Press

Rohit Arora, General Manager, Liwa Content Driven UAE
Jury-Interviews

AME Grand Jury POV: Rohit Arora

2021 AME Grand Jury member Rohit Arora is General Manager for Liwa Content Driven. Rohit believes that for agile brands to be consistently purpose-driven, it’s important to catalyze their sustainable growth. Over the last two decades, he’s held leadership roles with WPP agencies Grey, Y&R, JWT, & Bates.

New York, NY | April 09, 2021

AME's powerhouse Grand Jury are repected industry pro's known for their contribution to the industry. AME's Grand Jury of Strategy Directors, Managing Directors, CMO's, CEO's, CCO's, Chairman, social media experts and other prominent executives are some of the world’s most creative and strategic minds in advertising and marketing communications. They are experienced experts at creating results driven work on behalf of global brands.

2021 AME Grand Jury member Rohit Arora is General Manager for Liwa Content Driven. Rohit believes that for agile brands to be consistently purpose-driven, it’s important to catalyze their sustainable growth. The other way around is equally true. He does that by combining strategy with creative storytelling, data, tech & most importantly, intuition.

Over the last two decades, he’s held leadership roles with WPP agencies (Grey, Y&R, JWT & Bates) & in his current role he’s championing brands to harness the power of video-marketing & interactive with inbound-marketing to meaningfully add value across the sales funnel.

AME Awards: As a strategic creative, what stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Rohit Arora: Real work, work that adds value, work that builds on the brand equity and personality, quality of insights, out of box thinking, thinking big and thinking small, outsmarting constrains and lastly, objectives that are written rationally vs. to make results look good.

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?

Rohit Arora: To continue our belief in the transformative power of creativity for better.

AME Awards: How has the brand’s voice changed since the pandemic confinement measures? Speak to the evolution of brand positioning, values, and tone of voice during COVID.

Rohit Arora: In my observation, the essence has been being the force for good beyond just being cosmetic about it & outsmarting constraints with innovation, recalibration & collaboration.

Wrote an article to help businesses at the start of lockdown last year: https://www.campaignasia.com/article/6-actionable-content-strategy-ideas-during-challenging-times/459599

AME Awards: What will advertising look like next year? What brands have evolved and succeeded during this year and why?

Rohit Arora: Brands (hopefully) will continue to work towards being force for good, genuinely. Also a lot of focus on achieving the sales numbers, and therefore product and tactical communication – which still means a huge scope of creative ideas!

AME Awards: What innovations are changing the way agencies create on behalf of brands or launch new products?  Does big data and AI play an even bigger role today?

Rohit Arora: Tech and tech platforms have been providing greater arsenal and playing ground for sure, whether it’s in the form of customization, seamless omni-channel experiences, innovation to solve real problems or simply enriching experiences. I foresee greater partnerships being forged in this quest, e.g., recently I found myself looking for recycling innovation guys to take parts from electronics and solving a real-world problem.

AME Awards: Media consumption has changed dramatically how has this affected the marketing mix?

Rohit Arora: Middle of the funnel has become more important, especially in the context of messy middle (Google study last year). Middle of the funnel is also turning itself in to Top of the funnel. Inbound marketing is more important than ever before. Content has to be platform native, otherwise it’s an ad …and great ads don’t feel like ads.

AME Awards: What mediums will take the lead in 2021 and what will take a backseat?

Rohit Arora: Animation, gaming, mobile, interactive (VR, AR and beyond), experiential, VFX & post-production will have lots of fun …at the cost of same old, same old.

AME Awards: Why did you agree to participate on this year’s AME Grand Jury and What do you hope to learn by viewing entries into this competition?

Rohit Arora: Exactly, it’s both way – serving the industry and learning from unique perspectives – on the cases and fellow jurors. 2020 was a unique, we all know it. And necessity is the mother of invention. It’ll be good to see how we creative folks got better.

AME Awards: What is your all time, favorite most creative and effective ad and/or ads (share the link or a visual) and why in your opinion did they triumph?

Rohit Arora: Always - Like a girl of … it’s amazing how they took a cliché & stereotyping as an insight and took it head on!

AME Awards: What advice or guidelines would you give to potential entrants on earning an AME Award?

Rohit Arora: Don’t fake it. This is effectiveness awards. Jurors can smell scam from a distance … ha ha.