Dave McCaughan is a bibliosexual. It's not just the name of the marketing consultancy he has started it's a belief that we are all defined by sometimes irrational loyalty to ideas, media and brands. So what he does is break down the most 'mundane', 'daily', or to use marketing parlance 'low interest' subjects and explain why we love them, what is important in life and how to create a difference for our own businesses.
In previous lives he was a children's storyteller, yogurt maker, menswear salesman, butler to a mad Italian duke. All that before he found his passion as a strategy planner in the advertising world ( though he has to admit he got into work into that world by accident but that is a long story he will be glad to tell you elsewhere ). For over twenty eight years Dave worked with McCann, one of the world's largest advertising agencies, where he had a fairly open brief to 'understand what people are doing and thinking' and see how it applies to clients desires to turn those people into consumers.
Starting in Sydney, then spending over twenty years based in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and then back in Hong Kong he worked with just about all of McCann's major clients and managed their quest to understand people in the Asia Pacific region. For a while, Dave served as President of McCann Thailand, as General Manager of their Tokyo offices, as Managing Director for the group of companies in Hong Kong all the while undertaking his chief role as Strategy Planning Director for Asia Pacific working with clients like L'Oreal, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Cathay Pacific, American Airlines, Microsoft, Hitachi, Disney, and many others to create their brand and communications strategies.
Along the way he got to start great people-exploration programs and now he is helping lead a new global focus on understanding people. In 1995 Dave started McCann PULSE, the longest running continuous qualitative investigation into peoples lives in Asia and recently folded it into the McCann Truth Central global investigation program.
Amazingly still seen as an Asian thought leader on youth marketing (despite the hair) he is also leading key initiatives into the aging markets of Asia. He has an extensive history of working on the implications of media and technology changes, how society is influenced and influences them which has now come to life in his own recently established consultancy called Bibliosexuality.
Based in Bangkok Dave is constantly moving between Sydney and the large cities of Asia. He has talked at over 500 public and private events and conferences around the world from Spain's annual conference of a 1,000 leading retailers ( where he did the men's underwear story ) to India talking to the Global Spa Summit through the truth about wellness ( and some toilet stories ) to Denver and informing the leaders of the biggest American market research companies what they really needed to know about Asia and why people are people framed by cultures not consumers framed by companies. He has written extensively in market research, advertising and marketing publications and sites around the Asia Pacific region and beyond including Advertising Age, Campaign, Marketing, Mumbrella. He wrote a regular column for Japan Close-up on insights into Japanese people and their habits for three years, he is a board member and contributor for ESOMAR's Research World and currently edits Research World Connect.
Keynote Presentations ( extended to seminars and workshops as needed ) :
Bibliosexuality : what we love about media and technology :
Have you ever wondered why we are loyal to a particular technology Are you an Apple nut Can't live without access to particular websites Does it surprise you that 53% of young adults would give up their nose before their mobile phone ? For over twenty years Dave has been exploring the interaction between people, technology and media. He explores what matters to us whether it is rational or not and what that means in helping you decide what makes the people that matter to your business care and act.
What Asia is Teaching Us : the trends changing 3 billion lives Dave draws on twenty years of advising dozens of companies on their Asian marketing strategies and the research he led on how Asia is developing, how it's people are reacting to change, the developments in areas as diverse as beauty, technology, food, shopping aging and affluence. He challenges you to reconsider what it takes to be successful in Asia, or in particular key markets in the region, and how to watch and take advantage of the trends in the region.
The Future is a Rock Band : understanding myths about marketing to the world's booming older market. Wherever your business the new boom market is people over 60 years of age. For a quarter century Dave has been investigating what aging populations really mean and the many myths marketers constrain themselves with about what is now the most dynamic growth market in the world. They don't buy ? Wrong ! They don't try new things ? Wrong ! They don't use technology? Wrong! Dave will explain how the myths started, what is really happening with the 60-90 year olds of the world and how you can and should market to them.
The History of Men's Underwear : how science and society change categories. Dave steps through 5,000 years of underwear history to explain how outside forces have resulted in every man in the audience wearing the boxers, briefs or g-string of his choice. He discusses how the category developed, the function and emotional reasons as to why we make decisions on the underwear and other products we use to illustrate how all markets develop, why they change, how they are often effected in ways that people working inside the industry don't realize. It's funny, a bit risky but amazingly after 18 years of telling the story of undies it's still in demand and has been used to help marketers in industries as different as retail, pharmaceuticals, cola and airlines rethink their product development strategies.
My Mum's Throne Room : why toilets are the most important social media : The trend of the last decade is to think of social media as something involving a digital device but we have been using social mediums to exchange ideas, project our own desired image and establish our place in society since man lived in caves. The one constant social medium has been toilets from the way the Roman's used them to share gossip to the way housewives in developing countries define being middle class by their toilet. All this acts as an interesting way to challenge business people as to what defines social media and behaviour among the audiences they want to reach.
Please Don't Call them Consumers : rethinking the people you are trying to reach : Dave talks about the difference between 'consumers' and 'people' and why marketers are wrong to use the "c" word as he calls it as a label for the people they are trying to serve. He uses cases from around the world to illustrate how companies and brands that use bigger 'people insights' rather than small and often misunderstood 'consumer insight' are more successful. He has used the simple thought of thinking about people first to help business, sales and marketing people in fields as diverse as education, FMCG, retail, software and tourism how they define their own audience, the people they want to influence and what emotions really drive their behavior and responses
Soft Power Ain't So Soft? : how popular culture is driving what we think is true :Ever thought about how Astro Boy changed Australian's attitude to electronics and cars? Or how Neighbours, Bollywood, Korean soap dramas, Pixar or Candy Crush changed the way people think about your brand or products? Softpower is a relatively new term for a very old idea : that popular culture defines what we believe about the world. In a very entertaining way Dave asks his audience to remember what pop culture has framed their world view and discusses the history of soft power in marketing, both intentional and by default, and how it shapes people's views of countries, cultures, brands and companies.
