WPP Media MENA will be organizing a half-day summit, ‘NextM: The Canopy Effect’, in November, which will be a ‘strategic briefing crafted for leaders shaping the next era of business in the region’.
The summit will feature a specially curated lineup of globally leading futurists, AI experts, behavioral specialists, and even a humanoid robot, to prepare marketeers to drive growth in an AI-integrated world. ‘The Canopy Effect’ will bring to life the notion that the media landscape, and more broadly advertising, is and will become more integrated than ever, powered by the massive leaps forward that AI has triggered in recent years.
To illustrate this, Ted Lappas, Data Scientist and leading academic from Satalia, will take to the stage to unveil the superpowers of Generative AI in the context of our industry.
To follow, Joseph Bradley, CEO of TONOMUS, Futurist and leading Cognitive Technologist, will take the audience on a journey into the future, to not just imagine what urban life will look like, but demonstrate the very conceivable and imminent reality of cognitive cities.
Tapping further into the human psyche, Damian Thompson, Global Head of Insight at Choreograph and Marie Abiad, Regional Strategy Director MENA at Wavemaker, a WPP Media Brand, will examine the findings of a new study from WPP Media and Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
Morgan Evans, Global Head of Display, Video and Audio at Amazon Ads, will emphasize the importance of strategies that are simultaneously integrated and specialized. Just as every species in a canopy requires unique conditions to grow and thrive, every platform must be treated as a unique touchpoint with particular requirements to win the war for attention.
The Canopy Effect brings to life how to create a powerful, interconnected media ecosystem. But how is value created, measured, and exchanged within it? To answer these questions, WPP Media has assembled a panel of industry titans to explore the ‘New Currencies of Media’. Moderator Laura Gleadhill, General Manager at Keyade, a WPP Media Brand will be joined by panelists, Terry Kane, Managing Director at Trade Desk, Ziad Khammar, Chief Operating Officer, at DMS, and Filip Jabbour, Regional Head of Advertising MENA at Amazon, where they’ll swap strategy for spreadsheets. This dynamic panel will tackle the tough commercial questions that define success in 2026 and beyond.
To further prepare brands for this, Younma Borghol Head of Science at Snap EMEA, will get to the root of creating a thriving canopy – effectiveness.
The audiences will get a first-hand look at the world’s most advanced production studio, with a thrilling live demonstration featuring Unitree’s humanoid robot, and groundbreaking case studies from Boston Dynamics’ Atlas.
Perry Nightingale, SVP of Creative AI at WPP, his Humanoid Robot, Oracle, and apprentice, Eunah Lee, Creative Technologist at WPP, will exhibit how WPP is forging an unprecedented synergy between creative vision and robotic engineering, why the world’s leading tech firms like Google DeepMind and NVIDIA are collaborating on this journey.
