PHD Shifts Gears With Its BrainScape Conference

PHD UAE will make a stunning return to the stage for its 11th BrainScape thought-leadership conference on November 29, 2021. Held at La Perle Dubai in Al Habtoor City, the annual event will break away from traditional thinking and approaches to reimagine marketing. Staged as a hybrid event with both live and virtual audiences for the first time, it promises to be a feast for the mind and the eyes.

As new consumer mindsets and behaviours emerge as a result of the data-driven digital transformation of the economy and the pandemic, marketing is in need of a rethink. Overly complex, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, it’s time to look forward and consider how we can reorganize and build for the future. To regain control of this change, what marketers need is to get ahead of it. BrainScape will help them do just that.

After months of research and interviews with leading industry figures, PHD has published its 10th thought-leadership book, Shift, on this very subject. Shift, which offers an informed view of what lies ahead to help marketers and agencies to prepare by rethinking marketing today, is the basis for this year’s BrainScape conference.

The program includes sessions with Mark Holden, PHD Worldwide’s Chief Strategy Officer, who revolutionised the way that brands approach communications planning with the network’s proprietary operating system, Omni Studio. He will reveal how companies can rethink their marketing organizations, build a people-based future and better anticipate tomorrow.

Sally Dominguez, an award-winning inventor and futurist who is part of Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity University faculty, activates the “bearable discomfort” exponential mindset in executives to make them future-forward pioneers. In an interactive session, she will show how to switch to the possibility mindset of Adventurous Thinking and let the audience leap into the unknown with a parkour exercise to activate their Possibility Thinking.

Creative thinking is what Duncan Wardle built his 25-year career at Disney on. The former Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney not only consults for leading organisations, he also speaks about and teaches Innovation and Design Thinking at Yale and other universities. He will give the audience unique Creative Behaviours and Innovation Tools to leverage their creative minds, deliver revolutionary thinking and drive substantial results in all areas of their business.

The choice of La Perle Dubai as a venue is neither innocent nor based purely on logistical considerations. By integrating awe-inspiring acts into its narrative, BrainScape will deliver a unique and memorable experience designed to inspire creative thinking. It will be a highly interactive event too with an event app offering several functions including live polling.

“Over the last decade, we’ve put a lot of effort into the content and production of BrainScape to make it an impactful and enjoyable experience. This year, we’ve reimagined industry events and this edition will be an acrobatic and theatrical leap forward like we’ve never seen before in the region and possibly beyond,” explained Luca Allam, CEO of PHD MENA. “Not only will it be worth the wait, it is also exactly the right time for marketing professionals to introduce bold, creative thinking, imagination and lots of courage to propel their organizations forward. The speakers we’ve selected, and the latest book by PHD, Shift, will show how to make marketing more fit-for-purpose in this digitally-transformed, post-pandemic reality.”