Azlan Raj, CMO EMEA at Dentsu, on what it means to be given the mandate to do for Dentsu what they do for their clients, how a cherry blossom scent created a distinctly felt brand event experience, and why account-based experience has become the connective tissue between brand and growth.
"We are not going to every event for the sake of it. The same way you qualify a deal, we do the same for events."
Why a CMO given a blank canvas chose sensory experience over channel strategy, and how ABX bridges brand and demand
Azlan Raj came to the CMO role at Dentsu UK and Ireland from the client-facing delivery side, having run the customer experience practice across the region. The brief from CEO Angela Tangas was direct: do what we do for our clients for ourselves. That mandate meant starting by listening to clients rather than deciding what to say, restructuring the team around customer needs rather than departmental logic, and building brand experiences that could be felt rather than just seen.
In this conversation Raj describes what that mandate produced in practice: a branded event experience so distinct that people commented on its cherry blossom scent before they commented on the content, a team restructured around brand marketing and experience marketing rather than above and below the line, and an account-based experience approach that stitches together the touchpoints that individual channel teams cannot see from their own vantage points.
Do what we do for our clients for ourselves. That was the brief. How do we start to think about that? Put the audience and the client first, and then execute that in our marketing.
Raj describes this mandate as the defining frame for everything that followed. Rather than arriving with a channel strategy or a brand refresh, he started by applying the same research and listening approach that Dentsu uses for its clients.
I didn't want people just to see Dentsu. I wanted people to feel Dentsu. We had a Dentsu scent going through the entire event so you could associate that scent with Dentsu as you went through.
The cherry blossom scent at the event created an olfactory memory that attendees would associate with Dentsu long after the event ended. Raj is already thinking about whether the scent can be extended to office environments and out-of-home advertising.
We broke it down into two parts: brand marketing communications at the top end, and then experience marketing. We specifically did not call it growth marketing because it is about driving experience. We wanted to bridge the daylight between both departments.
The structural insight is that the traditional above and below the line division creates exactly the kind of daylight that ABX is designed to close. By reframing the bottom half as experience marketing, Raj signals that its purpose is not just pipeline generation but the quality of the experience target accounts have across the whole journey.
ABX has really stepped up. We are trying to make an experience that matches the expectations of a consumer, because we are all consumers. The only difference is the sales cycle is very different in B2B. ABX has become an important part to help stitch all the different touchpoints together.
The fundamental insight behind ABX is that the same person who buys software for their company is also a consumer who has been conditioned by seamless personalised digital experiences in their personal life. ABX is the discipline that makes B2B experiences feel comparably coherent.
We are not going to every event for the sake of it. The same way that you qualify a deal, we do the same thing. The event has to tie into the content we are sharing. The thought leadership has to solve the problem we are trying to solve. And then how do we activate around different channels.
The parallel Raj draws between event qualification and deal qualification is precise. A sales team assesses whether a prospect is worth pursuing based on fit, intent, and potential value. A marketing team should assess whether an event is worth attending on the same criteria.
"There is always daylight between above the line and below the line. ABX is how you start to bridge it."
Justin Cooke Tell us about your brief and how you approached the role.
Azlan Raj Do what we do for our clients for ourselves. That was the brief from our CEO. I centralised the marketing teams across the different brands about 18 months ago. We did research, spoke to clients, understood the challenges they are facing, then built a programme around trying to solve those problems.
Justin Cooke Tell me about how you made Dentsu feel distinctively different.
Azlan Raj I did not want people just to see Dentsu. I wanted people to feel Dentsu. Our annual event had a Dentsu cherry blossom scent going through the entire space so you could associate that scent with Dentsu. The staging, colour palette, everything was designed to make you feel in a certain way.
Justin Cooke How did you restructure the team?
Azlan Raj We broke it down into brand marketing communications and experience marketing. Not growth marketing because it is about driving experience. We wanted to make sure those two areas came together and bridge the daylight between both departments. ABX has become the important part that stitches all the different touchpoints together.
Justin Cooke How do you decide which events to attend?
Azlan Raj We are not going to every event for the sake of it. The same way that you qualify a deal, we do the same. The event has to tie into the content we are sharing. Then we think about the ongoing always-on activation and any campaign-driven activity that supports the event.
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