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: Chairman of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Bernhard Glock is a man with a mission. His agenda is to tackle ‘real’ issues before the advertising community worldwide. With a career spanning over three decades, Glock has seen the global ad industry’s highs and lows from the ringside. And his mantra is simple: “Together we are stronger than the sum of our parts.” At present, WFA’s worldwide network comprises 55 national advertisers’ associations across five continents and about 50 of the world’s top 100 marketers. Currently, WFA covers almost 90% of the total global advertising pie. Glock is also vice-president, global media communications and global media purchases at Procter & Gamble. During his recent visit to Mumbai, FE’s Lalitha Srinivasan caught up with Glock for an exclusive interview. Excerpts:

How important is ISA (Indian Society of Advertisers) in WFA’s global plans?

ISA plays a very important role in our worldwide operations. First, it is one of our founding members. It’s fantastic to see ISA on our membership list for so long. ISA members are very active—especially so Bharat Patel, who is chairman of the body. It is most active in matters that concern Asia.

What are WFA’s new initiatives to strengthen its operations?

At present, WFA covers almost 90% of the global ad spend. What we do is a lot of sharing and reapplying. So, we have many meetings with the key advertisers worldwide. In fact, we have five different committee meetings. In each of these meetings, we discuss the most important developments and share our learnings. As chairman of the WFA, I get the report every time. Bringing different advertisers together around the world for different categories is of enormous value as you share faster and convey faster too.

In this era of rapid globalisation and technological innovation what remains common to us all is that we face the same opportunities and challenges. This reality fuels my conviction in the importance of the WFA to marketers across the globe.

What are your priorities at this point as the head of WFA?

After becoming the president of WFA, I identified three strategic areas where I believed the WFA could make a real difference to our profession: Championing the role and value of advertising, helping to bridge the gap between public affairs and marketing to manage emerging threats, and opportunities, and addressing digital media. While we made real progress in all these areas in 2007, there still remains much work to be done.

What are the major issues that global advertisers face today? And how do you plan to address them?

One of the key global issues is consumer trust. In fact, the global marketing industry’s greatest current deficit is this consumer trust. In many markets and sections of society, trust in marketing and corporations continue to decline. Consumer trust is critical to enabling marketers to communicate and engage effectively. We need to respect the authenticity and transparency of consumer trust as advertisers and act accordingly. Regaining consumer trust will be essential and will not be an easy task. But the industry can only do it together.

Another import area is that we link much better the marketing interests with the interests of societies we live in. Internally, marketing folks should work closely with external relations officers to address issues.

There’s a boom in digital marketing. Mobile marketing is gaining momentum in India. We need to sharpen our focus on these new media tools to get closer to consumers.

What are the threats to media across the globe?

This year experienced some of the most dramatic changes in the media landscape in a generation. The digital explosion has seen increased fragmentation and huge shifts in media consumption. Media owners and agencies continued to consolidate. The boundaries of the tripartite became increasingly blurred. All of these new challenges and opportunities were set against the backdrop of an increasing need for media investment accountability.

Do you think the balance between mass-media advertising and below-the-line activities is changing dramatically across the globe? Will non-traditional media phase out mass media advertising in the long run?

I do not know the exact split. In fact I never looked at it. This is what I see: Many advertisers try much more to build relationships with consumers. What I see in many markets is that the classical TV and mass media will not yet be overtaken by below-the-line but will be nicely compensated with much more direct approaches.

I would say it’s a good compensation next to mass media. Within mass media, you will see many changes. Take televisions for instance. You will see many more developments in interactivity. So people use classical television medium as a massive medium for interactive capabilities—like one-to-one and relationship building exercises. These are the major changes that you will see in the coming years.

What is your take on net advertising? Will this medium of advertising gain a bigger foothold?

Yes, I think Internet and online activities will gain momentum. Consumers use it much more than they have ever used before. Advertisers who care for consumers and who want to understand consumer needs will follow such a trend.

Can you compare the Indian advertising standards with the international ones?