[Music] a few weeks ago I read this there are six billion people in the world who have access to mobile phones and only 4.5 people who have access to toilets in other words it means that we have more smartphones than toilets it is such a great news it means that there are plenty of telecommunications companies who are making great deals phone makers and consumer electronic stores that are selling plenty of products and marketers like me were creating in clever campaigns for these brands for these companies to support their sales and don't look at me like
that I know what you're thinking here is another hidden Persuader trying to manipulate us to convince us to buy useless products and services the reality is that we are all marketers marketing is helping the world look at this image thanks to technology now marketers can reach out to 6.5 billion people regardless of what they are and we can interact with them we can exchange thoughts we can recommend products it is amazing it wasn't possible only a few years ago and frankly you should also think that you do marketing every day yes you too your marketers
have every time that you take a selfie you post it online and you try to build your personal brand I do exactly the same professional marketers do exactly the same on behalf of their clients and your marketers when you put on makeup when you decide what to wear when you decide where to go for dinner we are all marketers and it's fine we see marketing even in nature and it's fine look at this male peacock he's trying to sell the product himself trying to attract as many customers as possible female peacocks in order to maximize
his return on investment and look at this female bear carefully choosing the right channel the river to maximize her return on investment salons and coming back to humans how could we possibly choose among so many different but very similar alternative products if marketers hadn't carefully designed a catchy packaging and find a memorable brand name and paid attention to the product positioning on the Shelf it'd be impossible the reality is that we need Marketing in this part of the world we need marketing to make sense of our own existence to communicate with others to build our
identity and our image other than of course to choose the right products and services and if we go back to the roots of marketing this is a definition given by Philip Cutler who is unanimously considered the father of marketing if you look at this definition marketing is not only useful but even ethical so what is the problem what is wrong with that this is wrong we acted as if the resources on this planet were infinite we acted as if the only Compass to follow was growth and this is wrong this is wrong they told us
the business of business is business and if there are collateral damages well they are technically negative externalities they are part of the equation it's fine this is wrong we created an unequal Society prioritizing the vested interest of the few at the expenses of the many this is wrong this is wrong because globalization can be something very good but if we don't care about the consequences then the planet will remind us of the consequences and we created a toxic cocktail of marketing globalization capitalism and consumerism and this is the result this is wrong we abused globalization
and thought that we could just delocalize production without paying too much attention to the details so now the point is how can we reconcile these contradictions this is the real question today how can we Leverage The Unbelievable computational power at our disposal that of virtual reality augmented reality artificial intelligence blockchain 3D printing and what is the role of marketing in this effort to reconcile contradictions as you can imagine given what I do for living these questions have been keeping me awake for quite some time and then I had my Epiphany I traveled back in time
to the south of Italy to a region called calabri to a little city little town called Castro Viller where I was born the Romans gave to that part of the world the name of Magna Gia or greeter Greece because of the many Greek settlements well I was lucky enough to grow up there and one day 25 years ago more or less at school one of my professors told us an amazing story it's it was the story from the ancient Greek mythology of the daughter of two Gods Aris the god of war and Aphrodite the godness
of love can you see the power of this idea two opposite incredibly opposite contradictions Love and War United to give birth to a baby to a baby girl to a child and what is even more impressive is the name that they decided to give me to the child armonia or harmonia in English she was the goddess of Harmony Concord and synthesis to me the very existence of armonia is the proof that 20 centuries ago ancient Greeks among other Western and Eastern civilizations understood that the word is not linear it is actually full of contradictions and
it's been like this since the tone of civilization think about it male female day night odd even circle square light Darkness good evil and wise men and women in order to be successful in life had to reconcile these contradictions they had to deal with them they had to find a compromise they had to find a solution whether in their private life in society in politics in science in art even in their own body so here here is my epiphany armonia can fix our broken word armonia can help us finding a compromise between the contradictions that
I showed you before between the legitimate interest of companies to make profit and the consequences the inequalities that this generated but it will be quite hard because we spend the last few centuries trying to kill our own ability to deal with these opposites we decided that it wasn't very efficient to have nuances we decided that it was way easier to have black or white and to double down on one of the two we decided to sacrifice armonia in the name of efficiency Effectiveness predictability calculability control control Effectiveness planning if you want and we did that
because the only way to achieve economies of scale of scope economies of learning efficiency is to have a very stable predictable environment you can't deal with this chaos you need stability if you want to maximize the return on investment if you want to Max maximize your profit if you want to maximize the competitive advantage to exploit your competitive Advantage as long as possible you need stability so do you see how complicated it is today we need to relearn something that we used to know that we forgot and that we now need because today's word is
full of contradictions it's all about volatility uncertainty complexity ambiguity so let's have a look at today's contradictions humility and ambition we need to find a way to blend the two we need to admit that we don't have all the answers but we also need the ambition to write the rules of the game Art and Science assuming that they are two opposites if you think of Leonardo DaVinci was he a scientist or an artist hard to say probably useless to decide shortterm and long-term you can have short-term returns you also need to have long-term sustainability if
we don't find a way to reconcile these two contradictions or these two opposites we're lost ethics and profit finance and ESG local and Global human and Tech and while this list is by no means exhaustive I could have had haded virtual and real physical and digital he gives you a very clear sense of the complexity we have to deal with so we need to go back it would be hard it won't be linear it would be very difficult but maybe there is a solution and of course now you know me enough to know that to
find the solution I had to go back to the ancient Greece among many other very interesting things beside armonia they also invented heroes think of ulyses Achilles igia Atalanta women and men with Superior abilities women and men with superpowers as we would call them today they were the predecessors of Superman Batman Batwoman Wonder Woman human and man with Superior capabilities with superpowers this is what we need today we need to go beyond our limits we need to unlearn and relearn something and so here is my Eureka moment here is my Epiphany we need to when
I say we I mean marketers the business community at large everyone we need to relearn to accept ambiguity and ambivalence as inevitable variables of the status quo we need to start making products that are harmonic by Design we need to consider armonia our new modus operandi and if we are successful if marketers are successful ESS F then we will lead the way we will be seen as a source of value creation we will honor the very first definition of Philip Cotler we will help and Inspire companies to make products that are good for the company
good for the customer good for the planet this is possible I'm thinking of shoes that are fashionable C good for performance but at the same time are made of recycled materials I'm thinking of expensive devices that generate profit for the phone makers and at the same time they can be part of the circular economy at the end of their or their life cycle I'm thinking of expensive luxury products that are absolutely crueltyfree and child labor free even though they generate huge margins for the companies it is fine if we can reconcile and so here's my
final dream a dream of a word where marketers and the business community at large can relearn to deal with these contradictions I dream of a word where armonia becomes our superpower I dream of a word where marketing can Inspire the next generation of products and services and I dream of a world where marketers can become the superheroes that this world desperately needs and deserves [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
