Richard Glasson, CEO of GyroHSR, has a great passion for sports, and when he’s not travelling the world on business or spending time with his family, he manages to find the time to fit in a great deal of sporting activities.

This year, Richard will be taking part in five major sporting endurance races to raise £10k for Macmillan Cancer Support in memory of his Mum, who passed away last year.

Richard’s 6 months of misery will begin on Monday with the l’Etape du Tour, the toughest of the Tour de France stages, taken on a few days before the pros arrive. It’s the toughest stage of them all covering 170kms in the Alps, with 4 hard climbs in the first 150kms, acting as a ‘warm-up’ for the ‘Giant of Provence’ – Mont Ventoux. Ventoux is a 22km climb at an average gradient of 8%, giving Richard over 2 hours of pain, after having ridden for 5 or 6 hours already just to get to that point!

As if that wasn’t more than enough for most of us average mortals, Richard will then move on to a variety of other events including the NY marathon and HellRunner, which whilst looking great fun, also appears to live up to its name!

So, if you’re impressed and would like to support Richard in his quest, then do please consider making a donation to his chosen cause. You can see more at his website www.runglassonrun.com.

And so there is a lot of talk about agencies re-engineering themselves, a multitude of challenges for the traditional major players to overcome as they re-invent themselves, and a lot of inertia that has been built up over decades to overcome.

At GyroHSR we don’t really have that issue. We have come of age in the current era, and have been in a position to build our company to meet the needs of our clients and to reflect the realities of the interesting and dynamic market in which we are all operating. That means that we’re in a position to embrace and enjoy change, not be threatened by it.

But in seeking to understand how to operate in a world of change, we could do a lot worse than look at the examples of the emerging markets. In Africa most countries will bypass a fixed line world altogether, and mobile and satellite will rule. In China the internet is exploding, challenging the tight state control that has existed over the main media channels since the time of Mao. At the same time huge brands that we’ve never heard of in the West are starting to flex their muscles as they look at new markets to conquer. In India, the rural communities are starting to become affluent and have spending power in a way they never have before and – with a mass of different languages and dialects, and a very limited communications infrastructure in place – getting brand messages to the new middle classes is a major challenge.

So all around the emerging world agencies are working with far more pervasive change than us, and in my travels to a lot of these markets in the last few months, it is clear that there is a great sense of creativity and innovation being brought to bear to cope with the upheaval. It’s worth keeping an eye on the changes in the emerging markets, because my sense is that in many ways the agencies there are showing us the future, because they have less past to deal with.

Richard Glasson
Chief Executive

To start with, the sheer scale of the place overwhelms. The vital statistics tell their own story. In the greater Sao Paulo area the population is nearly 25m. The city is the 19th richest in the world, and if ‘Sampa’ were a country it would be the 47th wealthiest on the globe. The impression you are left with is of an almost limitless energy – wrapped up with a certain amount of chaos and a great sense of creativity and possibility.

Brazil is going through huge growth, and great change – most of it very positive. After years of instability it has the most popular president in its history – Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva – who has championed the plight of the poor in society, whilst bringing a period of political and economic stability and embracing the free market. Inequality in society is still a major issue, but every year millions of people ‘graduate’ to the middle classes, which has meant over the past few years the advent of over 10 million new consumers. GDP per head is now up to nearly $10,000 per annum. This growth in the middle class is set to continue as the country returns to growth rates similar to what it has experienced in the recent past.

Since 2004 the average GDP growth has been 4.5% – and whilst Brazil is certainly not exempt from the current economic downturn, its recession is forecast to be shallower and shorter than in a lot of the major world economies. Brazil is the 10th largest economy in the world with an annual GDP of about $1.5trillion. It accounts for 30% of the GDP of South America. In short, it’s a market that demands attention.

The advertising market in Brazil is mature – it’s the 10th biggest in the world – and if the agencies that I visited are any benchmark, the quality of strategy, ideas and creativity merits comparison with the best from anywhere in the world. So it’s time to go south. Watch this space.

Richard Glasson
Chief Executive
GyroHSR