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Mehmet Bali General Manager proximity Istanbul
		Education Bachelor of Science from the University of Massachusetts MBA from Bentley University Books Reading: Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business by Max Lenderman I dare to ask age ...: 38		Inspirational Figures: As a firm believer of humbleness, I get inspired on a daily basis by my clients, colleagues, wife and son, doorman, taxi driver, waiter and most of EMF members. Relationship Status: Married for 11 years and have a 9-year old son Favorite Quote: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” - John Maynard Keynes

Short bio of career path:

• Learned the business of internet as Vice President of Vodaco, an internet consulting firm.
• Admired its marketing and advertising implications as Group Director of Trafo, an interactive agency.
• Discovered how to make it experiential as President of Seratonin, an experiential marketing agency.
• Tied it all together in “digilive” projects to create compelling commercial content as General Manager of Proximity Istanbu

Define your leadership style and the feel of the agency:
Our agency functions primarily as an idea factory where full participation and productivity is mandatory, since ideas are not in the creative department’s monopoly anymore. I believe in democracy and empowerment and try to create an environment where people love to work. That is the only way to go since the nature of our sector requires us to work with relatively young people (the average age of my team is below 30) and they simply will not perform if they are not happy. At the same time, although I am old enough to remain calm and be patient under any circumstances, I tend to be very demanding and challenging when the work is not excellent.

Toughest challenge overcome in your career?
Putting together a balanced team in terms of capabilities, egos and financial expectations from scratch aiming to rewrite the rules of marketing in Turkey. On three different occasions!

What was your defining moment at your agency?
I grew to learn that you need at least a year to convey your vision and character to an agency and be able to call it “my” agency. I am hoping to have at least a couple of defining moments as soon as I can start calling Proximity Istanbul my agency.

Favorite assignment completed to date?
As the General Manager of an agency specializing in social media, one tends to be forgetful since the social media landscape is eager to consume whatever content or media is served. So even though I have tens of defining projects throughout my career, I would like to mention a blogger project we developed and implemented for Renault’s Fluence model in October 2009 which is still getting attention and coverage.

In this project called “If Fluence were a blog!”, we implemented “the world’s first offline blog design” activity where 24 bloggers and 3 famous caricaturists created three different real world blog designs on giant canvases after a tour at the Renault factory. The blog designs were voted online and the winner design was published as the official blog of Fluence . The project had an estimated total reach of more than one million but more importantly, it constituted a great example of integrating online and offline methods in order to reach people with real consumer experiences.

Your vision of where we will all be in 10 years (non-apocalyptic):
Although how we do all of it will be completely different, we will still be creating, co-creating, collaborating and sharing content.

Best describe your agency:
Proximity Istanbul is a media and medium independent agency that creates relevant commercial content which has high collaboration and distribution value.

Why do clients choose your agency and how have you been able to maintain such long relationships?
We put emphasis on the brands’ needs and communication strategies rather than pure creativity when generating effective and sometimes breakthrough ideas. We excel in flawless execution. We are decent people who really care about the brand and make sure the brand teams feel that we are on the same boat. We also care about the business results and know that there is always room for improvement. Finally, we are fun to hang out with and we strive to make our clients realize that you do not always have to be so serious.

Advice for those entering into the space from college?
Read and share. Everything is changing so quickly that the industry is hungry for the youth’s insights and perception. Allocate a part of the day for reading the blogs, articles, tweets and another part of the day to share your mind on the social media to build a presence. You can’t believe how many promising resumes end up in the recycle bin when the applicant does not have a LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account with a respectable number of tweets and followers.

Advice to the smaller agency owners in this tough economic climate?
Do not grow!!! The difference between the agencies of today is the “big idea” which can be formulated by a creative department of 40 people or by one bright person. Everything except the big idea can be outsourced. The flexibility and dynamism of being small is priceless.

How do you use and define experiential methodology?
Experiential methodology should be kept simple and come naturally. At Proximity Istanbul, we strive to solve business problems by changing individual consumer behavior. In order to achieve such an ambitious goal, we have to constantly question and determine what experience will change the behavior. Since this process is a part of our DNA, all our projects tend to have an experiential value.