CAREERS: APG to educate Greater China planners

Regional planning executives John Woodward and Gavin Heron have set up Greater China's first Account Planning Group with the support of London's APG to address the lack of planning knowledge in the region. Woodward, regional planning director at Leo Burnett, and Heron, regional strategic planning director at TBWA, warned there was a danger that advertising in the region was becoming "irrelevant", with expatriate agency planners lacking an understanding of local culture and habits. "If you look at some of the work being done in Hong Kong, not all the best creative work has powerful strategies to support it," said Woodward. "Particularly in times of recession, all clients and agencies need to ensure money spent results in advertising that is relevant and insightful. A lot of the agencies here work largely with expat planners that have been trained or have learnt planning elsewhere. "This is not a long-term solution for the agency. It is important that you train as many people as possible locally so that they understand the local culture and habits in the region." Heron added that it was "high time planning starts to get the attention it needs" and stressed that successful campaigns needed planning from the start. "Unless you can link it to strategy, creativity will simply become more and more of a commodity," he said. The group is backed by London's APG, which aims to educate local planners on what planning actually involves. Woodward said planning provided individuals with the tools that would ultimately enable them to bring a distinct and crucial set of capabilities to an agency. "With a limited history of planning in Hong Kong and China, the need is great and the APG will exist to fill the gap in training resources in many agencies," he added. The APG, which will launch in Australia, China and Singapore, will run its first training session on 'Creative Briefing' on December 12 and 13 in Hong Kong, with UK planning heavyweight Merry Baskin. Woodward said the first training session had received a positive response, with all but one place in the course booked. "As for the future, we will be looking to set up in early December a meeting to bring together a broader number of planning directors for long term training," he added. The group has set up a website at www.theonecentre.com/apgasiapacrego/default.html for registration.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com