June 17, 2024 • 46 mins
How can understanding cultural nuances impact your international business success? Tune into this episode to find out!
Join Sharifa as she sits down with Alan Middleton, a celebrated Canadian author and marketing veteran, and former President and CEO of J. Walter Thompson in Japan. In this episode, Alan shares his invaluable insights into multicultural marketing, especially from his time in Japan. He emphasizes the significance of listening, and recognizing a collectivist work culture that prioritizes team cohesion over individual acclaim.
Through his personal experiences in international business, Alan highlights how to build rapport at all organizational levels, and why reverse mentoring is a critical tool to foster deeper understanding between generations and among immigrant employees.
Biographies
Guest: Alan C. Middleton, PhD is a renown author, speaker, consultant, and Marketing Hall of Legends inductee. He is the former executive director and distinguished adjunct professor of Marketing at the Schulich Executive Education Centre. He also served as past president and CEO of JWT Japan, and is a former board director of JWT Worldwide.
Host: Sharifa Khan is the visionary founder of Canada’s multicultural marketing discipline. She is the founder and CEO of Balmoral Multicultural Marketing, the country’s largest agency of its kind, whose groundbreaking work continues to shape the marketplace today. Sharifa is also an inductee of the prestigious Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends.
Books by Alan Middleton:
Marketing Matters for Small & Medium Enterprise: Now More Than Ever!
Reputation Matters: Why Branding & PR is Not Enough
Subscribe now and never miss an episode, featuring top industry experts and thought leaders on their multicultural marketing journeys (and don’t forget to rate and review this podcast).
Social Media: (Follow: #Balmoral and #MulticulturalMarketingPodcast)
LinkedIn:
Sharifa Khan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharifa-khan/
Balmoral Multicultural Marketing: https://www.linkedin.com/company/balmoral-multicultural-marketing/
IG:
@sharifa7147
@balmoralmulticultural
@kekadasgupta
Resources:
www.balmoralmkt.com | 416.364.0046 | inquiries@balmoralmkt.com
Credits and Acknowledgements:
· Keka DasGupta – executive producer
· Daniel Ho, ReMarketing Company Inc. - video and editing services
· Rima
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sharifa (00:05):
Welcome to Canada's first ever multicultural
marketing podcast.
I'm Sharifa Khan, founder andpresident of Balmoral
Multicultural Marketing.
In each episode, join me as Iinterview high-profile marketing
executives, where they will besharing their experiences in
(00:26):
reaching Canada's diversecommunity.
Gain valuable insights andlessons and grow your
multicultural affluence.
Let's get started.
Hello everyone, I'm SharifaKhan, president and CEO of
Balmoral Multicultural Marketing.
I'm so delighted for ourpodcast today that I have my
(00:48):
good friend, A lan Middleton,who have answered and be our
guest today, and, of course, alot of you in the marketing
world, y ou know who AlanMiddleton is, of course.
Alan is a renowned Canadianauthor, speaker and lecturer and
also is one of the M arketing Legends inducted and also
(01:12):
executive director of theSchulich Centre Education
Centre, and not to mention hislong experience as the president
of JWT in Japan and also sit onthe board of JWT Worldwide.
A lan, thank you for being ourguest today and you are actually
(01:35):
my first guest for this podcast.
I'm so honored that you're here.
and you've traveled the worldand you have so many interesting
stories in your experience, notjust in Japan, but also you can
name a couple of the countriesthat you serve as executive in
(01:55):
advertising on behalf of J.
Walter T hompson, and othermarketing agency.
A and what is, I think, youalways mention about being the
President and CEO of J.
Walter Thompson in Japan andwhat experiences that you have
that we must have in targetingto Japanese and on behalf of
(02:17):
brands over there, and maybe youcan share some of your
experience with us?
Alan (02:25):
Yeah, I was obviously sufficiently unpopular in
different places in the worldthat I had to keep moving.
So I've actually lived inNorway, I've lived in the US, I
lived in Japan, I lived inCanada and I've been an
immigrant for a number of years.
Of the European and NorthAmerican experiences, we'll talk
about that a bit later.
(02:46):
But there's things you learnfrom every culture.
But to your question aboutJapan - J japan was fascinating
because whilst I'd asked thecompany could I learn a little
more about the language before Iwent, they said no, we need you
there tomorrow.
So I started learning Japanesehen! arrived in Japan, on the
(03:10):
ground, on the ground, myorganization it was about 1500
people, only five Westerners.
All the rest were localJapanese hires.
So we had a very goodinterpretation and translation
department who were my sides.
But the first thing I'llcomment on was my first
management meeting, which waskind of interesting.
(03:32):
So I was the president.
The management group was abouteight people the head of media,
the head of creativity, the headof accounting, etc.
Etc.
And the first thing you learnin Japan is short meetings do
not occur, long meetings occur.
So my first management meeting,was in the West, would have
(03:54):
traditionally been an hour,maybe two hours at most lasted
three quarters of the day.
Sharifa (04:02):
Wow.
Alan (04:02):
And I'm going you know we're going through the agenda
and I better not say too muchbecause I've only just arrived
here and I won't need to listenand lots of discussion going on.
And I got to the end of the dayand we broke up and my head of
HR, my head of personnel, Igrabbed him and said how was
that meeting?
Did it go well?
(04:23):
He said, oh, sacho-san.
Sacho means president Sacho-san.
It was very good, good meeting,I said.
But Maeda-san, who was the headof media, he didn't say
anything.
They said, oh, yes, yes, but isthat bad?
Oh, alan-san, he was there andthat was the totality of it.
(04:43):
And this was a guy who'd beenrunning the union for the
organization before he becamethe media director, and the fact
he hadn't said anything wasshowing agreement.
He was listening, showingagreement.
So the first thing yourecognized in Japan is
(05:04):
Westerners make a lot of noiseand they talk too much.
Different countries in the Westtalk more than others, but in
Japan silence is not bad andsilence can register
thoughtfulness and it canregister agreement.
Very rarely does it registerdisagreement.
But you have to learn that.
(05:24):
So you have to learn to listena lot more.
I would argue that's a keything for any cultural
experience.
Don't spend your time talking,like I'm doing at the moment,
but you spend your timelistening to people.
One other thing I'll mentionand back to you, sharifa, the
(05:46):
other thing you learn about.
Japan was in and I lived inTokyo, but I traveled around a
lot trying to learn the languageand looking on and I was struck
by the orientation towards workby people.
Now that's changed a littlesince I was there, because it's
15, 20 years since I was therelast, but that commitment to
(06:11):
defining who you are by how wellyou work and how well you get
on with the people at work.
So the team orientation, theindividuality level and we know
this from other surveys is muchlower in Japan.
It's much more a collectivistculture.
And when you're moving from amore individualistic culture the
(06:33):
UK, north America to acollectivist culture, it means
that you have to understand thatthe way you get things done,
you're seen as a group.
The way you get things done,you're seen as a group.
So one of the things that youhave to work on is listening to
people.
As a leader, you're expected tomake a decision, but in Japan
(07:00):
it's much more important thatyou talk about what you've heard
from your group and what hasled you eventually to make the
decision in a certain way.
But the ideal is to nudgepeople.
So I'm a big fan of mentorshipas a management practice,
nudging people in the directionby your own persuasiveness and
that becomes more and moreimportant depending on the
culture you're in, but I'd arguethat's important in all
(07:23):
cultures, that you need tolisten, that you need to listen,
that you need to nudge and thatextreme individualism that you
see, in particularly NorthAmerica and the UK, is something
that you need to keep undercontrol.
Sharifa (07:36):
I've heard also in the business environment, as you
mentioned collective culturegiving everybody a say that even
the CEO and the president aresitting in the open office next
to the junior clerk, you know,and there's no special office
whatsoever in Japan, and that'swhat you're talking about to
(07:59):
have equity in the organization.
Alan (08:03):
And it's also respect for the people we're working for.
A quick, other Japanese story Ihad a chauffeured car in Japan,
but occasionally I used to walkto work.
It was only about half an hourand I had nothing special that
day.
I used to walk into work andI'm an early bird, so I'd be
walking into work about 5.30, 6o'clock in the morning.
(08:23):
I'd be walking into work about5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning
and on my way to work one daythe almost deserted street and
the chauffeur-driven car comesand drops somebody who's clearly
a senior executive off at thefront door of his office.
The guy gets out of the car andhe looks down the street and
there's somebody cleaning theroad and Tokyo is immaculately
(08:44):
clean.
They keep it beautifully cleanand you can tell he's the local
sweeper because he's in auniform, he's got white gloves
and everything else and he'sdone a magnificent job.
On the street and this guy isobviously a senior exec Turns
towards this gentleman and bowsA mark of respect for the work
(09:05):
that he's done and that to mestruck that you know it was so
evocative of.
You'd noticed they was there,you'd noticed the effect they'd
had on the street and they wereowed a mark of respect, and I
wish more of our executives insenior management would
understand and learn from that.
Sharifa (09:27):
And Alan, thank you for sharing with us how business is
being run in Japan.
We know all the success storiesall the big brands that come
out of Japan and adoptedinternationally all the cars,
all the household appliancesthat are at a lot of the
household in here.
So how has your experience inJapan and knowing what they do,
(09:50):
influence of how you seemulticultural marketing here in
Canada?
Alan (09:53):
Absolutely.
Now Japan's struggled a bitsince I was there, so there's
some issues in Japan.
Mostly let's get the bad thingout the way they were incredibly
bad at utilizing femalecapability, so the ratio of male
executives to female executivesin Japan is still way out of
(10:17):
reason.
Numbers, yeah.
So you had very smart womendoing things in their community
but not contributing to business, and that was one of the bad
things that was happening.
Some of the good things thatwas happening was that Japanese
drive for innovation.
That was happening.
Some of the good things thatwas happening was that Japanese
drive for innovation.
That was there.
They managed.
So you know, you're right.
(10:37):
They looked at post-war the carindustry from the UK and they
said, well, I'm allowed to saythis, I'm an expert the UK's
making crappy cars, so we'll goand do our own.
And of course, we know thesuccess of Toyota over time and
Nissan and everybody else andHonda, but so that orientation
towards the next generation thatwas there was one thing
(11:01):
Secondly, that you werelistening to people across the
silos.
One of the big traps to me ofNorth American business and no,
it's not just North American,I'd call it Western business is
too siloed.
We don't listen to people goingacross the different
disciplines.
Marketing, which is myspecialty, has got to listen to
(11:23):
accounting, it's got to listento sales, it's got to listen to
production and it's got to beall part of the decision-making
process.
The Japanese used to do a muchbetter job at that, so that's
the other thing we can learn.
Sharifa (11:36):
And how do you feel that, looking into what you have
experienced there and lookinginto the glimmers of the
Japanese business world and themarketing world, then how you
describe yourself, a Canadian ina British origin, in there, and
how do they view you and werethey accepting you at the
(12:00):
beginning?
Alan (12:01):
it varied, and one of the things that JWT which, as of
today, is no longer becauseWPP's changed it all One of the
things JWT did well in Japan isthey hired smart women, so we
had a much higher ratio offemale executives to nearly any
(12:21):
other equivalent advertisingagency.
It was one of the things we'ddone well.
So, based on that and based onthe assumption about who I was,
and then my early conversations,I tended to get well accepted
by the younger part, the under40 part of the organization.
Where I used to run into theoccasional problems not too many
(12:46):
though was with some of theolder executives, not the senior
management.
My oldest son, who must havebeen 65, head of media, the guy
I mentioned earlier.
He and I became very goodfriends.
I used to go to him.
I used to get him to mentor mebecause he's been coming up
through the union.
(13:06):
There was a wisdom.
He'd been with the company fora long time and they knew people
listened to him and he hadtouch points.
So, with the senior management,my finance director
Tachibana-san was wonderful andhe was just great.
He used to come in and sayAlan-san, can we talk?
That's when I'd made a badmistake and the other thing I
(13:26):
did to overcome this was I had avery, very good personal
assistant who was Japanese, butshe worked for some time in the
West, which is why her Englishwas fluent, and she'd also be my
touch point into theorganization as well as walking
around.
So I instituted management bywalking around, partly because
(13:48):
it had become a popular thing todo, but I learned to enjoy it,
yeah, and I used to go out fordrinks with them at night.
It took a while, but actuallyone of my big leaving parties.
I don't think there was anybodyat my apartment over the age of
30 at my leaving party.
They had a special event for meso I enjoyed that.
So mostly it was goodacceptance because fairly
(14:13):
quickly what became known isAlan at least listened to you,
so that was part of it.
Sharifa (14:18):
Well, I totally agree.
By being as president and CEOof Balmoral, my number one job,
I feel, is constantly be walkingaround in the company, not to
watch whether who came to work,but basically actually talking
to each and every one of themand find out what is happening
(14:39):
at home.
You know, are they havingchallenges at work?
Being from the multiculturalcommunity, I have a lot of.
Them are in their 20s and 30sand they always respect the
hierarchy.
I'm the president, right.
So at times they said theywouldn't say anything.
But you do have to make theeffort to make them feel
(14:59):
comfortable because there are alot of times, in being in Asian
and South Asian background, youjust don't talk about your
trouble that much at work.
Alan (15:09):
But it's just that through these conversations I
understand better, they have abetter rapport, they're not
fearful of me and I think thathaving this connection with your
employees just as the way youdid in Japan is so important,
and if you've demonstrated sostrongly with Balmoral, it's
because of the world we werechatting about this earlier, the
(15:30):
world of social media with allits disadvantages of what's
fact-based, what's notfact-based, what's rumor-based,
how you get across things topeople.
The younger generation is moreadept at dealing with that than
perhaps an older generation notnecessarily you, but definitely
me.
So when I moved on to teachingand mentoring, I recognized that
(15:54):
there's something calledreverse mentoring, and reverse
mentoring is I recommend to anysenior exec, and in fact I'm
working with a group in the USright now where they're putting
their whole senior executivesthrough reverse mentoring on
immigrant groups, seniorexecutives through reverse
mentoring on immigrant groups.
So they're getting youngerpeople who joined the
organization to talk to themabout either what the immigrant
(16:20):
experience has been or, based ontheir background, what issues
they've had within theorganization.
And they're the mentors,they're the ones teaching the
senior executives.
So we've been careful about howwe choose the initial senior
execs, so we knew people who arewilling and volunteering to do
this.
But the early signs is there'sa lot of learning going on.
We live in a flat hierarchyworld.
(16:41):
You don't send orders from thetop any longer.
That's not the way effectiveorganizations Particularly
post-COVID.
I don't think that works at all.
Sharifa (16:53):
And just a little bit.
I want to say that AlanMiddleton and David Kincaid of
Level 5 are actually the initialcollaborative and founder of
the mentorship program at theAMA Toronto chapter and, of
course, throughout the yearsAlan have mentored so many
people, young people inparticular, who are usually at
(17:16):
times lost in their ways in thecareer, and also mentoring new
immigrants, which I think it'sso important 80% of the people
I've mentored have beenimmigrants.
And these are the ones thatactually have a lot of
experience back homeprofessionals.
And when they came here, whenthey gave up everything, their
connections, they're actuallytotally mentally lost and, like
(17:41):
our Canadian business world, thefirst question HR would ask
them do you have Canadianexperience?
And a lot of them are sobewildered and said, what about
the 10, 15 years that I had backin India or China?
What are you asking me?
But then they would not givethem the first chance to have,
so how am I ever going to beable to do that?
(18:02):
But then the AMA and Alan havedone tremendously great work,
done tremendously great work toher, and we've seen a lot of
these immigrants and menteesthat are able to get the first
job because we sort of and I'mso privileged that I have been
on the mentorship program andhelp a few of them land their
(18:22):
first job with great advice.
Alan (18:24):
A lot of the mentorship has happened.
In fact, there's one guy, um, Iwon't mention his name to not
embarrass him, but he was animmigrant from Morocco who
arrived in March 2020.
Now, those of you may rememberthat's when the pandemic was
officially announced.
The poor guy, right, he had agreat background in Morocco in
(18:44):
marketing and brand building,but, of course, arrived and got
exactly the phrase you'retalking about, which is really
impressive, but no Canadianexperience.
So after two or three sessionswith him, he said how do I
overcome that?
And I said, well, you can takecourses, you can do.
We went through a whole bunchof things.
Then he said I want to ask youa blunt question and I said,
(19:08):
yeah, go ahead.
He said do all Canadians lie alot?
And I said explain what youmean by that?
He said, well, I contact peopleand they say well, you know,
there's really nothing at themoment.
Then I see on a head huntersroster there's two or three jobs
they're putting up and they'rejust lying to me.
(19:29):
So for the next two or threesessions, we went through a bit
of a task, not just helping withjob hunting, which she
eventually did very well, buttalking about Canadian culture,
and Canadian culture is not toconfront and you get many
organizations.
It's interesting.
My mentee this year is a lovelyyoung South Asian woman who'd
(19:49):
worked in Germany for a whileand she found the same
difference even coming from herGerman experience to here.
The Canadians will duck andweave around an issue.
Mostly it's not done to becruel, it's done to avoid
confrontation, not to hurt yourfeelings.
Yeah, you have to work your wayaround that.
So there's elements in thiscomplex culture.
(20:11):
As you know, 52% of Toronto isnot born in Canada, so we're a
wonderfully immigrant society,but we haven't yet learned to
use it properly or to understandit properly, and we got to keep
going on that.
We're doing a bit better than wewere 10 years ago and 20 years
ago, but just got to keep going.
Sharifa (20:28):
So some way to go.
So you have been on so manycorporate boards and have been
consultants to so many brands,but then there's some brands
that are still hesitating ingetting you know multicultural
marketing, be able to be able tospeak into them and of course
you know, in their own way theywant to get more market share.
(20:51):
Obviously, what's stopping themto be sitting on the fence, is
it?
They're fearful.
Alan (20:58):
Shall I be very un-Canadian?
No, but here's why.
Because here's the basequestion about dealing with an
immigrant group or amulticultural group.
It all goes back to what shouldbe the fundamental tenet of
marketing, which is getting toknow your target customer.
(21:19):
Getting to know, to understandthem, to be able to communicate
with them in a way that theyunderstand and that motivates
them.
It doesn't mean yelling, itdoesn't mean all proof points,
it means understanding.
So, when you're dealing with thevery complexity of immigrant
groups, whether it's first,second or third generations, and
(21:40):
we see, from the same ethnicbackgrounds, huge difference
between different generationalgroups, and there's research
that backs that up, and you'vegot to understand that and work
with that.
So why aren't they doing it?
Well, yes, there's a cost to it.
So you know.
But we've long since left thedays where you just do an
average cost per thousand indeeming and sending messages out
(22:04):
.
You've got to be much moretargeted, much more focused and
much more on this complex rolebetween how much you talk about
you and how much you talk aboutthe needs of the customer.
And that will partly depend on,you know, the establishment of
the brand.
How long has it been around,what's it doing?
(22:24):
But honestly, what I'm findingis the understanding of what
builds strong brands isdeclining and we seem to be
making the assumption, withmulticultural groups as well as
non-multicultural groups, thatjust sending general mood
messages out and making themfeel better isn't the only way
of doing it.
(22:45):
So I'm sorry, I think it'signorance.
Sharifa (22:48):
And also at times I've chatted before and mentioned
many times, is also, they don'tknow what they don't know.
But also, at the same time,they're so fearful of making
mistakes, and I think that someof them actually have dipped
their toes in this water, but,of course, not doing it the
right way and ended up with badresults.
So some of them have tried andfailed and they just said well,
(23:13):
they basically just write it off, you know, and yet not, at the
same time, be able to spend thetime to know how to entrench in
this community and I've talkedabout, as you say, not just
sending that advertising outthere and be able to be part of
the community, ingratiatedcommunity find out more about
them, what they think, what'sthe cultural nuances, how's the
(23:36):
behavior, what are things thatare near and dear to them.
Alan (23:40):
If they make that effort, they are going to make headway
into it, absolutely, but it'sreally the focus that they have
to focus and take time, becausewith new technology products
where there's clearly a hugeadvantage, you may just want to
get that message out, but formost things in life, canadians
tend to be all types ofCanadians tend to be slower
(24:00):
adopters of new products thanour friends south of the border.
So you need time to get peoplein.
And what you're doing withgreat branding is building trust
.
And the way you build trustwith different communities
varies.
It varies with different ages,with different genders, with
different ethnic backgrounds,and what we need to understand
(24:21):
is the path to build that trustso that people start adopting
you.
In most instances, you don'twant them to just adopt you once
, but to repeat purchase, andthere's a lot of research that's
gone on that that first buy,which is a huge task, if it's
not followed up properly to getthat repeat purchase, you've
(24:43):
wasted a lot of money.
Sharifa (24:44):
So and that requires that understanding- and you've
been a long time professor andyou've taught so many marketing
students, I think you just saidI'm old and seasoned professor
that you have been with so manystudents marketing students and
some of them, god, they'realready executives in so many
(25:05):
brands and they have differentperspective.
They have different backgroundand also personal horizon.
What have you learned from yourstudents and is there any
stories that, as you say,reverse mentorship?
Yeah, right so what have youlearned from your?
Alan (25:22):
students.
Yeah, I watched the differencebetween leaders that have come
up a silo and leaders that havehad the advantage of moving for
responsibilities across anorganization and I think there's
a huge difference there.
So I encourage expertise andlearning in a discipline.
But I'm going to use a friendof mine, john Doig, who's a
(25:44):
senior executive for Scotiabank,who comes up through marketing.
But Scotiabank was very smart,they moved him around, so he's
got good understanding ofgeneral banking.
And John gave me a greatunderstanding about Canadian
banks.
He said not all Canadians willlearn to like their banks, but
we can learn to like theirbankers, and it's insights like
(26:04):
that that you learn on the wayup.
So great leaders have thatability of connecting people and
connecting disciplines.
Now there's still the need to bedecisive.
Yes, but the definition ofdecisiveness is not just
individualistic.
It's as your team, as yourboard of directors, as your
(26:24):
senior management group, as yourdepartment heads, whatever it
is, that that's the way forward.
So it doesn't mean you slowdown or are indecisive.
It means your process ofgetting there considers and
listens to people, and I thinkthat's one of the big things
that's been missing from a lotof business school training, in
(26:45):
particularly in the US with thetop schools.
There's so much focus, becauseof a North American culture
oriented towards individualism,that they've confused
collectivism with slowness ornot making decisions, and that's
wrong.
The challenge is to allow yourorganization to set longer term
(27:07):
strategies, a path to get therethat pays attention to changes
in the environment but doesn'tjust rely on your personal
judgment.
It's you and others, and if youread about some of the great
entrepreneurs like Bill Gatesand some of the people like that
, they didn't do it themselves.
They were often pairs or teamsand the literature has
(27:30):
underestimated that.
Sharifa (27:32):
And actually, as you say, individualism.
From what I know, from mybackground and all the
multicultural friends that Ihave, in many of their culture
there's no such word asindividualism.
You know it's always acollective decision.
It's always a collectivedecision.
It could be a generationaldecision.
It will be a community decisionat large to make it together.
(27:53):
And individualism if ever thereis a word in their language, it
means selfishness.
So you're absolutely right.
One of my stories.
Alan (28:04):
I was romantically involved and also professionally
involved in Thailand.
I've been home for a long time,in fact.
My ex-fiance was Thai and Itaught there a lot.
And one of the earlyexperiences I had in Thailand
was working with a group inexecutive training of a middle
management group and going thisis a really great idea.
(28:25):
When are you going to recommendit to senior management?
And the response from this verybright group was well, alan,
that's not our job.
And I said but I don'tunderstand that You've come to a
wonderful analysis and decision.
No, it's their job to do that.
And I said okay, how do youinfluence that?
He said well, if we're askedfor it, we would give it.
(28:47):
And I realized that thetraditional Thai structure was.
It's based on TheravadaBuddhism background and it's a
lot that says authority isreally very important and in
Thailand at this time this is 10years ago this was very
important.
So what you had to do was tomove the senior executives into
(29:07):
asking for that viewpoint,otherwise it wouldn't have got
forward.
And in order to work inThailand, you need to understand
that, because there's no pointin steaming in like one of the
big consulting companies andsaying brilliant work, guys.
You go ahead and do it, becauseit would never happen that way.
Sharifa (29:23):
So it's quite different from Japan.
Alan (29:24):
Very, oh yes it, because it would never happen that way.
Sharifa (29:26):
So it's quite different from Japan.
Yes, you say Japan has been,you know, over many years far
ahead of North America.
Instead of having thecollective decision, equality in
Thailand is actually quitehierarchy, quite hierarchy.
Alan (29:40):
Yes, yes, quite, quite different.
And in fact Thailand's a bit ofa contrast because the Thai
background is actually SouthernChinese from many, many, many
centuries ago.
So it's an interesting group ofpeople.
I happen to love Thailand.
It's a wonderful country andit's got so many really smart
people, but it's quite acontrast to some of its
(30:02):
neighbors, so very differentfrom the Myanmar or Burmese
experience.
On one hand.
Sharifa (30:08):
And they have to….
Or even the Vietnamese?
They still have royalty, theydo you?
Alan (30:13):
can't be rude about your royalty there.
Sharifa (30:15):
Still the king there?
Alan (30:16):
Yeah, I could be very rude about King Charles, but I'm not
allowed to be rude about any ofthe Thai royalty.
Sharifa (30:22):
So, alan, you know it's such an honor recently you
become one of our board advisorson my board and can you share
what and want leaders to know inadvertising about this
discipline and what are theopportunities?
And I really value the adviceyou have given me because you
(30:46):
have such vast experience, notjust in Canada but globally, so
maybe if you can share whatleaders should know, yeah, yeah,
there's no simple formulabecause life changes, but I'm
going to draw it down to anumber of areas.
Alan (31:01):
Number one always be impatient with your whole
organization, not just youpersonally, but looking for the
next step, which means thinkingahead strategically.
One of the great things at theSchulich School of Business with
its previous, just retired-three years ago, dean Dean Deja
Horvath, and one of his greatstrengths was thinking
(31:22):
strategically about wherebusiness education was going and
then making the changes inorder to get there.
So he wasn't responding to whatwas happening at the minute,
but thinking about the future.
So that's one area, thatmedium-term, two to three-year
perspective.
Second, though, get restlessBecause, although what I've just
(31:43):
said, you need to be thinkingabout the strategy for the
future, stuff happens thatchanges the world Last year, the
Russian invasion of the Ukraine, now the Middle Eastern
situation, all with their knockon economic and political
effects.
You have to learn to respond tothose you were saying.
You're about to go on avacation and you're having to
(32:03):
change your vacation plans inEurope because of some closures
of some areas.
So you're changing yourvacation strategy based on that.
Organizations have to do that.
It shouldn't detract them inmost cases, from what they're
building as an organization or abrand, but they need to pay
attention to it.
Third area love your peopleDoesn't mean they're always
(32:26):
going to agree with you.
It doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to do the right thing.
It means if they are running abig car company, unless you pay
them reasonable wages, they'regoing to go on strike and
they're going to force you tosomething that will interrupt
your production.
But there's a reality that youneed.
They're the people driving yourbusiness, either with the
customer or with the production,or whatever it is.
(32:48):
I personally think we've allowedthe gap between what we pay
senior executives and people andwhat we pay the average wage
and people has gone far toogreat.
We used to be much more compact20 years ago and I think that
was a better model.
I think we went into what Icall the post-Reagan era in
(33:09):
North America, the greed economy, where you pay lots of people
money for just moving moneyaround.
Yes, that's important, but notwhen you give troubles with
affordability of healthcare,affordability of housing,
affordability of food andbeverage.
You know right now Canada'sgoing through the biggest use of
food banks for decades and partof that gap.
(33:32):
So, yes, listen to your people,but also make sure you pay them
living wages and recognizingaccomplishment, not just age and
position.
And then the last thing I'd addfor the overall is recognize
you're dealing not just withemployees at work but with human
(33:53):
beings, and COVID, I think isfunny enough, really helped that
process.
Sharifa (33:59):
Yes.
Alan (33:59):
Because as we now mix home and work attendance, we're
having to recognize that we needto make allowances where we can
, and there are some areas youcan't in production, for
instance, we can make allowancesfor people to be at home, which
means we need to understand alittle more about their family
situations.
So maybe people with young kidsat home maybe you'll allow them
(34:24):
to work from home more.
Maybe if you're older and theydon't mind, they can come into
the office more.
It's those kind of balances.
So in the same way we segmentour advertising appeals to
customers, I think we have toraise the importance of the role
of HR, the role of personnel,in dealing with more specific
(34:45):
differences of people.
We need to build the teams, butwhat we also need to do is to
recognize them as individualscoming forward.
Sharifa (34:54):
And um, I just want to go back to the question about um
.
You know, as you said, you'vebeen on so many boards, so many
brands as consultants.
Also, what would you like toshare with the leaders of
advertising and communityindustry to know the importance
and the discipline andopportunity for them in Canada
(35:15):
right now, particularly with ourvast diverse population?
Yeah, absolutely.
Alan (35:21):
Two things, and I'll throw a statistic out which was in
one of my books recently, whichis as a proportion of sales.
Canadian small, mediumenterprises and even some big
ones on average spend half theamount of money on marketing
that their US counterparts do.
In fact, I was gonna title thatbook.
(35:41):
I've got this great idea butI'm not gonna tell anybody, and
that's in a way.
We have very good startupsuccesses in the medium business
, but one of the things we'renot so good is scaling up, and
that's one of the reasons why.
So one of the things we got todo is we've got to recognize
that, within affordability, evenif it's borrowed short term or
(36:05):
medium term, one of the thingswe need to do is not only keep
that development going, but alsokeep going on the development
process of its communication, ofits marketing, and marketing's
not just advertising.
It's the way you think aboutthe pricing.
The distribution systems havechanged dramatically.
I'm gonna say something niceabout an American service
(36:27):
industry right now, because Ijust ordered a bunch of stuff on
Amazon and as I was coming intoday, I got my note on my
iPhone saying it's arrived.
You know, my God, I onlyordered it on the weekend.
So that kind of delivery systemis spectacular.
So keeping up with thetechnology and keeping up with
that ability there.
Sharifa (36:46):
A lot of times I've noticed that their brands have
said well, I just, yes, I'mdoing multicultural marketing,
yeah, I'm going to put different, diverse talent into a TV
commercial or OLV, and that willbe my checkbox, that I'm doing.
I've answered the diversity andequity.
And then a lot of times I wouldask okay, so that's what you do
(37:10):
, but what's the message?
Is it going to be a message?
You know how to resonate withthem and also, most importantly,
what's the medium you're using?
So you use all these diversetalent, but you are using the
medium of the mainstream media,which really don't connect with
them.
So I think there's a lot ofmistakes out there, but I'm sure
(37:30):
a lot of brands learned.
But there are so many questionsI feel that they should ask
themselves Are you doing it justbecause you feel your company
said, oh, you just got to domulticultural marketing?
Are you doing it seriously tolook into the community as to
what turns them on?
Why would they even payattention?
Alan (37:52):
to you Over what period of time?
Back to the earlierconversation how are you
developing trust in your brandor service within this?
Community, so it may not payback?
Here's the issue.
Community, so it may not payback.
Here's the issue.
It's much cheaper, obviously,if you develop a mainstream
activity and you say, oh, we'lleither subtitle it or we'll
(38:14):
include some different lookingtalent in it.
That may or may not beappropriate Mostly it won't be,
because you're mixing amainstream message without
understanding what turns on thecommunity, and it may be
different things.
I was always struck when I wasteaching my classes and the
(38:37):
classes would tend they weremulticultural classes, but they
would tend to sit in theirgroups and I was struck by how
each group grabbed ontodifferent things in cases that
were important, and you'd getone group over there who'd say,
well, this is the key issue, andanother group over there would
say, well, no, it's not.
And then I realized it wasn'tthe intellectual power, it was
(38:59):
that they were seeing differentthings in the different
scenarios.
And that's what you've got tobe looking for Now.
You have to make the ultimateeconomic decision, which is is
it worth doing somethingseparate?
Now the answer is yes, italways is.
It does not necessarily need tobe of the same scale as your
(39:20):
mainstream, but if you startdoing something one year that
appeals, maybe it's in theethnic media, maybe it's in a
particular media, maybe it's ina particular influencer and how
they work.
But if you start doing and youbuild it over time, you've begun
to build a bit of a connection.
That's what you should belooking for.
So culture and connection.
Sharifa (39:39):
Yeah, and building relationships in the long run
and not be just a shotgunapproach.
Absolutely.
Alan (39:45):
And not changing it.
And the other thing that goeson with organizations is you get
a new chief marketing officerin or a new person responsible,
and when they get moved on,somebody else comes in.
The new executive wants tochange it to make their impact,
and you get that kind of stuffgoing on.
Sharifa (40:03):
We've been through a lot of those.
So you are such a well-knownCanadian author and you have
been author of, you know, quitea few books and of course,
recently, last year, the onesthat you, you know, sort of so
nicely supported AMA.
This was the one they callMarketing Matters for Small and
(40:24):
Medium Enterprise.
Now more than ever, it's onAmazon and actually about a week
and a half, two weeks ago, yoursecond book not really your
second, but second in thisseries third, reputation Matters
, which was just launched, andthose I said to the audience.
Those are excellent read andit's really taking what Alan has
(40:49):
done throughout his life, allthese wonderful advice actually
circulating around.
The subject that we're talkingin these broadcasts is about
marketing.
Alan (40:59):
And the important thing about those books, one third to
50% of them are interviews withpeople who have succeeded, so
it's not just my viewpoint.
So you know, I've done what Itell other people to do, which
is I go out and do the researchand put that in the book.
Sharifa (41:17):
What have been their journey and what have been their
success?
Alan (41:20):
Reputation matters.
There's interviews with L'Oreal, there's interviews with
lawyers, there's interviews witha public relations company a
number of people of how youmanage your reputation better,
because it's more than justbranding or advertising.
But that's such a critical partof it too.
Sharifa (41:35):
And I have to say, in my years of in marketing and in
my niche, multi-councilmarketing, this one of the
disciplines that I would alwaysput in an integrated campaign is
the public relations andcommunity relations, because
it's so important to thesecommunities that you are
outreaching to them and alsoknowing who are the leaders, the
(41:59):
who's who, and building bridgesof understanding and to let
them know what you're doing,because there's always sort of a
doubt why are you in here, whyare you with us?
So building a good relationshipand building your brand among
community leaders and communityorganization is so important.
(42:20):
That's what you call.
Reputation matters, right, andI think that a lot of brands do
omit the part of communityrelations.
It's got to be both together.
Alan (42:31):
Yeah, Because marketing communications includes
promotional activity, price offs, but it's also public relations
, both with the target group butalso influencers and leaders in
the community, as well as theadvertising.
And unless you're doing thesethings combined, you're not
maximizing the value of doingthat.
Sharifa (42:51):
So, alan, is there anything else?
You're such a pool of greatinformation to be shared by our
audience, who are so interestedin the marketing world.
Is there anything you wouldlike to share?
Alan (43:03):
Well, it's always astonished me that multicultural
marketing has not received muchgreater prominence in Canada
because we are such an immigrantsociety.
One of the favorite things Iused to do with a cultural
anthropologist friend of mine iswe used to go walking through
neighborhoods in Toronto andwhen we were visiting other
(43:23):
places, do it there as well.
And unlike the US where youtend to get these concentrations
of immigrant communities Canada, and Toronto particularly it's
much more subtle and thatsubtlety is important because
it's an understanding of thecommunity that they're not
purely Indonesian or purelyMalaysian or whatever they're
(43:45):
blends and then that cometogether and that's the
complexity and that's why it'ssuch an important part of
understanding for the future.
So I would regard this as anessential part of having public
relations, advertising andpromotion working together, but
also having anybody who's gotgood experience in multicultural
(44:06):
marketing working together aspart of the same teams the
general process.
Sharifa (44:11):
At the table.
Alan (44:12):
At the table thinking about these issues and helping
the organizations find out abouthow that works in this
particular community or thisstyle of community.
Sharifa (44:22):
Yeah, so, alan, thank you so much and being, uh, part
of my advisory board and such apleasure working with you at ama
, with ama, with the mentorshipprogram and viewers out there,
make sure you go on amazon andpick up this book.
It's not expensive, it'sactually a work from the heart
(44:42):
from alan and proceeds areactually going to AME and it's
for marketing matters for smallbusiness and median size
entrepreneurs and also, moreimportant than ever, and
reputation matters, and they aresuch good read and please go on
Amazon and pick it up onmanagement capability.
Alan (45:02):
The first book was mentorship matters, so that that
was the there was a managementstyle.
Sharifa (45:07):
So that's a bit about multiple.
So three, three, three books ina row.
That's wonderful.
Who can do that?
Alan (45:14):
you know, three books and we're actually now, if I was
really good at what I was doing,I'd be able to do that in
different languages.
But as my English teachers toldme at high school, you have
enough problems in Englishanyway.
Sharifa (45:26):
Such a wonderful experience chatting with you,
alan, and thank you so much, andthank you all of you for
watching this podcast.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you have enjoyed thisepisode, please subscribe to our
podcast and rate and review theshow.
Join us next time for anotherjourney into the exciting world
(45:50):
of multicultural marketing.
Welcome to Canada's first ever multicultural
marketing podcast.
I'm Sharifa Khan, founder andpresident of Balmoral
Multicultural Marketing.
In each episode, join me as Iinterview high-profile marketing
executives, where they will besharing their experiences in
(00:26):
reaching Canada's diversecommunity.
Gain valuable insights andlessons and grow your
multicultural affluence.
Let's get started.
Hello everyone, I'm SharifaKhan, president and CEO of
Balmoral Multicultural Marketing.
I'm so delighted for ourpodcast today that I have my
(00:48):
good friend, A lan Middleton,who have answered and be our
guest today, and, of course, alot of you in the marketing
world, y ou know who AlanMiddleton is, of course.
Alan is a renowned Canadianauthor, speaker and lecturer and
also is one of the M arketing Legends inducted and also
(01:12):
executive director of theSchulich Centre Education
Centre, and not to mention hislong experience as the president
of JWT in Japan and also sit onthe board of JWT Worldwide.
A lan, thank you for being ourguest today and you are actually
(01:35):
my first guest for this podcast.
I'm so honored that you're here.
and you've traveled the worldand you have so many interesting
stories in your experience, notjust in Japan, but also you can
name a couple of the countriesthat you serve as executive in
(01:55):
advertising on behalf of J.
Walter T hompson, and othermarketing agency.
A and what is, I think, youalways mention about being the
President and CEO of J.
Walter Thompson in Japan andwhat experiences that you have
that we must have in targetingto Japanese and on behalf of
(02:17):
brands over there, and maybe youcan share some of your
experience with us?
Alan (02:25):
Yeah, I was obviously sufficiently unpopular in
different places in the worldthat I had to keep moving.
So I've actually lived inNorway, I've lived in the US, I
lived in Japan, I lived inCanada and I've been an
immigrant for a number of years.
Of the European and NorthAmerican experiences, we'll talk
about that a bit later.
(02:46):
But there's things you learnfrom every culture.
But to your question aboutJapan - J japan was fascinating
because whilst I'd asked thecompany could I learn a little
more about the language before Iwent, they said no, we need you
there tomorrow.
So I started learning Japanesehen! arrived in Japan, on the
(03:10):
ground, on the ground, myorganization it was about 1500
people, only five Westerners.
All the rest were localJapanese hires.
So we had a very goodinterpretation and translation
department who were my sides.
But the first thing I'llcomment on was my first
management meeting, which waskind of interesting.
(03:32):
So I was the president.
The management group was abouteight people the head of media,
the head of creativity, the headof accounting, etc.
Etc.
And the first thing you learnin Japan is short meetings do
not occur, long meetings occur.
So my first management meeting,was in the West, would have
(03:54):
traditionally been an hour,maybe two hours at most lasted
three quarters of the day.
Sharifa (04:02):
Wow.
Alan (04:02):
And I'm going you know we're going through the agenda
and I better not say too muchbecause I've only just arrived
here and I won't need to listenand lots of discussion going on.
And I got to the end of the dayand we broke up and my head of
HR, my head of personnel, Igrabbed him and said how was
that meeting?
Did it go well?
(04:23):
He said, oh, sacho-san.
Sacho means president Sacho-san.
It was very good, good meeting,I said.
But Maeda-san, who was the headof media, he didn't say
anything.
They said, oh, yes, yes, but isthat bad?
Oh, alan-san, he was there andthat was the totality of it.
(04:43):
And this was a guy who'd beenrunning the union for the
organization before he becamethe media director, and the fact
he hadn't said anything wasshowing agreement.
He was listening, showingagreement.
So the first thing yourecognized in Japan is
(05:04):
Westerners make a lot of noiseand they talk too much.
Different countries in the Westtalk more than others, but in
Japan silence is not bad andsilence can register
thoughtfulness and it canregister agreement.
Very rarely does it registerdisagreement.
But you have to learn that.
(05:24):
So you have to learn to listena lot more.
I would argue that's a keything for any cultural
experience.
Don't spend your time talking,like I'm doing at the moment,
but you spend your timelistening to people.
One other thing I'll mentionand back to you, sharifa, the
(05:46):
other thing you learn about.
Japan was in and I lived inTokyo, but I traveled around a
lot trying to learn the languageand looking on and I was struck
by the orientation towards workby people.
Now that's changed a littlesince I was there, because it's
15, 20 years since I was therelast, but that commitment to
(06:11):
defining who you are by how wellyou work and how well you get
on with the people at work.
So the team orientation, theindividuality level and we know
this from other surveys is muchlower in Japan.
It's much more a collectivistculture.
And when you're moving from amore individualistic culture the
(06:33):
UK, north America to acollectivist culture, it means
that you have to understand thatthe way you get things done,
you're seen as a group.
The way you get things done,you're seen as a group.
So one of the things that youhave to work on is listening to
people.
As a leader, you're expected tomake a decision, but in Japan
(07:00):
it's much more important thatyou talk about what you've heard
from your group and what hasled you eventually to make the
decision in a certain way.
But the ideal is to nudgepeople.
So I'm a big fan of mentorshipas a management practice,
nudging people in the directionby your own persuasiveness and
that becomes more and moreimportant depending on the
culture you're in, but I'd arguethat's important in all
(07:23):
cultures, that you need tolisten, that you need to listen,
that you need to nudge and thatextreme individualism that you
see, in particularly NorthAmerica and the UK, is something
that you need to keep undercontrol.
Sharifa (07:36):
I've heard also in the business environment, as you
mentioned collective culturegiving everybody a say that even
the CEO and the president aresitting in the open office next
to the junior clerk, you know,and there's no special office
whatsoever in Japan, and that'swhat you're talking about to
(07:59):
have equity in the organization.
Alan (08:03):
And it's also respect for the people we're working for.
A quick, other Japanese story Ihad a chauffeured car in Japan,
but occasionally I used to walkto work.
It was only about half an hourand I had nothing special that
day.
I used to walk into work andI'm an early bird, so I'd be
walking into work about 5.30, 6o'clock in the morning.
(08:23):
I'd be walking into work about5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning
and on my way to work one daythe almost deserted street and
the chauffeur-driven car comesand drops somebody who's clearly
a senior executive off at thefront door of his office.
The guy gets out of the car andhe looks down the street and
there's somebody cleaning theroad and Tokyo is immaculately
(08:44):
clean.
They keep it beautifully cleanand you can tell he's the local
sweeper because he's in auniform, he's got white gloves
and everything else and he'sdone a magnificent job.
On the street and this guy isobviously a senior exec Turns
towards this gentleman and bowsA mark of respect for the work
(09:05):
that he's done and that to mestruck that you know it was so
evocative of.
You'd noticed they was there,you'd noticed the effect they'd
had on the street and they wereowed a mark of respect, and I
wish more of our executives insenior management would
understand and learn from that.
Sharifa (09:27):
And Alan, thank you for sharing with us how business is
being run in Japan.
We know all the success storiesall the big brands that come
out of Japan and adoptedinternationally all the cars,
all the household appliancesthat are at a lot of the
household in here.
So how has your experience inJapan and knowing what they do,
(09:50):
influence of how you seemulticultural marketing here in
Canada?
Alan (09:53):
Absolutely.
Now Japan's struggled a bitsince I was there, so there's
some issues in Japan.
Mostly let's get the bad thingout the way they were incredibly
bad at utilizing femalecapability, so the ratio of male
executives to female executivesin Japan is still way out of
(10:17):
reason.
Numbers, yeah.
So you had very smart womendoing things in their community
but not contributing to business, and that was one of the bad
things that was happening.
Some of the good things thatwas happening was that Japanese
drive for innovation.
That was happening.
Some of the good things thatwas happening was that Japanese
drive for innovation.
That was there.
They managed.
So you know, you're right.
(10:37):
They looked at post-war the carindustry from the UK and they
said, well, I'm allowed to saythis, I'm an expert the UK's
making crappy cars, so we'll goand do our own.
And of course, we know thesuccess of Toyota over time and
Nissan and everybody else andHonda, but so that orientation
towards the next generation thatwas there was one thing
(11:01):
Secondly, that you werelistening to people across the
silos.
One of the big traps to me ofNorth American business and no,
it's not just North American,I'd call it Western business is
too siloed.
We don't listen to people goingacross the different
disciplines.
Marketing, which is myspecialty, has got to listen to
(11:23):
accounting, it's got to listento sales, it's got to listen to
production and it's got to beall part of the decision-making
process.
The Japanese used to do a muchbetter job at that, so that's
the other thing we can learn.
Sharifa (11:36):
And how do you feel that, looking into what you have
experienced there and lookinginto the glimmers of the
Japanese business world and themarketing world, then how you
describe yourself, a Canadian ina British origin, in there, and
how do they view you and werethey accepting you at the
(12:00):
beginning?
Alan (12:01):
it varied, and one of the things that JWT which, as of
today, is no longer becauseWPP's changed it all One of the
things JWT did well in Japan isthey hired smart women, so we
had a much higher ratio offemale executives to nearly any
(12:21):
other equivalent advertisingagency.
It was one of the things we'ddone well.
So, based on that and based onthe assumption about who I was,
and then my early conversations,I tended to get well accepted
by the younger part, the under40 part of the organization.
Where I used to run into theoccasional problems not too many
(12:46):
though was with some of theolder executives, not the senior
management.
My oldest son, who must havebeen 65, head of media, the guy
I mentioned earlier.
He and I became very goodfriends.
I used to go to him.
I used to get him to mentor mebecause he's been coming up
through the union.
(13:06):
There was a wisdom.
He'd been with the company fora long time and they knew people
listened to him and he hadtouch points.
So, with the senior management,my finance director
Tachibana-san was wonderful andhe was just great.
He used to come in and sayAlan-san, can we talk?
That's when I'd made a badmistake and the other thing I
(13:26):
did to overcome this was I had avery, very good personal
assistant who was Japanese, butshe worked for some time in the
West, which is why her Englishwas fluent, and she'd also be my
touch point into theorganization as well as walking
around.
So I instituted management bywalking around, partly because
(13:48):
it had become a popular thing todo, but I learned to enjoy it,
yeah, and I used to go out fordrinks with them at night.
It took a while, but actuallyone of my big leaving parties.
I don't think there was anybodyat my apartment over the age of
30 at my leaving party.
They had a special event for meso I enjoyed that.
So mostly it was goodacceptance because fairly
(14:13):
quickly what became known isAlan at least listened to you,
so that was part of it.
Sharifa (14:18):
Well, I totally agree.
By being as president and CEOof Balmoral, my number one job,
I feel, is constantly be walkingaround in the company, not to
watch whether who came to work,but basically actually talking
to each and every one of themand find out what is happening
(14:39):
at home.
You know, are they havingchallenges at work?
Being from the multiculturalcommunity, I have a lot of.
Them are in their 20s and 30sand they always respect the
hierarchy.
I'm the president, right.
So at times they said theywouldn't say anything.
But you do have to make theeffort to make them feel
(14:59):
comfortable because there are alot of times, in being in Asian
and South Asian background, youjust don't talk about your
trouble that much at work.
Alan (15:09):
But it's just that through these conversations I
understand better, they have abetter rapport, they're not
fearful of me and I think thathaving this connection with your
employees just as the way youdid in Japan is so important,
and if you've demonstrated sostrongly with Balmoral, it's
because of the world we werechatting about this earlier, the
(15:30):
world of social media with allits disadvantages of what's
fact-based, what's notfact-based, what's rumor-based,
how you get across things topeople.
The younger generation is moreadept at dealing with that than
perhaps an older generation notnecessarily you, but definitely
me.
So when I moved on to teachingand mentoring, I recognized that
(15:54):
there's something calledreverse mentoring, and reverse
mentoring is I recommend to anysenior exec, and in fact I'm
working with a group in the USright now where they're putting
their whole senior executivesthrough reverse mentoring on
immigrant groups, seniorexecutives through reverse
mentoring on immigrant groups.
So they're getting youngerpeople who joined the
organization to talk to themabout either what the immigrant
(16:20):
experience has been or, based ontheir background, what issues
they've had within theorganization.
And they're the mentors,they're the ones teaching the
senior executives.
So we've been careful about howwe choose the initial senior
execs, so we knew people who arewilling and volunteering to do
this.
But the early signs is there'sa lot of learning going on.
We live in a flat hierarchyworld.
(16:41):
You don't send orders from thetop any longer.
That's not the way effectiveorganizations Particularly
post-COVID.
I don't think that works at all.
Sharifa (16:53):
And just a little bit.
I want to say that AlanMiddleton and David Kincaid of
Level 5 are actually the initialcollaborative and founder of
the mentorship program at theAMA Toronto chapter and, of
course, throughout the yearsAlan have mentored so many
people, young people inparticular, who are usually at
(17:16):
times lost in their ways in thecareer, and also mentoring new
immigrants, which I think it'sso important 80% of the people
I've mentored have beenimmigrants.
And these are the ones thatactually have a lot of
experience back homeprofessionals.
And when they came here, whenthey gave up everything, their
connections, they're actuallytotally mentally lost and, like
(17:41):
our Canadian business world, thefirst question HR would ask
them do you have Canadianexperience?
And a lot of them are sobewildered and said, what about
the 10, 15 years that I had backin India or China?
What are you asking me?
But then they would not givethem the first chance to have,
so how am I ever going to beable to do that?
(18:02):
But then the AMA and Alan havedone tremendously great work,
done tremendously great work toher, and we've seen a lot of
these immigrants and menteesthat are able to get the first
job because we sort of and I'mso privileged that I have been
on the mentorship program andhelp a few of them land their
(18:22):
first job with great advice.
Alan (18:24):
A lot of the mentorship has happened.
In fact, there's one guy, um, Iwon't mention his name to not
embarrass him, but he was animmigrant from Morocco who
arrived in March 2020.
Now, those of you may rememberthat's when the pandemic was
officially announced.
The poor guy, right, he had agreat background in Morocco in
(18:44):
marketing and brand building,but, of course, arrived and got
exactly the phrase you'retalking about, which is really
impressive, but no Canadianexperience.
So after two or three sessionswith him, he said how do I
overcome that?
And I said, well, you can takecourses, you can do.
We went through a whole bunchof things.
Then he said I want to ask youa blunt question and I said,
(19:08):
yeah, go ahead.
He said do all Canadians lie alot?
And I said explain what youmean by that?
He said, well, I contact peopleand they say well, you know,
there's really nothing at themoment.
Then I see on a head huntersroster there's two or three jobs
they're putting up and they'rejust lying to me.
(19:29):
So for the next two or threesessions, we went through a bit
of a task, not just helping withjob hunting, which she
eventually did very well, buttalking about Canadian culture,
and Canadian culture is not toconfront and you get many
organizations.
It's interesting.
My mentee this year is a lovelyyoung South Asian woman who'd
(19:49):
worked in Germany for a whileand she found the same
difference even coming from herGerman experience to here.
The Canadians will duck andweave around an issue.
Mostly it's not done to becruel, it's done to avoid
confrontation, not to hurt yourfeelings.
Yeah, you have to work your wayaround that.
So there's elements in thiscomplex culture.
(20:11):
As you know, 52% of Toronto isnot born in Canada, so we're a
wonderfully immigrant society,but we haven't yet learned to
use it properly or to understandit properly, and we got to keep
going on that.
We're doing a bit better than wewere 10 years ago and 20 years
ago, but just got to keep going.
Sharifa (20:28):
So some way to go.
So you have been on so manycorporate boards and have been
consultants to so many brands,but then there's some brands
that are still hesitating ingetting you know multicultural
marketing, be able to be able tospeak into them and of course
you know, in their own way theywant to get more market share.
(20:51):
Obviously, what's stopping themto be sitting on the fence, is
it?
They're fearful.
Alan (20:58):
Shall I be very un-Canadian?
No, but here's why.
Because here's the basequestion about dealing with an
immigrant group or amulticultural group.
It all goes back to what shouldbe the fundamental tenet of
marketing, which is getting toknow your target customer.
(21:19):
Getting to know, to understandthem, to be able to communicate
with them in a way that theyunderstand and that motivates
them.
It doesn't mean yelling, itdoesn't mean all proof points,
it means understanding.
So, when you're dealing with thevery complexity of immigrant
groups, whether it's first,second or third generations, and
(21:40):
we see, from the same ethnicbackgrounds, huge difference
between different generationalgroups, and there's research
that backs that up, and you'vegot to understand that and work
with that.
So why aren't they doing it?
Well, yes, there's a cost to it.
So you know.
But we've long since left thedays where you just do an
average cost per thousand indeeming and sending messages out
(22:04):
.
You've got to be much moretargeted, much more focused and
much more on this complex rolebetween how much you talk about
you and how much you talk aboutthe needs of the customer.
And that will partly depend on,you know, the establishment of
the brand.
How long has it been around,what's it doing?
(22:24):
But honestly, what I'm findingis the understanding of what
builds strong brands isdeclining and we seem to be
making the assumption, withmulticultural groups as well as
non-multicultural groups, thatjust sending general mood
messages out and making themfeel better isn't the only way
of doing it.
(22:45):
So I'm sorry, I think it'signorance.
Sharifa (22:48):
And also at times I've chatted before and mentioned
many times, is also, they don'tknow what they don't know.
But also, at the same time,they're so fearful of making
mistakes, and I think that someof them actually have dipped
their toes in this water, but,of course, not doing it the
right way and ended up with badresults.
So some of them have tried andfailed and they just said well,
(23:13):
they basically just write it off, you know, and yet not, at the
same time, be able to spend thetime to know how to entrench in
this community and I've talkedabout, as you say, not just
sending that advertising outthere and be able to be part of
the community, ingratiatedcommunity find out more about
them, what they think, what'sthe cultural nuances, how's the
(23:36):
behavior, what are things thatare near and dear to them.
Alan (23:40):
If they make that effort, they are going to make headway
into it, absolutely, but it'sreally the focus that they have
to focus and take time, becausewith new technology products
where there's clearly a hugeadvantage, you may just want to
get that message out, but formost things in life, canadians
tend to be all types ofCanadians tend to be slower
(24:00):
adopters of new products thanour friends south of the border.
So you need time to get peoplein.
And what you're doing withgreat branding is building trust
.
And the way you build trustwith different communities
varies.
It varies with different ages,with different genders, with
different ethnic backgrounds,and what we need to understand
(24:21):
is the path to build that trustso that people start adopting
you.
In most instances, you don'twant them to just adopt you once
, but to repeat purchase, andthere's a lot of research that's
gone on that that first buy,which is a huge task, if it's
not followed up properly to getthat repeat purchase, you've
(24:43):
wasted a lot of money.
Sharifa (24:44):
So and that requires that understanding- and you've
been a long time professor andyou've taught so many marketing
students, I think you just saidI'm old and seasoned professor
that you have been with so manystudents marketing students and
some of them, god, they'realready executives in so many
(25:05):
brands and they have differentperspective.
They have different backgroundand also personal horizon.
What have you learned from yourstudents and is there any
stories that, as you say,reverse mentorship?
Yeah, right so what have youlearned from your?
Alan (25:22):
students.
Yeah, I watched the differencebetween leaders that have come
up a silo and leaders that havehad the advantage of moving for
responsibilities across anorganization and I think there's
a huge difference there.
So I encourage expertise andlearning in a discipline.
But I'm going to use a friendof mine, john Doig, who's a
(25:44):
senior executive for Scotiabank,who comes up through marketing.
But Scotiabank was very smart,they moved him around, so he's
got good understanding ofgeneral banking.
And John gave me a greatunderstanding about Canadian
banks.
He said not all Canadians willlearn to like their banks, but
we can learn to like theirbankers, and it's insights like
(26:04):
that that you learn on the wayup.
So great leaders have thatability of connecting people and
connecting disciplines.
Now there's still the need to bedecisive.
Yes, but the definition ofdecisiveness is not just
individualistic.
It's as your team, as yourboard of directors, as your
(26:24):
senior management group, as yourdepartment heads, whatever it
is, that that's the way forward.
So it doesn't mean you slowdown or are indecisive.
It means your process ofgetting there considers and
listens to people, and I thinkthat's one of the big things
that's been missing from a lotof business school training, in
(26:45):
particularly in the US with thetop schools.
There's so much focus, becauseof a North American culture
oriented towards individualism,that they've confused
collectivism with slowness ornot making decisions, and that's
wrong.
The challenge is to allow yourorganization to set longer term
(27:07):
strategies, a path to get therethat pays attention to changes
in the environment but doesn'tjust rely on your personal
judgment.
It's you and others, and if youread about some of the great
entrepreneurs like Bill Gatesand some of the people like that
, they didn't do it themselves.
They were often pairs or teamsand the literature has
(27:30):
underestimated that.
Sharifa (27:32):
And actually, as you say, individualism.
From what I know, from mybackground and all the
multicultural friends that Ihave, in many of their culture
there's no such word asindividualism.
You know it's always acollective decision.
It's always a collectivedecision.
It could be a generationaldecision.
It will be a community decisionat large to make it together.
(27:53):
And individualism if ever thereis a word in their language, it
means selfishness.
So you're absolutely right.
One of my stories.
Alan (28:04):
I was romantically involved and also professionally
involved in Thailand.
I've been home for a long time,in fact.
My ex-fiance was Thai and Itaught there a lot.
And one of the earlyexperiences I had in Thailand
was working with a group inexecutive training of a middle
management group and going thisis a really great idea.
(28:25):
When are you going to recommendit to senior management?
And the response from this verybright group was well, alan,
that's not our job.
And I said but I don'tunderstand that You've come to a
wonderful analysis and decision.
No, it's their job to do that.
And I said okay, how do youinfluence that?
He said well, if we're askedfor it, we would give it.
(28:47):
And I realized that thetraditional Thai structure was.
It's based on TheravadaBuddhism background and it's a
lot that says authority isreally very important and in
Thailand at this time this is 10years ago this was very
important.
So what you had to do was tomove the senior executives into
(29:07):
asking for that viewpoint,otherwise it wouldn't have got
forward.
And in order to work inThailand, you need to understand
that, because there's no pointin steaming in like one of the
big consulting companies andsaying brilliant work, guys.
You go ahead and do it, becauseit would never happen that way.
Sharifa (29:23):
So it's quite different from Japan.
Alan (29:24):
Very, oh yes it, because it would never happen that way.
Sharifa (29:26):
So it's quite different from Japan.
Yes, you say Japan has been,you know, over many years far
ahead of North America.
Instead of having thecollective decision, equality in
Thailand is actually quitehierarchy, quite hierarchy.
Alan (29:40):
Yes, yes, quite, quite different.
And in fact Thailand's a bit ofa contrast because the Thai
background is actually SouthernChinese from many, many, many
centuries ago.
So it's an interesting group ofpeople.
I happen to love Thailand.
It's a wonderful country andit's got so many really smart
people, but it's quite acontrast to some of its
(30:02):
neighbors, so very differentfrom the Myanmar or Burmese
experience.
On one hand.
Sharifa (30:08):
And they have to….
Or even the Vietnamese?
They still have royalty, theydo you?
Alan (30:13):
can't be rude about your royalty there.
Sharifa (30:15):
Still the king there?
Alan (30:16):
Yeah, I could be very rude about King Charles, but I'm not
allowed to be rude about any ofthe Thai royalty.
Sharifa (30:22):
So, alan, you know it's such an honor recently you
become one of our board advisorson my board and can you share
what and want leaders to know inadvertising about this
discipline and what are theopportunities?
And I really value the adviceyou have given me because you
(30:46):
have such vast experience, notjust in Canada but globally, so
maybe if you can share whatleaders should know, yeah, yeah,
there's no simple formulabecause life changes, but I'm
going to draw it down to anumber of areas.
Alan (31:01):
Number one always be impatient with your whole
organization, not just youpersonally, but looking for the
next step, which means thinkingahead strategically.
One of the great things at theSchulich School of Business with
its previous, just retired-three years ago, dean Dean Deja
Horvath, and one of his greatstrengths was thinking
(31:22):
strategically about wherebusiness education was going and
then making the changes inorder to get there.
So he wasn't responding to whatwas happening at the minute,
but thinking about the future.
So that's one area, thatmedium-term, two to three-year
perspective.
Second, though, get restlessBecause, although what I've just
(31:43):
said, you need to be thinkingabout the strategy for the
future, stuff happens thatchanges the world Last year, the
Russian invasion of the Ukraine, now the Middle Eastern
situation, all with their knockon economic and political
effects.
You have to learn to respond tothose you were saying.
You're about to go on avacation and you're having to
(32:03):
change your vacation plans inEurope because of some closures
of some areas.
So you're changing yourvacation strategy based on that.
Organizations have to do that.
It shouldn't detract them inmost cases, from what they're
building as an organization or abrand, but they need to pay
attention to it.
Third area love your peopleDoesn't mean they're always
(32:26):
going to agree with you.
It doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to do the right thing.
It means if they are running abig car company, unless you pay
them reasonable wages, they'regoing to go on strike and
they're going to force you tosomething that will interrupt
your production.
But there's a reality that youneed.
They're the people driving yourbusiness, either with the
customer or with the production,or whatever it is.
(32:48):
I personally think we've allowedthe gap between what we pay
senior executives and people andwhat we pay the average wage
and people has gone far toogreat.
We used to be much more compact20 years ago and I think that
was a better model.
I think we went into what Icall the post-Reagan era in
(33:09):
North America, the greed economy, where you pay lots of people
money for just moving moneyaround.
Yes, that's important, but notwhen you give troubles with
affordability of healthcare,affordability of housing,
affordability of food andbeverage.
You know right now Canada'sgoing through the biggest use of
food banks for decades and partof that gap.
(33:32):
So, yes, listen to your people,but also make sure you pay them
living wages and recognizingaccomplishment, not just age and
position.
And then the last thing I'd addfor the overall is recognize
you're dealing not just withemployees at work but with human
(33:53):
beings, and COVID, I think isfunny enough, really helped that
process.
Sharifa (33:59):
Yes.
Alan (33:59):
Because as we now mix home and work attendance, we're
having to recognize that we needto make allowances where we can
, and there are some areas youcan't in production, for
instance, we can make allowancesfor people to be at home, which
means we need to understand alittle more about their family
situations.
So maybe people with young kidsat home maybe you'll allow them
(34:24):
to work from home more.
Maybe if you're older and theydon't mind, they can come into
the office more.
It's those kind of balances.
So in the same way we segmentour advertising appeals to
customers, I think we have toraise the importance of the role
of HR, the role of personnel,in dealing with more specific
(34:45):
differences of people.
We need to build the teams, butwhat we also need to do is to
recognize them as individualscoming forward.
Sharifa (34:54):
And um, I just want to go back to the question about um
.
You know, as you said, you'vebeen on so many boards, so many
brands as consultants.
Also, what would you like toshare with the leaders of
advertising and communityindustry to know the importance
and the discipline andopportunity for them in Canada
(35:15):
right now, particularly with ourvast diverse population?
Yeah, absolutely.
Alan (35:21):
Two things, and I'll throw a statistic out which was in
one of my books recently, whichis as a proportion of sales.
Canadian small, mediumenterprises and even some big
ones on average spend half theamount of money on marketing
that their US counterparts do.
In fact, I was gonna title thatbook.
(35:41):
I've got this great idea butI'm not gonna tell anybody, and
that's in a way.
We have very good startupsuccesses in the medium business
, but one of the things we'renot so good is scaling up, and
that's one of the reasons why.
So one of the things we got todo is we've got to recognize
that, within affordability, evenif it's borrowed short term or
(36:05):
medium term, one of the thingswe need to do is not only keep
that development going, but alsokeep going on the development
process of its communication, ofits marketing, and marketing's
not just advertising.
It's the way you think aboutthe pricing.
The distribution systems havechanged dramatically.
I'm gonna say something niceabout an American service
(36:27):
industry right now, because Ijust ordered a bunch of stuff on
Amazon and as I was coming intoday, I got my note on my
iPhone saying it's arrived.
You know, my God, I onlyordered it on the weekend.
So that kind of delivery systemis spectacular.
So keeping up with thetechnology and keeping up with
that ability there.
Sharifa (36:46):
A lot of times I've noticed that their brands have
said well, I just, yes, I'mdoing multicultural marketing,
yeah, I'm going to put different, diverse talent into a TV
commercial or OLV, and that willbe my checkbox, that I'm doing.
I've answered the diversity andequity.
And then a lot of times I wouldask okay, so that's what you do
(37:10):
, but what's the message?
Is it going to be a message?
You know how to resonate withthem and also, most importantly,
what's the medium you're using?
So you use all these diversetalent, but you are using the
medium of the mainstream media,which really don't connect with
them.
So I think there's a lot ofmistakes out there, but I'm sure
(37:30):
a lot of brands learned.
But there are so many questionsI feel that they should ask
themselves Are you doing it justbecause you feel your company
said, oh, you just got to domulticultural marketing?
Are you doing it seriously tolook into the community as to
what turns them on?
Why would they even payattention?
Alan (37:52):
to you Over what period of time?
Back to the earlierconversation how are you
developing trust in your brandor service within this?
Community, so it may not payback?
Here's the issue.
Community, so it may not payback.
Here's the issue.
It's much cheaper, obviously,if you develop a mainstream
activity and you say, oh, we'lleither subtitle it or we'll
(38:14):
include some different lookingtalent in it.
That may or may not beappropriate Mostly it won't be,
because you're mixing amainstream message without
understanding what turns on thecommunity, and it may be
different things.
I was always struck when I wasteaching my classes and the
(38:37):
classes would tend they weremulticultural classes, but they
would tend to sit in theirgroups and I was struck by how
each group grabbed ontodifferent things in cases that
were important, and you'd getone group over there who'd say,
well, this is the key issue, andanother group over there would
say, well, no, it's not.
And then I realized it wasn'tthe intellectual power, it was
(38:59):
that they were seeing differentthings in the different
scenarios.
And that's what you've got tobe looking for Now.
You have to make the ultimateeconomic decision, which is is
it worth doing somethingseparate?
Now the answer is yes, italways is.
It does not necessarily need tobe of the same scale as your
(39:20):
mainstream, but if you startdoing something one year that
appeals, maybe it's in theethnic media, maybe it's in a
particular media, maybe it's ina particular influencer and how
they work.
But if you start doing and youbuild it over time, you've begun
to build a bit of a connection.
That's what you should belooking for.
So culture and connection.
Sharifa (39:39):
Yeah, and building relationships in the long run
and not be just a shotgunapproach.
Absolutely.
Alan (39:45):
And not changing it.
And the other thing that goeson with organizations is you get
a new chief marketing officerin or a new person responsible,
and when they get moved on,somebody else comes in.
The new executive wants tochange it to make their impact,
and you get that kind of stuffgoing on.
Sharifa (40:03):
We've been through a lot of those.
So you are such a well-knownCanadian author and you have
been author of, you know, quitea few books and of course,
recently, last year, the onesthat you, you know, sort of so
nicely supported AMA.
This was the one they callMarketing Matters for Small and
(40:24):
Medium Enterprise.
Now more than ever, it's onAmazon and actually about a week
and a half, two weeks ago, yoursecond book not really your
second, but second in thisseries third, reputation Matters
, which was just launched, andthose I said to the audience.
Those are excellent read andit's really taking what Alan has
(40:49):
done throughout his life, allthese wonderful advice actually
circulating around.
The subject that we're talkingin these broadcasts is about
marketing.
Alan (40:59):
And the important thing about those books, one third to
50% of them are interviews withpeople who have succeeded, so
it's not just my viewpoint.
So you know, I've done what Itell other people to do, which
is I go out and do the researchand put that in the book.
Sharifa (41:17):
What have been their journey and what have been their
success?
Alan (41:20):
Reputation matters.
There's interviews with L'Oreal, there's interviews with
lawyers, there's interviews witha public relations company a
number of people of how youmanage your reputation better,
because it's more than justbranding or advertising.
But that's such a critical partof it too.
Sharifa (41:35):
And I have to say, in my years of in marketing and in
my niche, multi-councilmarketing, this one of the
disciplines that I would alwaysput in an integrated campaign is
the public relations andcommunity relations, because
it's so important to thesecommunities that you are
outreaching to them and alsoknowing who are the leaders, the
(41:59):
who's who, and building bridgesof understanding and to let
them know what you're doing,because there's always sort of a
doubt why are you in here, whyare you with us?
So building a good relationshipand building your brand among
community leaders and communityorganization is so important.
(42:20):
That's what you call.
Reputation matters, right, andI think that a lot of brands do
omit the part of communityrelations.
It's got to be both together.
Alan (42:31):
Yeah, Because marketing communications includes
promotional activity, price offs, but it's also public relations
, both with the target group butalso influencers and leaders in
the community, as well as theadvertising.
And unless you're doing thesethings combined, you're not
maximizing the value of doingthat.
Sharifa (42:51):
So, alan, is there anything else?
You're such a pool of greatinformation to be shared by our
audience, who are so interestedin the marketing world.
Is there anything you wouldlike to share?
Alan (43:03):
Well, it's always astonished me that multicultural
marketing has not received muchgreater prominence in Canada
because we are such an immigrantsociety.
One of the favorite things Iused to do with a cultural
anthropologist friend of mine iswe used to go walking through
neighborhoods in Toronto andwhen we were visiting other
(43:23):
places, do it there as well.
And unlike the US where youtend to get these concentrations
of immigrant communities Canada, and Toronto particularly it's
much more subtle and thatsubtlety is important because
it's an understanding of thecommunity that they're not
purely Indonesian or purelyMalaysian or whatever they're
(43:45):
blends and then that cometogether and that's the
complexity and that's why it'ssuch an important part of
understanding for the future.
So I would regard this as anessential part of having public
relations, advertising andpromotion working together, but
also having anybody who's gotgood experience in multicultural
(44:06):
marketing working together aspart of the same teams the
general process.
Sharifa (44:11):
At the table.
Alan (44:12):
At the table thinking about these issues and helping
the organizations find out abouthow that works in this
particular community or thisstyle of community.
Sharifa (44:22):
Yeah, so, alan, thank you so much and being, uh, part
of my advisory board and such apleasure working with you at ama
, with ama, with the mentorshipprogram and viewers out there,
make sure you go on amazon andpick up this book.
It's not expensive, it'sactually a work from the heart
(44:42):
from alan and proceeds areactually going to AME and it's
for marketing matters for smallbusiness and median size
entrepreneurs and also, moreimportant than ever, and
reputation matters, and they aresuch good read and please go on
Amazon and pick it up onmanagement capability.
Alan (45:02):
The first book was mentorship matters, so that that
was the there was a managementstyle.
Sharifa (45:07):
So that's a bit about multiple.
So three, three, three books ina row.
That's wonderful.
Who can do that?
Alan (45:14):
you know, three books and we're actually now, if I was
really good at what I was doing,I'd be able to do that in
different languages.
But as my English teachers toldme at high school, you have
enough problems in Englishanyway.
Sharifa (45:26):
Such a wonderful experience chatting with you,
alan, and thank you so much, andthank you all of you for
watching this podcast.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you have enjoyed thisepisode, please subscribe to our
podcast and rate and review theshow.
Join us next time for anotherjourney into the exciting world
(45:50):
of multicultural marketing.
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