Time For A Reset Marketing Podcast: Insights from Global Brand Marketers · Overline

Episode 75 - AI, Diversity, Sustainability, and the Power of Creative Thinking in the Mobile Industry, with Lara Dewar, CMO of GSMA

·43 min·2 clips

MWC Barcelona drew 101,000 people, 2,500 journalists, 1,100 speakers, and 2,400 exhibitors.

1. Time For A Reset Marketing Podcast: Insights from Global Brand Marketers focuses on Lara Dewar, CMO of GSMA, and her view of marketing, AI, sustainability, and creative leadership. 2. Paul Frampton-Calero hosts Lara Dewar, who represents GSMA, the organization for the world's mobile network operators, and her background in financial services, telco, and the charity sector shapes the discussion. 3. The episode asks what marketing should be reset into, and Lara's answer is that it should be treated as a strategic discipline that works as 'glue' across the organization. 4. Lara says her charity work with World Vision Canada in Delhi and Mumbai shaped her personally and professionally, especially the focus on girls' empowerment, women's empowerment, microfinance, bullying, and girls' education. 5. She explains that the team met dozens of women and girls who trusted them with stories of triumphs and heartaches, and the job was to bring those stories back to raise awareness and funds. 6. Lara says marketing should not be reduced to data, product, B2C, or B2B, because it belongs in strategy discussions and carries responsibility for reputation and brand stewardship. 7. She says organizations should start with the customer, member, or stakeholder and work backwards, because businesses can become self-serving and lose sight of the people they exist to serve. 8. Lara argues that marketing must prove commercial contribution through reporting and tracking, and she says CMOs need to demonstrate, define, and prove the value they add. 9. She says GSMA protects reputation by using business partners with broad marketing skills and leadership KPIs that cover both impact and reputational elements. 10. Lara says the mobile industry's portfolio includes advocacy, events, and standards, and that GSMA has to keep the whole story intact rather than becoming a set of disconnected activities. 11. She says Mobile World Congress Barcelona hosted 101,000 people, 2,500 journalists, 1,100 speakers, about 18 stages, and around 2,400 exhibitors, plus the startup program Four Years From Now. 12. Lara says she gets goosebumps on the show floor and is already thinking about next year's improvements by the end of day one. 13. She says women made up 45% of keynote speakers at MWC this year, which she describes as the best result yet. 14. Lara notes that the program had to pivot from the metaverse at the start of 2023 to AI by the end of 2023, because AI became unavoidable across the event. 15. She says AI already appears on consumer devices such as Honor phones, and that raises questions around ethics, data capture, and data sovereignty. 16. Lara says GSMA and industry groups are building proposed principles for ethical AI so they can influence policymakers through year-round advocacy. 17. She says the mobile industry signed up early to the SDGs, set a net-zero-by-2050 target, and is working on circularity, electronic waste, recycled materials, and device longevity. 18. Lara says Nokia, KPN, Vyond, Beeline, Orange, KDDI, Singtel, Safaricom, and Telefonica are examples of companies addressing sustainability, parental concerns, and minority languages with AI. 19. The interview style is conversational and reflective, with Paul Frampton-Calero pressing on strategy, scale, AI, sustainability, and leadership while Lara answers with specific examples from GSMA and MWC. 20. This episode will suit marketing leaders, brand strategists, and telecom watchers, while people looking for a quick consumer-tech news roundup may skip it.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how scale, judgment, and representation keep GSMA's flagship event moving.

An episode about keeping GSMA and Mobile World Congress Barcelona fresh starts with unease, curiosity, and a practical habit of asking better questions.

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Why you'd press play

You want to see how MWC Barcelona keeps reinventing itself without losing scale.

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