This is an archive of written pieces, filmed interviews, videos I've filmed, radio shows, news clips and other appearances. Twitter & Instagram: @tarekrevs
Universal Music Group CEO implements our strategies for Neurodiversity inclusion
Universal Music Group commissioned us to explore how the creative industries (and beyond) can adapt themselves to better accommodate staff with neurodivergent conditions, and generally make better use of this talent pool.
It was a real privilege to be part of the team to conduct and deliver this important and necessary work.
Read here in the Evening Standard as UMG CEO, David Joesph talks about how they will implement our recommended strategies and champion this cause in the industry.
Very pleased to see a condensed version of the findings for our 'Gen Z: Redefining Authority' study has been published by the World Advertising Research Center (WARC)!
Could Digital Cats and Baseball Cards take Cryptocurrency Mainstream?
The baffling world of cryptocurrency is edging closer to the masses - could kitties and sports be the way to take it mainstream?
Here are my thoughts for Flamingo.
At Flamingo, we ‘explored 10 brands, movements, concepts and trends that have all been disruptive in some way this year.'
‘2017 has been a year of disruption; everything from our homes to our political institutions to the way we talk about sexual assault have seen huge shifts, some of which have inevitably left us feeling somewhat uncertain.’
I wrote about NEOM, the $500 Billion plan to build a future facing metropolis, 33x the size of New York City in a North-Western region of Saudi Arabia that crosses over into Egypt and Jordan, making it the first private economic zone to span three countries.
Getting closer to the Great British public
Viewpoints that place imagined groups at opposite ends of the political and societal spectrum have been central to how people, and therefore audiences and consumers, are grouped.
Alongside colleagues at Flamingo, we were commissioned by Newsworks to conduct detailed research into what divides us and what unites us as members of society.
This work went on to win Excellence in Research Presentation at the Mediatel Media Research Awards 2018!
Journalist, zine-maker and broadcaster Kieran Yates on British youth culture
Kieran Yates is both a prolific documenter of youth culture and an authority on the subject. She’s the former Senior Contributing Music Editor at DAZED, co-author of Generation Vexed, producer of Muslim Drag Queens and the founder and editor of British Values — a satirical fanzine illuminating the immigrant experience in the UK.
I spoke to Kieran to get her perspective on creative responses to cultural shifts, the formative forces of British youth culture today, and the dual-cultured voices challenging the status quo.
Why Miami music mogul DJ Khaled is millennials’ “messiah” (Campaign Asia)
In an age of real uncertainty, we’ve witnessed the arrival of a new kind of deity for many young people. A guiding light that has captured imaginations, garnering a million-strong follower count in the process. His powerful proclamations and sage advice are being spread around the world, and amplified by his many acolytes. A largely anonymous figure before he started populating his Snapchat story, his global reach is now instant and his influence messianic. Like many, I’d initially dismissed him and his unique form of rhetoric.
That was, until the day his recently published scripture was in my hands. Illuminated in gold lettering, The Keys has been an insight into this man’s devotion and passions. So too, understanding how this 40-something year old, unlikely icon has been so effective in communicating to his beloved ‘young world’.
‘South London music producer Cassidy Baillie on British youth culture’
When Cassidy Baillie isn’t studying Radio and Digital Media at uni, he’s making it. He holds a regular slot on Radar Radio while also producing for BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra and Reprezent FM. If that didn’t keep him busy enough, he also produces his own music under the alias CassKidd, and holds a guest slot on a range of other stations. Within the world of youth targeting British radio, there are few people like Cassidy who possess as much knowledge or such a wide breadth of experience within, and knowledge of, the scene.
After an hour on London Underground, I finally step on to platform five of Barking Station and head towards the stairs, contemplating my final thirty minute leg on the bus home to Dagenham. As with every weeknight commute back, there are hundreds of people kettled against the ticket barriers and hundreds more outside awaiting our nightly physical compromise to board the bus.
Britain appears to be no country for old men or women.
This week I was behind a woman at the supermarket till who I’d assume was in her sixties. There was a growing queue as said woman was spending a little longer than most to count her coins for the cashier. When she is done and I finally get my turn to swiftly touch my contactless card, the cashier proclaims loudly to the older woman “see, it’s not that hard!”. Seeing the speechless embarrassment of the older woman I tell the cashier that one day we’ll all be as old and most probably not as fast as we are now. As much as I try to say this with a smile and without hostility, now the cashier is embarrassed and on guard. The entire supermarket seems to be anticipating her rebuke, most of all me who’s desperately hoping it’s not as fierce as I belatedly realise her appearance is. Then a couple behind me (who also happen to be elderly) decide to jump in and diffuse with a feeble excuse for the cashier, inventing some defence about understandably stressed staff and over-demanding supermarket bosses.
The older proportion of our society are widely seen as a liability, a slow burden or cost rather than contributors and influencers. In more collectivist cultures the elderly are a reminder of mortality so their knowledge is cherished. Growing old is less of a relegation and just taking on new and important roles in the family and wider community. In our nuclear society in the UK where many of us like myself have irregular contact with grandparents and other older people, it is very different. If the number of people in the UK aged 75 and over is expected to double by 2040, it’s in everyone’s interests to analyse how satisfactory our society is for an ever increasing older proportion.
One in three people in the UK are over fifty yet you wouldn’t know it from our marketing culture and media representation. Ageism in the media is especially pervasive when it meets sexism. Whilst George Clooney sips on his espresso for Nespresso, we still inhabit a culture which measures a woman’s worth by youth. Being bombarded with advertising by teens and twenty-somethings across all sectors of products and services must have a deep effect on the psyches of older people through implying their diminishing stature.
In the latest report by the Health Service Ombudsman, it describes fragile elderly patients being discharged by NHS hospitals to fend for themselves at home alone. Complaints about unsafe hospital discharges have risen by a third in a year. The money spent seemingly with reluctance on social care by local authorities in England was recorded in 2014 as £10 billion. Yet the reality behind wide misconceptions of the elderly being a cost, is that the economic contribution of people aged 65 plus amounts to over six times this figure at £61 billion. £18 billion of this number derives from the value of informal and child care. Age UK reports that ‘the bulk of child care undertaken by older people is carried out by those aged 65 and over – most frequently grandparents who look after their grandchildren, to enable their own adult children to work – an example of the crucial economic (and social) contribution older people often make, even when they are not in paid employment themselves.’
The stereotype that older people don’t contribute to society is incorrect. There is a need to improve recognition and pride to the contributions that older generations have already made and highlight the achievements that people are making now. Instead, older people are made to keep up with the pace of younger age brackets quite literally with examples like the 1.2 seconds per metre pedestrian crossing lights that are too fast or a job market that doesn’t cater the need of flexibility for older people who want the sense of purpose and mental health that goes with returning to employment post-retirement.
We could take a lesson from Singapore where the elderly have smart cards that they can swipe at road crossings and thus slow down the speed of the traffic lights change. Or perhaps the whole of the UK could follow in Manchester City Council’s lead in signing a declaration from the World Health Organisation which establishes its intent to become an ‘age-friendly’ city. The scheme includes a fifteen point plan including covering support for older people in the areas of services, communication, involvement, knowledge, innovation and influence.
There are a number of simple things that can be done to improve the lives of older people in towns across Britain. In our physical environment, we could have more well placed benches for those with difficulty in walking, public toilet provision or thoughtfully used lighting and colour to aid those with dementia. To fight back the issues of isolation and extreme loneliness, we could make it more accessible for older people to cycle as they relatively do better in Germany and Scandinavia. This would include obvious health benefits physically as well as mentally.
In marketing to older people, in addition to improved representation on our screens, there is grand scope for brands to work a lot better to serve an increasingly tech-savvy division of over 65 year olds with a huge amount of disposable income. A group that demands more from brands in terms of tailored products and offers tailored to their needs.
Richard Jenkings, lead consultant at Experian Marketing Services believes that the most adept brands will understand the different needs of retired people, rather than viewing them as one homogeneous group. ‘Many companies continue to miss out on sales opportunities by failing to properly segment their customers’.
In a report this year, Jenkings claims that the UK’s 65 and over population can be marketed to in four distinct consumer segments with experiences varying according to factors such as geography, disposable income, health and technological awareness. If you’re one of the 5.4 million that opt for seaside retirement in Bournemouth or Bognor Regis then you’re unlikely to invest in new digital technology but not as much as the 5 million retirees in places like Sunderland or Merthyr Tydfil that are least likeliest to own a mobile phone. If you’re marketing mid priced groceries then pour a little more of your budget into Yeovil or Dorchester in the South West as opposed to the wealthiest segment of retirees clustered in the South East that spend large sums on overseas travel.
Consumer brands and retailers can draw from this type of research that includes a breakdown of the most populated towns for each segment of older person. This will help brands to identify where to target particular services, marketing offers or the most appropriate locations for their stores.
One in six people in England and Wales were aged 65 and over in 2011, this is the highest proportion in any census and will rise. Although retirement will have wide variances for different people in the UK, the power of the ‘grey pound’ is steadily growing. Wouldn’t it be hugely beneficial for all in UK society if we did better in grasping the needs in marketing, media, environment design and beyond to improve lifestyles, attain the economic contributions and cultural insights of what is in numerous ways the most experienced section of the population?
Why is the high street increasingly targeting Muslim shoppers?
Brands are evolving their take on the changing cultural place of Muslims in modern Britain. Moving forwards from the established areas of halal food, now an option in the majority of British supermarkets or Islamically compliant finance advanced by HSBC, big brands now vie to fill a vacuum in the sectors of fashion and lifestyle.
Far beyond former One Directioner Zayn Malik creating an aspirational image of a successful, cool and young person of Muslim background, there is a swelling popularity for Muslim fashion bloggers and vloggers. Perhaps inspired by this grassroots rise and a view to benefit from having the month of Ramadan as a parallel to Christmas, high street clothing brands are taking on the same prospects noticed by Fortune magazine, deeming ‘Muslim women as the next big fashion market’.
In late 2015, H&M created headlines by featuring the first hijab wearing model within the company’s history. Enlisting then 23 year old Mariah Idrissi for a campaign about recycling fabric with the advert finishing with ‘There are no rules in fashion but one. Recycle your clothes’. Although Idrissi’s appearance in the advert lasted a few seconds, it marked for many Muslim women in the UK as the first time they felt sought after as fashion consumers and recognised as style makers.
British Japanese fashion designer and Muslim, Hana Tajima echoes this feeling as still relatively unaddressed in 2016. On the release of her Spring-Summer 2016 collection for Uniqlo she says ‘for Muslim women there was a sense of being recognised for the first time’. Tajima goes further to suggest to brands a need for ‘seeing beyond a target market to get why a woman wants to dress a certain way, regardless of religious or cultural labels’.
Companies such as Uniqlo are now joined by the likes of Armani, Dolce and Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger in progressively addressing the needs of a large section of British Muslim women. This is a need to go beyond a few seconds of advertising representation and deliver substantially with a range like Hana Tajima’s described as ‘contemporary design and comfortable fabrics with traditional values’.
The Muslim market in Britain reflects less than five percent of the UK’s population but has an estimated annual spending power of twenty billion pounds. At a time when the UK has been cleaved along generational, racial, regional and religious divides, the high street still sees an opportunity.
