Offline marketing – Frederico Arabian
Frederico Arabian studied to be a pilot but, as a result of the confluence of several opportunities, he never worked as such. He is sure that he chose the right decision by undertaking and engaging in offline marketing, “without taking his eyes off the online enviroment”. After 20 years of experience in marketing as CEO of Main Dock, he shares with us his impressions of how it has evolved.
We spoke with Frederico about the importance of learning, how the day-to-day of the marketing agencies has changed and digitalization and how it has affected the way we work. In direct relation with his work, he also reflects on offline and online strategies, the combination of both and his opinion on future trends.
You studied to be a pilot, how did you end up dedicating yourself to marketing?
I studied to be a commercial pilot when I was 20 years old, however I never got to practice this profession. Sometimes we have the luck to have several opportunities coinciding at the same time and in my case I opted for the world of entrepreneurship. Today I am sure that I have made a good choice.
I am dedicated to offline marketing without taking my eyes off the online, of course, since it is an essential tool.
How important is training to differentiate throughout our professional career?
From my point of view, training is one of the supports of success. In my case, I have become accustomed to being constantly ilearning. It is one of the advantages of our time thanks to the online world.
You have almost 20 years of experience in marketing and production of events, how has the sector changed in recent years?
I have gone from events to marketing almost without realizing it. Although, part of our activity is still related to the world of events, because marketing increasingly relies on this resource.
I think that the evolution of the sector is being more or less as it had been planned for years. First they have overcome the technical limitations and then the online world has become a devouring content.
In this aspect events are a good way to generate content for social networks and other online channels.
How has the day-to-day life of the marketing agencies changed since you founded Main Dock until now?
We do not consider ourselves an agency in itself. Rather, we have always developed products and services that the agencies use for the actions of their clients or the final customers themselves.
In any case, the development of IT has provided agencies with the possibility of covering more areas of work that were previously in the hands of other sectors such as statistics or journalism.
Do you recommend a marketing book?
“Purple Cow” by Seth Godin is a very curious marketing book
Do you think that now is easier to found our own marketing agency than it was 20 years ago?
Definitely.
Today we have to hit the keyboard practically all the necessary tools to perform any action. Only a decade ago, only large companies had access to certain technologies.
What has the internet and digitalization meant for marketing?
The democratization of resources.
What do you think will be the next “big change” in our way of doing marketing?
I think, undoubtedly, the one that offers us the development of technologies on the one hand and, on the other, quite the opposite, that is, more and more analog gaps will appear for the most exclusive claims.
What potential do off line strategies have?
We work in that field, I think the voracity of the on demands more and more off content and that can be a very interesting trend.
Do combined strategies work well?
In our case, we carry out off-line actions that serve as content for online campaigns and the virality that is so demanded.
Why do you think companies do not bet so much on combined strategies?
I really do not think so, in the end an infographic, an animation or other digital element are very powerful tools, but if you take a walk through social networks what really jumps out at sight are the communications of real actions, with real people with which identify us
Do companies focus on online marketing and do not pay attention to offline actions?
Each sector has its particularities, those that sell a specific product can allow a greater online support , but many sectors an experience or an idea and then the story is more complex
How would you rate the work of the Spanish marketing agencies? Do you think that we are generally prepared to compete internationally?
Without a doubt, we have large agencies and great professionals. One of the problems of the Spanish market has always been its size, especially for some sectors that have difficult expansion, in this case the borders are broken for such a global sector.
Who is your reference in marketing today?
I confess that I am a great consumer of information, almost minute by minute, and as I read once in a small but curious agenda: “he who is not confused is because he is not well informed”
I follow the gurus of all tendencies and I am also discovering some privileged minds with less notoriety, but as we have become accustomed to everything changing every two days, I do not have clear mentors.
