He is a Strategist, a Marketer (a story teller - in a positive way!), and a Business Developer. But he is also a serial-builder of international teams and programmes, as well as a trainer and a coach. Technology (not only IT!) is at the core of his professional life, and he has spent most of his career in areas linking information technologies and key business processes.

His name is Dr. Olivier Riviere. He recently relocated to Warsaw, Poland to become the regional manager of Poland and the Baltic States for Mmd - corporate, public affairs and public relations company.

Olivier and I (Michael Leander) first met in Munich earlier this year. When I recently spoke at a conference in Warsaw, we met up for a meal and a few drinks. Luckily I got the chance to ask Olivier a couple of questions about marketing and public relations. Watch the video to see his answer (apologize for the quality of the video - it was getting rather dark).

You can learn more about Dr. Olivier Riviere here - about his employer Mmd here. Olivier will also be presenting at future web seminars - more info here.

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Leander: Hi! This is Michael Leander. I’m here in downtown Warsaw in Poland with a very, very - very interesting man. His name is Dr. Olivier Riviere. I asked Olivier to join me here for a little meal and some healthy stuff here to ask him some questions about marketing and communications and what’s going on in the public relations base right now. Hello Olivier! Can you tell us about yourself and what you do?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: So hi! I’m Olivier Riviere. I am running the Warsaw Office for a public affairs and public relations company called Mmd.

Michael Leander: Okay and I’m going to [Indiscernible] [00:48] where are you from by the way. You have an accent. Is that a Polish accent?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: Belgium. No I’m French.

Michael Leander: Oh you’re French. Okay (laughs).

Dr. Olivier Riviere: I’m French. I’ve live for 14 years in Germany before moving to Belgium.

Michael Leander: Okay interesting. But tell us what do you currently see as a challenges in public relations?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: Interesting question. Challenges and opportunities by the way they are the same the two sides of the same card. The challenge and the opportunities that we’re in a world that people expect conversations citizens, consumers, business people, professionals, they expect conversations. Now if you are a brand, if you are able to drive those conversations well and if you are able to use public relations to be taught of the brand experience. You buy yourself or you build yourself in that cortege if on the contrary you are then sold of a company that believes that public relations are a third class subset of marketing. If you don’t believe that good PR, good connections with your eco-system will drive the conversation then you will do something -

Waitress: [Inaudible - speaking in foreign language]

Michael Leander: Thank you.

Dr. Olivier Riviere: Thank you. Food has come so any other question?

Michael Leander: [Laughing] Yes but how do you see - you also mentioned the opportunity. Where does the opportunity lie in that?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: A recent survey done by a market research company by specializing PR showed that if you are talking of the high involvement of products and brands so brands and products where people before buying take a lot of information in a formal and informal manner. That survey showed that the more you are very visible in PR, the more you are well connected to the media world and to instances along the way but the better your brand and you can really demonstrate this with figures. So this means the opportunity if you manage to understand your eco-system and to drive those good conversations which is the key charter of marketing of communications and PR as well and again you bid for your company and an opportunity.

Michael Leander: So you think smaller companies have an opportunity as well as large companies?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: Yes I like that question. I like that question because when you look first time one of the person who create that marketing and communication are merging into more or less a unified domain. If you want to be a good CMO you need to understand communications and marketing very well. So that you are maybe the owner of these nice restaurants in Warsaw or running a big corporation there is something that you have in common. You need to be very, very clear on what is your eco-system, what are the consistencies of your eco-system and with whom you want to engage into conversations that third parties will speak for you. Again you can be the owner of all the cook of this place. You can be the CEO of Coca Cola, in fact the problematic and the mechanism to provide good marketing and communications are exactly the same which I find very, very interesting.

Michael Leander: Well thanks a lot. By the way how can people get in touch with you?

Dr. Olivier Riviere: They can contact me on the internet looking at marketinglighthouse.eu.marketing-lighthouse.eu or they can look at the Mmd website www.mmdcee.com and look for the contact information for our products.

Michael Leander: Okay thanks a lot. That was Dr. Olivier Riviere and now we will eat our dinner. We’ve only been waiting for like an hour but it looks good. It look’s good. See you next time.

Dr. Olivier Riviere: Thank you. Bye!

Michael Leander: Bye.