Nikolaos Dimitriadis, CEO of DNA communications – Neuro marketing is the future

Nikolaos Dimitriadis

During the past couple of days, it is becoming a common thing to hear that surveys and focus group are past and that new trend of understanding of customers emerged – neuro marketing. Heading towards the first neuro marketing workshop which will be held in Belgrade, February 6, dr Nikolaos Dimitriadis, the Executive Manager of DNA communications, in his interview for eKapija, speaks about neuro marketing, its implementation in internal and external communication in the world and in Serbia as well.

eKapija: The DNA communications Agency emerged from merging of Gistro Advertising and Touchpoint Consulting in 2012. How did you come to that idea?

- It has been globally discussed which the advertising agency model is. New model must be open for social media. Apart from that, crisis caused that companies decrease marketing budgets so the clients need faster response, more innovative ideas, closer connection with agents and cooperation as true partners. What is a new model of agencies? Our answer is DNA communications. What is that? It is a mix of two different approaches in marketing (e.g. they were considered to be different). Gistro advertising was an excellent creative agency and my agency, Touchpoint Consulting operates in the strategic consulting field. In our case, 1+1 is not 2, but 3, because DNA generated a completely new model. I think that one of the most innovative things of this model is the fact that we have people in charge of servicing customers and we want them to become a true business partner of our clients. So, they are not only go-betweens between a client and a creative agency. They are close to clients, they come to new ideas and after they gather teams in agencies, they comply them with clients’ needs. This way, more innovative, flexible and faster system emerges.

eKapija: You company is the only one in Serbia which provides a unique method of internal communication, a so-called THINK-FEEL-DO model which is based on a research of cognitive, emotional and behavioral part of a brain and their specific influence through communications. How do you apply this model in internal communication and why do you use it?

- As of ‘90s, we have seen a huge progress in the field of brain functions understanding. Brain scanning with magnet resonance was applied in researches so we have a better picture of a brain. Development of neuro science influences marketing and communication change completely. We thought we knew how people behave or think but now, with neuro science, we have far better overview. You have a cognitive part of a brain, i.e. rational, which was believed to be the key one in decision-making. However, emotional and behavioral parts are controlled by instincts and an urge to survive – they are the main ones in fact. As far as we know, there was not specific methodology which implements all that internally in the company. Companies invested a lot in external communication because they believe that all they need to do is to attract a new client and they forget about WHO in fact works on attracting a client. Crisis also brought a change because companies realized they cannot spend so many funds on external communication which is costly, and turned to its most important resource – their employees. They realized they can lachieve better results if they invest in their people. And that is what we merged – progress in neuro science and the need of companies to develop engagement of their staff. This is how unique methodology emerged where we carry out research on all employees. The analysis and algorithms which we use in our analysis enable us to provide a picture of the brain condition for all the company employees. For instance, we say: this is the current status of a cognitive part of a brain – this is how an employee thinks, understands, and knows. This is an emotional part so you get an emotional picture and at the end you get a behavioral picture which tells you this is what an employee does, these are his or her habits or these are his or her attitudes when it comes to some company actions. And then you see which part will be in focus. For example, are there plenty of emotions in your company but the employees do not know a lot? Are the staff fully aware of procedures, their responsibilities but the spirit is at a low level? These three parts are not independent, one affects the other and this is why it is important for a company to be successful on all three fields.

eKapija: You implemented this model in Nelt’s corporate campaign for which you won a Gold award provided by the Association for market communications of Serbia. How did you apply this model in Nelt?

- We implemented this model in other companies such as Banka Intesa, IKEA, Opportunity bank, Delta Holding as well and we received extremely good reactions from the market. As of the very beginning, Nelt saw the strategic importance of model implementation and not only to choose an agency randomly. Nelt recognized this project as the one comprising all sectors so we cooperated with the Quality Department, Human Resources and Corporate Communications Department.

eKapija: You applied the THINK-FEEL-DO model in internal communication. Do you notice it in external communication as well?

- So far, we have already noticed some of the principles in external communication. For instance, in the campaign of Vojvodjanska banka last year where we noticed some basic neuromarketing rules. Campaign was called perfect cash and was the most successful campaign of this bank. You carry put internal communications in controlled environment while when it comes to external communications, environment is not controlled.

eKapija: Neuro marketing is becoming a new tool for better understanding of consumers. Is it a reliable method for understanding customers’ behavior or it enables agencies to misuse it?

- Neuromarketing is a completely new methodology, completely new way of thinking, new marketing paradigm. It does not affect only the way you implement researches but also everything what marketing comprises – ranging from resources to product promotion, your way you think prices, how you set up your sales place and how you carry out advertising.

eKapija: How would you estimate neuromarketing in Serbia? How much do we lag behind the world?

- We use one term, neuromarketing, but it comprises diverse types of marketing. Neuromarketing entered global marketing research agencies so neuromarketing methods are slowly coming to Serbia, e.g. in Ipsos agency. The same will happen with all advertising agencies which you heard of, which belong to global partners and they will implement sone of the neuromarketing methods.

eKapija: What is DNA communications planning this year?

- In cooperation with the oldest and the best-known neuromarketing agency in the world, San Francisco-based SalesBrain, we will organize a workshop February 6 in Belgrade in order to promote neuromarketing and neuro science, both internally and externally. We started from internal communication but a large field for neuro communication is actually external communication. The objective of this workshop with SalesBrain and dr Christophe Morin, director of the American company, is the awareness boost both at Serbian and regional market when it comes to neuromarketing and the fact that it can completely change the way we see communications. People always have assumptions about other people, we always guess what people will be interested in or won’t. SalesBrain was set up in 2002 and two main partners wrote a best-seller in neuromarketing field and will be our partners for the entire region.

eKapija: How do you see neuromarketing development in the next u 10, 20 years?

- I think in a few years it will be the only way of marketing. We might call it differently because the term “neuromarketing” is too wide, so we might speak about neuro communications or behavioral communications and as it usually is, it will split into more individual directions specialized for different things but it will be the only way of marketing. Neuro communications will affect everything. They will influence journalists, the way they write about certain topic, business, marketing, PR and research but I think the influence will expand to education, relations among people in the next five to ten years.

Irina Milosevic