've had senior directors
signing off on things that legalin the us or in europe have
(16:53):
gone against you know.
So, you know when we're.
You know playstation and welaunched playstation 5 and we
were throwing two guys off theburj khalifa flying around at
night tandemly and then flyingthrough the address hotel,
landing on shakeside road.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Legal we're like no way I'm not gonna happen,
especially in the us, especiallyin the us.
It's just, it's not gonnahappen they're a bit litigation,
happy, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
it's like, yeah, I mean, I had tickets to panama
ready for me just in case.
But we have brave clients andour playstation client, you know
, robert and may areunbelievable.
You know, visionaries they're.
They always want to push thingsto the next limit, which is the
ethos of playstation.
So for us having these type ofclients you know even mashrick
(17:47):
we've got a wonderful clientthat's been a client of mine for
, I'd say, about 15 years Suaj.
He's very senior now.
You know we had the FrenchSpider-Man climbing up
Bershklyfa with his protégé.
It was a six-hour climb.
He's a tiny, wee guy and wewere like, is he going to be
(18:07):
okay?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
climbing this.
He's the one that does it liketotally freestyle, isn't he?
Yes, no, safety, nothing, no.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, but the concept aligned with what the brand
wanted, you know, and that's themain thing.
So it's not just about anexperience, you know, coming up
with something wild and crazyall the time.
It has to make sense.
There has to be a reason whywe're doing something.
You know, is it part of a kpiperspective?
(18:34):
You know, we, when we launchedthe bmw not too long ago, we had
it flying in in the helicopterthrough, you know, palm java
alley and blue waters and thenlanding on Sky Dubai for the
launch.
That was a pure content pieceas well.
(18:55):
As you're one of the hungrypeople there watching this
arrive.
It's impressive, rather thanthe usual kabuki.
There's the car, so it's.
How do we take that to the nextstage?
How do we change things around?
And that's what we try to workon.
You know it's.
It's.
We've had, you know, since allthese experiences or stunts that
(19:17):
we've pulled off, we've hadclients come to us.
What have we got?
What we got, and we've neverworked with them like can you
give us five ideas?
It's like, no, it's not how itworks.
Yeah, you know, we need toreally understand everything.
We you know.
Have you got a brief?
No, I just I've been asked todo a stunt.
(19:39):
Okay, come back with a briefyeah and then let's sit down and
talk and talk.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
It has to be part of a much bigger picture it has to
connect, otherwise it's uselessand I, and I'm sure the longer
you're with a client, the morethe trust builds, obviously, and
then they're more willing torelinquish some of that
handholding and let you takesome of those punts that perhaps
others wouldn't.
So, on the long-termrelationships, I mean, how have
(20:03):
you been able to manage those?
Because I mean, obviously welive in a very transient region.
You know, I mean I'm the same.
You know you have a client andthen you leave it 12, 18 months.
You call them up and you'relike, oh right, they've moved on
.
Now, in the best case scenario,you think to yourself oh,
that's great, they've moved toanother company, we've
potentially got another client,but in many cases they leave the
(20:23):
country.
So how are you able to navigate, maintaining those long-term
relationships?
I mean, obviously, like you say, if you get lucky and somebody
stays with an organization for along time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Obviously great, but I'd have to guess that people
jump around a lot here in thisregion, especially in the last
four to five years We've seen ahuge shift where we had clients
staying in their roles for anumber of years, a bit like the
UK at this stage.
Now they're moving.
We've had one brand that wework with.
(20:57):
I've had two marketingdirectors, three group sales
directors in nine months.
That's tough Challenging.
So you're constantly rebuildingthat relationship.
I mean, thankfully we're kindof embedded in the conversation
and they look at us as themainstay of the project and you
(21:20):
know.
So in that sense we're good.
In another sense, where youmight not have a long-term
contract with them and you arepart of the roster, so every so
often you have to go back inrepresent.
This is what we've done, thisis what we do, this is how we do
, this is our approach.
And then it's procurementbriefs.
The relationships have reallymoved, especially, I would say,
(21:43):
in the last two yearsprocurement driven, which means
the relationship with a clientis only after you've won the
project.
So to actually understand theclient, understand what their
wants and requirements are forthem, the business, the business
KPIs, it becomes defunct.
(22:04):
And for me that then shows alack of real business marketing
decisions and why we're doingsomething.
Because from my perspective youshould be able to look at a
full brand plan for the year andthen be able to work everything
out, what needs to happenthroughout the period of time,
(22:27):
and I feel that doesn't workanymore.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
no, it seems to come a little bit more down to sort
of like you're ticking boxes onan excel sheet, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
that's it so your conveyor belt.
We try to get away from that.
We only want to work with anumber of clients that we
understand.
We get them, they get us.
You know we're trying to getaway from pitch cultures.
We have a quite stringentqualifications sheet internally
that allows us to really dialinto how much time we want to
(22:57):
give on a project on the pitch.
You know, do we have thatcapability, do we have that
scope?
Do we want the team to actuallyhave a bit of downtime?
Because, I mean, you could bepitching every day if you, if
you took everything on, and froma business perspective that
makes no sense.
From a team culture perspective, that isn't fun either.
No, because then the ideasaren't there, because you're
(23:21):
constantly just what's next,what's next, what's next.
So let's reduce that and that'swhat we found, you know, by
reducing the number of clients.
I think before covid we had 52clients.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
In the past couple years we're averaging around 20
to 25 clients a year, right,which is much easier to handle I
want to talk a little bit aboutum, success and how you measure
success, because obviously someof our conversation so far has
been about the sort oftouchy-feely elements and the
emotional side of things, andbrands are very used to having
(23:54):
very defined KPIs, aren't they,and very defined ways of of
whether or not they've got ROIon whatever it is that they
happen to have put their moneybehind.
Yeah, how do you manage that inthe field of experiential, then
, when, like you say, so much ofit is about the emotion side of
things and how you make peoplefeel, how do you measure that?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
we always look at and we talk to the clients a lot
about this what we're sellingbecause then they were selling
something you know.
So tom ford as an example anumber of years ago we launched
their fabulous and ood productrange.
It wasn't even a kpi of ours,it was a pure brand awareness
play.
Within two weeks we sold outacross Dubai Mall and Mall of
(24:35):
Emirates.
That, for us, was unbelievableand it was unbelievable for the
client as well.
We worked with Fixed Chocolate.
And again, how can we sell out?
What's the opportunity?
How can we make this?
Put the brand in danger of nothaving anything by day three?
That's, that's Nice problem tohave.
Yeah, you know so for us, that'show we'll look and approach.
(24:58):
You know it's they want to sell.
How do we make that the bestopportunity for consumers to
come and buy?
And that's driven by theexperience.
But our job is to put the brandin danger of being sold out.
If we can do that, we've.
We've also hit the kpi ofsellout right.
So we, we try to connect bothright?
(25:20):
Not every brand is there's arequirement for it, yeah, but we
look for it because that'sthat's how we change the
relationship between the agencyand the brand into our
partnership, because we're nowasking the questions of what's
your kpi, what's the masterobjective of the brand for this
year, how can we engage withthat, how can we move forward
(25:41):
with that?
And a lot of clients will belike, ah, okay, well, actually,
here you go.
This is, this is what we wantto do for this year.
So it's breaking those barriersdown and it's just it's
relationships, you know, and Ithink when you look back from
that covet period, we're stilltalking about covert five years
(26:02):
later.
I know it's crazy, isn't it?
It's purely because we didn'treally think about zoom calls
team and whatever platform thatyou may use.
We went to their offices, theycame to our offices, we went and
had coffee in the morning, wehad lunch, we had dinner.
That doesn't happen anymore, orvery, very rarely, you know, to
(26:23):
actually go and see the client.
I was in a meeting three daysago with a client of ours for
five hours.
It was a one hour meeting.
That was what was scheduled inand we just rolled on because
the opportunities, theconversations, everything you
know and you're for want of abetter word you're getting shit
done.
Yeah, we're moving the needleyeah you know.
(26:44):
So that's, that's our job tohelp the client to move their
needle.
So we can do that and spendtime with the client.
I much prefer that than havingthe team in the office sitting
around, you know.
So spending time with client isso important and you know, over
the last couple years look, myfinance director would be it's
great having zoom, because youdon't need to fly somewhere, you
(27:07):
don't need to drive somewhere,you don't need a part somewhere
travel bills went down you know,so it's claims went down
absolutely yeah, you're notpaying for their coffees, their
lunches, their dinners coffee,yeah, so it's.
It's um.
So from a finance perspective,great.
From a relationship perspective, terrible yeah you know, I like
to see people.
(27:27):
I like to go and meet myclients face to face and I
always believe, once you look atsomeone's in the whites of
their eyes, you know you'regoing to work with them or
you're not.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, I think there should be.
I mean, for me, I think thereshould be an expectation,
certainly when you're doingbusiness development, that you
need to put in that face-to-facetime in those initial stages.
I think once you've built thatrelationship and once you've
established a bond and trust,sure that you can then sideline
some of those face-to-facemeetings and replace them with
Zoom or WhatsApp or whatever itis.
(27:57):
But initially there really hasto be that face-to-face contact.
Listen, which kind of dovetailsinto my next point.
I'm sure you've been across someof the trade papers recently
and will have seen Mark Cuban'srecent predictions, shall we say
.
I'm going to read it out for thebenefit of the listeners that
haven't seen it.
I mean, I'm guessing thateverybody knows who Mark Cuban
(28:19):
is, but in relationship toevents and where he's putting
his money over the next fewyears he said this quote within
the next three years there willbe so much AI, in particular AI
video people won't know if whatthey see or hear is real, which
will result in an explosion offace-to-face engagement, events
and jobs.
(28:39):
Unquote.
What's your reaction to that?
I mean, he talks about amillivanilla effect, which is
quite cute as well, and againI'll explain that.
So what he was saying was Imean, obviously it's a reference
to that, to the 80s pop groupthat got found out for miming,
and I guess what he's saying isthat you know same thing, that
you know people will get foundout with all the fake stuff and
(29:00):
they want to see it for real.
What do you think to hisstatement there?
I thought that was quite aneye-opener, absolutely I I
actually agree 100.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I think there's gonna be a real shift.
Because of the way that socialamplification works, content
works, people start doubting it,is this real?
Like?
We've kind of gone, wentthrough that little phase of uh,
the cgi's, the floating shoesdriving around the city, the
balloons coming up from whereverthey're coming up from, or
(29:30):
things dropping from the sky bigbed with a north face jacket on
great easy content to push out.
That's done.
Ai will improve, it will getbetter.
It will allow design agencies,creative agencies, to come up
with ideas much shorter yeah, interms of, you know, from an
(29:53):
agency time frame, whichultimately saves money for the
clients because you're you'respending less time.
But everything has to be rootedon insights and strategy.
So, whatever you do, from an aiperspective, it might be quick,
easy, cheap.
Let's go, you know, when youdon't have time to do something.
But I think a lot of brandswill hold off and rather do
(30:13):
something in person in a eithera boutique scale, 30 hundred
people to a 30 000 consumerevent.
People want experiences, peoplewant to remember, they want to
take family time, they want tospend time with their friends at
events, not on their phone, andwe can see it now with you know
(30:37):
the gen zeds and what they'rewanting to do and how they want
to engage.
Yes, their phone's always intheir hands.
My kids, it's exactly the samething.
Yeah, but they also want to goto a concert.
They also want to go to afootball game.
They want to experience it.
My 12 year old loves football.
I took her to the arsenal manunited game in la when they were
(30:59):
doing pre-season.
She half the time she was justlooking around and not even at
the football.
I.
I don't blame her, it wasn'tgreat football, but it was the
experience of being in thestadium with 70,000 fans.
For her that was unbelievable.
The football by the by.
Trying to get her to watchfootball on the TV impossible,
(31:25):
unless it's YouTube versusSidemen that she knows all these
, you know influencers.
So from our in real lifeexperience and we've seen, you
know the boutique dinners, eventhe projects that we've
delivered of late with Gucci,dior, tommy Hilfiger, burberry
(31:45):
it's intimate moments that arecurated experiences.
For that selected group thatmeans a lot more than anything
else.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
I mean, I noticed a shift.
I mean, obviously we haveWarehouse 4, which is an event
venue, and I noticed a big shiftfrom pre-COVID to post-COVID
just in the size of events.
And some of that, yeah, okay,admittedly, is budget concerns,
but I think what I saw was amove towards much smaller, much
more intimate events and I'dlike to think that, as well as
(32:17):
budget, that was also arealisation from clients that
actually, you know, that facetime that you get with a smaller
number of people is a lot morevaluable than just a quick
handshakehake to, you know,amongst a few thousand people.
I mean, you're always going tohave your banner events your big
, huge ones.
Are you seeing that that?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
shift, absolutely, yeah, we're seeing a lot more of
these and more frequently.
Yeah, exactly so.
It's not the same audience, andthat was a phase that we were
going through a while back.
Used to turn up to four eventsin a week, same faces.
Dubai, the ues, got bigger, youknow I think I read the report
the other day there was athousand new residents moving to
(32:56):
Dubai a day.
Yeah, I could see them all onshakeside road.
Yeah, you got stuck in traffic.
So the, the demographics, sothe demographic's changing.
The audience is changing.
It's getting bigger.
We're attracting a lot moremillionaires and laborers and
everything in between.
Dubai, the UAE, is booming, sobrands have got to evolve on how
(33:21):
they engage with the newclientele, and it's not always
the same people now.
So people are getting let offlists at the moment because
there's so many more people toengage with.
So for a brand, it's like okay,we've got a new audience to
talk to.
We want to talk to this newaudience rather than the same
faces constantly.
So there's a real shift towardsthat, which I personally love,
(33:45):
because it's curated experiencesspecifically, so it's designed
experiences for 30 people, for100 people, perfect.
So, which means the level ofdelivery has to be perfect every
time?
Yeah, because you get one shotnow I'm conscious of time.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I know we could go on and on.
Well, I can certainly go on andon about the whole experiential
thing for a long time, but wedo try and keep these to around
30, 35 minutes.
So before we wrap up, I've gota couple of quick fire questions
for you.
Three or four Biggest on-sitechallenge you've ever faced and
how did you overcome it?
Oh, traffic, we've had otherones being weather.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, traffic.
We've had other ones beingweather.
Yeah, well, yeah, weather was.
I remember rugby sevens, whenwe had the floods, of course,
years and years ago, yes, and wehad painted everything green
and obviously the paint isn't itwas roller paint.
Yeah, I mean, from a heinekenperspective, it was great.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Everyone's walking around, absolutely yeah turn a
negative into a positive.
Yeah, so that that was a goodone okay, next one, one thing
you'd ban at events, if youcould you said we've got 35
minutes one thing okay, do youknow?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
do you know those?
I don't even know what they'recalled.
It's like the thing that youstand in the middle and the
camera goes round.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Oh yeah the photo booth, the photo booth, yeah,
360 photo booths, the 360.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Oh my God, get rid of that, get rid of that, Go, gone
All right, that's gone, that'sout of here.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Okay, next one Most underrated job role event role
oh, the permit man.
Good one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Permits.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
If there's no alcohol in your event, that should have
alcohol or permit for the liveDJ entertainment.
If we don't have the permit guy, we're done.
Yeah, we are done, but no onethinks about that and no one
wants to pay for the permit guy.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, true, okay, slightly more.
No one thinks about that and noone wants to pay for the permit
guy.
Yeah, true, okay, slightly moreserious one for you now, one
thing clients should do beforethey look to work with you
Understand the business.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think that's really important to understand the
agency that you're working with,their capabilities of what they
can deliver and that's you know.
When you look at procurementversus brands team, the brands
team should be the ones tellingprocurement.
This is the agency we want, notprocurement going out on Google
and events agency experientialGetting 27 quotes and picking
(36:18):
the cheapest, and pickingwhatever it is.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Last one and again, this is probably a topic we
could dedicate a whole podcastto, but one message for the next
generation of eventprofessionals or people wanting
to get into experiential it's aninteresting one, isn't it to
see?
Whether you know peopleactually want to come into our
industry now that I, you know,want of sounding a little long
in the tooth.
Uh, you know there's a lot ofthe younger generation that
(36:42):
don't seem to want to put in thehard yards.
Well, I was going to say thatwork ethic.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, you know that little four-letter word.
Yeah, you know, my first job wasworking in a bar.
Yeah, and I was collectingglasses, ashtrays, doing the ice
.
You know everything in betweenthat you had to do for a bar and
a nightclub.
You know everything in betweenthat you had to do for a bar and
(37:08):
a nightclub, that graft ofmaking sure that whatever has to
happen at the event needs tohappen.
And it's tough because you knowwe've got we've got an
unbelievable team and the workethic is unbelievable from from
what they deliver day in, dayout.
But that next generation that'scoming through, that see all the
(37:28):
shiny elements of the eventsbut not realize what it takes,
that blood, sweat and tears ofbeing on your feet for 18 hours
a day and then driving home orhaving a kip in the car because
it's not worth going homebecause you're up in the morning
to go back.
So it's hard work, experiences,experiential is not an easy gig
(37:53):
and being live on site for meis the most fulfilling part of
the job, seeing it from day oneto delivery, standing back.
And I always say this stand,stand back, be proud of what
you've done.
You know, take that moment andit's.
It's a bit like you know, whenyou get married, that you know
(38:13):
everything's happening at thesame time.
Everyone wants you.
Everyone wants a bit of actionfrom the time to savor the
moment savor the moment, enjoythat, you know, and I think
that's the key thing, and we tryto make sure that there's a
moment within each of the eventswe do that there's a
celebration moment, you knowwhen it's deserved, which most
of the time it is.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
And then last one.
A little frivolous, but I'veasked all the guests this, so
I'll not make an exception here.
I'm guessing you're a music fan.
I know.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I am.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, what's on your playlist at the moment?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
This morning was Bossa Nova.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, I'm off radio.
I've not listened to the radiofor about six months.
I just got bored of switchingfrom all the channels, which is
terrible, because I really enjoyradio in other markets.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
It's got a bit stale here, hasn't here it's got?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
stale music, you know , and anyway.
I could go on a bit for thisone, but I've now got my
playlist set.
You know from.
Yeah, this morning was BossaNova.
Brilliant yeah it was reallynice.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And then finally, what's next for yourself in
Light Blue Good question.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
We're opening up in london, oh is this public
knowledge?
It is now we we've beenspending a lot of time in london
and we've been talking to a lotof our partners, a lot of
brands that we have been workingwith for a number of years.
We've picked up we've picked upthree projects already on the
(39:46):
pnq and we will be going live.
Actually, something went liveyesterday, the day before right,
that will come across oursocial channels pretty soon.
And uh, yeah, so we we've gotour business director.
We're recruiting for the teamin london and uh moment, I'm
flying to London a lot, which isgreat, it's good fun.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Get your air miles up .
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Air miles are going up, which I need it because it's
tough right now to get my airmiles up, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (40:13):
funny how things come full circle.
You mentioned at the very startof the podcast how you know
when you were looking to moveaway.
You didn't want to make themove down to London.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
No, instead of from Scotland.
And now I'm setting up scotland, you've covered.
You're going back there fromdubai.
Yeah, I mean it's.
It's so.
Originally the plan was to setup a creative studio to service
the work that we do in themiddle east.
You know, we've got officeshere.
And then riad, and then, quitequickly, the conversations that
we're having with a lot of thebrands there there seems to be,
(40:42):
especially at the time, therewas like this doom and gloom,
rinse and repeat, you know, thegovernment, what was happening,
and with pensions, and it wasjust everyone was just like, oh,
and we were going in and wewere actually downplaying this
whole.
We're from Dubai and Riyadh,this is all the kind of stuff
that we do flying cars around,right, and we were like really
(41:02):
playing it down.
And then we accidentally showedone client the wrong video, the
showreel, which had everythingin it, and he was just like that
is unbelievable.
And then we want some of that,yeah, and he started slagging
off his own agency.
(41:23):
I'm like, oh, awkward.
And then we had another clientwho took us to a premiere of one
of their events, saying so thisis what we're doing right now
and I want you guys to do thenext one.
So that was awkward when ournames are in the list of getting
into this event, this premiere.
(41:43):
But it's a great series seriesand we were standing there and
we're like you know it's yes.
Yes, I mean the series is great,I loved it, but it it was like
the event itself was a bitformulaic.
And maybe it was formulaicbecause we're here in this
market and we've seen it andwe've done it and it's's like
(42:04):
how do we take it to the nextlevel?
And I think that's what ourclients in the UK are really
excited for.
It's how we can move the needlewithout preconceptions of the
market.
Of course, we're not flying acar around London, we never know
.
But yeah, I think it's for us.
We want to go in.
We want to change the narrative.
We're going to be brave,clients us.
(42:24):
We want to go in.
We want to change the narrative.
We're going to be brave.
Clients are loving the bravery.
They're matching that for us.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So yeah, lots to come .
Great, look forward to it.
Well, david, thank you verymuch for coming in and talking
to me on the podcast, and bestof luck with your ventures, both
here and in london.
Thank you very much.
Event news dxb is brought toyou by minus 45 db, the team
transforming noisy event spacesinto slick, sound, reduced
(42:50):
environments.
Check them out at minus 45dbcom.
This episode was presented bymyself, ian carlos, the studio
engineer and editor was roy demonte, the executive producer
was myself and joe morrison, andthis podcast was produced by W4
Podcast Studio Dubai.
And if you haven't done soalready, please do click that
(43:12):
follow or subscribe button.
See you next time.
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