Havas Media Malaysia’s CEO Andreas Vogiatzakis (left), UCSI’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs and Alumni Associate Professor Dr Yeong Siew Wei, and Malaysia Youth Community’s CEO Jason Ko pose for a group picture with the audience after the tal

Vogiatzakis (right) has a chat with Associate Professor Dr Yeong Siew Wei, UCSI’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs and Alumni.

Vogiatzakis takes a picture with a few students after his talk.

KUALA LUMPUR: UCSI University (UCSI) recently welcomed Andreas Vogiatzakis, CEO of Havas Media Malaysia, on campus for the CEO Talk Series where he challenged the youths of today to be an influencer of tomorrow. 

Vogiatzakis leads the Malaysian arm of Havas Media, the lead agency in one of the world’s fastest growing media group that operates in 144 countries. Havas Media Malaysia launched in 2016 with Vogiatzakis at the helm. He brings more than three decades of experience in the media industry spanning across media agencies like Omnicom Media Group, Mindshare and Starcom MediaVest Group. 

With social media gaining in popularity every day, the average time spent on social networks per day continues to increase. Social media has become a prominent part of life for especially many young people today, specifically Gen-Y and Gen-Z. This has led to the emergence of the social media influencer concept. 

Vogiatzakis began his talk with a video that demonstrated how youngsters who have have technology in their hands can be a strong influence. 

“In advertising, influencer marketing is becoming a norm where companies are seeking out individuals who have followers in the range of thousands,” said Vogiatzakis. “They are sought out as brand ambassadors with a responsibility to create a story on Snapchat or to post a picture on Instagram so their followers are aware of the product.” 

When companies require their brands to reach the masses, modern technology through the Internet of Things has provided them the wide-reaching access with even tracking solutions. 

“A basic Facebook page will provide you with an engagement report for each post you make and this provides feedback to the marketers on how meaningful the content was based on the number of comments and reposts,” he said. “This will drive marketing strategies to stick with what’s good and to revamp what isn’t.” 

Vogiatzakis goes on to say that each reaction, retweet and repost connects people around the world. Connectivity provides the leverage for the influencers out there to bring people together because of the emotional engagement that they manage to create. 

“However, technology-dependency has disconnected people from actual human interaction,” he said. “It is to an extent where people would only believe online reviews instead of actual human marketers, just because ‘other people are talking about it’.” 

In this fourth Industrial Revolution, companies are depending on large data analysis to make decisions because it is based on actual figures and trends. 

“But the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart,” said Vogiatzakis. “What we think is from the brain, but how we respond is from the heart. When social media and modern advertising can reach the people’s hearts, then truly the influencers have achieved their goals.” 

He said that a full circle is reached when influencers generate valuable data through human emotions to guide marketing strategist in their next campaign. “As modern as the world is, the old saying from William Schwenck Gilbert, a British poet still holds true,” he said. “It’s love that makes the world go round.” 

This talk was organised by the Student Council and the Student Affairs and Alumni division with support from Malaysia Youth Community’s CEO Jason Ko and Head of Public Relations Saifulzaman Mahadi.