ANALYSIS: Strategy - ATC sees light with multi-agency set-up. Multi-agency consolidation is seen as packing greater punch. Alfred Hille reports.

Major brand names, including Coca-Cola, Philips and Motorola, have been consolidating their advertising business under one agency roof in recent months, but the Australian Tourist Commission has made a dash in the opposite direction. Late last month, the national tourist office replaced its global agency D'Arcy with multi-agency agreements, for the first time in at least four years. The lynchpin of the new multi-agency arrangement is Whybin Lawrence TBWA in Sydney, which is tasked with looking after Australia's global brand effort. The other agencies will be responsible for tailoring campaigns for their regions. In Asia, TBWA won the creative account, while the media brief went to Omnicom sibling, OMD. Dailey & Associates snagged the assignment for the Americas. In Europe, the creative business was won by Delaney Lund Know Warren, with the media side going to BJK&E. Navigator won in New Zealand. The reasons advertisers usually give for consolidating their accounts are achieving brand consistency, making the communication process more efficient and maximising limited financial resources. Interestingly, the ATC - labouring under the tyranny of distance and faced with costs outpacing budget growth - has given the same reasons for going the other way. Brian Boote, ATC Asia regional manager, consumer marketing, says economics are the major impetus for the change. "Costs generally have been going up faster than our budgets so we cannot maintain the brand strategies of the late 1990s. Also, the Australian dollar has fallen against the greenback by 20 per cent over the past few years, which makes life even more of a challenge," he adds. Advertisers generally consolidate their accounts with one or two agencies if they want to adopt a more cost-effective advertising strategy. This is more of an issue these days, given the general concerns about the direction of the global economy. The ATC, however, took a different approach and began initiating the change early in the year. It formulated a new attack strategy to achieve a greater share of the global tourism market with a smaller budget. But in order to achieve its objectives, the tourism body - with an annual global advertising budget set at A$30 million (about US$15.5 million) - had to go over its key markets with a finetooth comb. At the same time, it needed to put forward new products and messages via an integrated communication platform. "We drilled down further for clues on how we should be doing things better and smarter and came to a number of conclusions: North America needs branding and tactical efforts; television and print branding and promotion for Asia; branding but no TV in Europe," Boote says. He also said that he and his colleagues decided that it wasn't necessary to appoint a single, global agency in order to improve cost effectiveness and advertising impact. "We needed two things: better targeting with improved knowledge of the markets on the ground; and to reach our target audience in an impactful and appealing manner. "We let the chips fall where they may. We could have appointed a single agency to run the communication business on a global basis but only if that agency could demonstrate its capabilities in all of our key markets around the world," says Boote, himself a 20-year veteran of the agency world with stints in Clemenger/BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, Clemenger Direct and JWT Direct Singapore. Asia is Australia's biggest market; 58 per cent of tourists originate from this region, including Japan and New Zealand. At 24 per cent, Europe is the second biggest market, followed by the Americas, which contributes 12 per cent. But although the ATC chose the multi-agency route, the organisation's main global branding work remains the brief of one agency - Sydney-based Whybin Lawrence TBWA. "We know that as markets develop, they become more sophisticated and demand greater attention and different executional strategies," comments Boote. Which is why the ATC stressed that one of the top pitch criteria was to appoint what it felt was the best agency to work in each of its major regions. It split Asia into two regions: north, centred in Hong Kong; and south, headquartered in Singapore. The split was aimed at taking into account increasing differences in demographic and psychographic developments. TBWA and OMD swept away the competition but Boote said it was a coincidence that Omnicom agencies took both regions as well as the global brand advertising task and the media assignment. "The best agencies won in separate pitches. There was no connection among the different outcomes, but clearly the synergy will benefit us." Boote also said that new products matched with new advertising messages - similar to its recent "Rediscover Australia" campaign in Singapore and Malaysia - would be rolled out in due course. "We launched new products which have been positioned in a new way because we know that a significant number of people around the world have already visited Australia or they already have a great deal of knowledge about the country. So we highlighted different parts of the country, activities and sceneries in order to encourage repeat visits. "You have to constantly innovate your products and advertising message to keep things interesting and fresh in the eyes of consumers. If you don't, you lose market share. It's sort of like simply calling on Hong Kong people to visit Macau. Nothing is going to happen unless you offer at least one new attraction," says Boote. While the ATC has reverted to a multi-agency set-up and in the process bucked the consolidation trend, Boote felt there was no correct client-agency structure. "It depends on the times, the brand, the objectives, and a myriad other factors and variables." However, Boote did stress that some of the fundamentals would not change: "No one knows the product and the brand like the client. But no one can bring objectivity like an agency. "Ultimately the job of an agency is to add value to how people view a brand. If both sides understand this, great advertising will follow."

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