Tempus Group has promoted Mark Austin from chief executive officer
of CIA Asia-Pacific, to the newly-created position of Tempus
Asia-Pacific chief overseeing all the companies within the marketing
communications conglomerate: CIA, strategic marketing consultancy Added
Value, design and brand identity firm Brown KSDP and digital agency
Outrider.
Austin's new role is to manage the group, so all the business units work
together as a unified force, allowing Tempus to persuade existing
clients to use all the services in the group.
To achieve this goal, a new central business unit - Tempus Partners -
has been established to work with clients and liaise with all the
companies in the group.
It is also employing "communication channel planners" to take-over the
account planning function currently offered by ad agencies.
The strategy behind this move is to strengthen Tempus' relationship with
clients by ensuring clients rely more on Tempus Group and less on
outside ad agencies.
Tempus claims to have the breadth of expertise to solve a client's major
marketing problems and wants key clients working with Tempus from "top
to bottom", says Austin. In other words, working with Brown KSDP and
Added Value early on and then having CIA and Outrider help implement
campaigns.
Austin argues the benefit to clients is "we're part of the same team so
companies in the group work well together".
He says one reason Added Value - Europe's largest marketing consultancy
- joined Tempus Group was because it could develop a comprehensive
strategy for a client.
"But the client would then go to their ad agency and the strategy would
evolve into something completely different because of some creative idea
that was developed".
Now that is less likely to occur because Added Value can call on sister
company CIA to help with implementation rather than relying so heavily
on outside companies, he says.
Austin claims Tempus Group is the "agency of the future" and advertising
agencies are "dinosaurs".
He says it makes more sense for Tempus to have CIA rather than own an ad
agency because media buying and planning has come to the fore.
"Media buying and planning used to be relatively simple because you only
had a few TV stations, magazines, newspapers and so on to advertise in,"
explains Austin.
"There was very little difference you could make with the media
selection so it was right to lead with the creative work and focus on
that to differentiate your brand."
"You also had ad agencies saying to the media planner 'we have three
TVCs and some print ads, come up with the media plan'."
"So how creative could you really be with the media?" Austin asks
rhetorically.
"But media fragmentation and new technologies coming in - laptops,
mobiles and so on - have changed that."
"Media planning has become far more complicated ... consumers have more
mediums to choose from. There is so much clutter that marketers have to
be more innovative when it comes to media planning.
"They need to find new ways to connect brands to consumers" - a role
that the Tempus Group is better positioned to do than ad agencies,
according to Austin.
He says "not having an ad agency allows us to be more objective because
we can consider all the communications channels - public relations,
direct marketing, internet marketing and so on" - and recommend the best
communications solution.
It is no surprise that when clients got to an ad agency with a
communications problem they generally come up with an advertising
solution.
The reason for this is obvious - ad agencies are in the advertising
business and they have a vested interest to recommend that clients
advertise.
But Austin says when CIA, for example, pitches for an account it tells
the client "we are independent, we're not influenced by any ad
agency."
AUSTIN'S RISE TO THE TOP OF TEMPUS ASIA-PACIFIC
- 1989 Started Austin West Media in the UK
- 1995 Singapore managing director of CIA Asia-Pacific. Helped establish
the business in partnership with Batey Ads
- 1997 Regional managing director of CIA Asia-Pacific
- 1998 Appointed to the board. CIA Asia-Pacific ends partnership with
Batey Ads and goes it alone
- 2000 Appointed CEO of CIA Asia-Pacific. CIA wins Singapore Airlines
global master-media contract.
- 2001 Appointed CEO of Tempus Group Asia-Pacific, CIA's parent company
