I'm in a business where there's complete anarchy. You can't control it - you can only react to it. The control that people traditionally had over their message is gone. Look at Wikileaks: you have to approach everything you write on the basis it's going to be on the front page of the newspaper.
Martin SorrellIf you ask what keeps me up at night, it's the pressure in the system forcing us to do all sorts of things. Content, data and technology are forcing us to think about business in a very different way.
Martin SorrellWhat still amuses me a bit is that in F1 people see the race basically on TV screens. But I am sure new tracks will be built.
Martin SorrellYou must not only focus on the consumer, but also on what it does to you internally - getting people aligned to the strategic mission of the company - what it does to the suppliers, governments, all your stakeholders.
Martin SorrellBernie [Ecclestone] has not been shy to say one or two controversial things. The last person in the UK who described his product as being crap in public was one Gerald Ratner - and he was gone immediately. But not Bernie! What it tells you is that the demand for live sporting rights, the demand for global or regional events, is so powerful that you brush aside some things because there aren't so many of these events.
Martin SorrellThat might be the old model: to get a fixed fee. You have to start to think about other models and how they can generate interest - what it can do for a brand in the future - and about the fact that revenue can also be generated in many other ways... Just look at the one and a half million people at the free Rolling Stones concert in Cuba. And Cuba is not Central Park! So just use your imagination as to what kind of revenue can be made.
Martin Sorrell