"I like the wide open roads of Beijing," says Mr Eddie Cheng who
took on the position of managing director MindShare Beijing in September
2000.
"They free your mind and give you room to think," explained Mr Cheng,
who has 20 years of advertising experience in Asia and Canada.
And a free mind for new ideas is what Hong Kong-born Mr Cheng needs, as
he takes on the challenge of making the media dependent a more
service-oriented organisation, which talks to clients in a language they
understand.
MindShare China is looking at introducing a new strategy for its Beijing
and Shanghai offices, where executives with a strong background in
client service, rather than media buying and planning professionals,
have been recruited to head up the operations.
Mr Cheng's experience as a client and on the client service side of the
industry will help him do just that.
While it might not make sense for an engineer to sell the bridge he has
designed, by the same token media buying or planning professional are
not necessarily the best people to sell a media plan.
Client services are not being given the attention they deserve in
traditional media operations Mr Cheng believes.
"Clients often don't have the time to look at a media plan, they just
want to know what it means without too much professional jargon. We need
to take the initiative to help the client so that he can match up
advertising costs and sales figures to see if it (the advertising
campaign) is working. We need to use their mindset and language," he
said.
After graduating with a degree in psychology, Mr Cheng started his
career in the late '70s on the client side working as a marketing
executive for Westinghouse and Fuji Film in Hong Kong, then moving on to
work as accounts manager for McCann-Erickson Hong Kong.
However his career moved on to television when he emigrated to Canada
along with his family in 1987.
He worked there as vice-president of Fairchild Television, the national
Chinese Television network and as director of accounts services with an
ethnic advertising agency.
But after several years in the land of Mounties and doughnuts as he puts
it, he realised that his career growth would be limited if he did not
anticipate change.
"Everyone in North America is eyeing China and it was just a question of
when to come back.
"This is where the growth will be and the earlier you come back and
learn the better. Now I am in the lucky position that someone is paying
for me to learn," he said. "And even having grown up in Hong Kong I
didn't speak any Mandarin, I thought what the heck," recalled Mr
Cheng.
Since returning in 1996, Cheng has spent several years working as
business director for McCann-Erickson Guangming Hong Kong, as general
manager for Anderson & Lembke Asia and managing director Grey China
Guangzhou, before being recruited for the MindShare Beijing office.
His many years in the industry have put Mr Cheng in a position of
knowing what clients want and need. "I have been a client for many years
myself, and people want to make money and not spend it on advertising.
We now need to make clients see advertising not simply in terms of
spending, but rather as an investment for future sales," said Mr
Cheng.
As a troubleshooter, he has for the first few months of his new posting
analysed structures and aims to optimise them in the months to come.
"I will be looking at the overall picture and will identify where the
problems are," said Mr Cheng.
But all is easier said than done. In an increasingly-competitive market
where local clients have yet to be convinced of signing up to costly
services that international advertising agencies offer, Mr Cheng's
theories will be put to the test.
Mr Cheng sees himself as a perfectionist but realises that he needs to
find a balance, as perfection is not always possible. A perfect media
plan will seldom be executed as it will be too expensive, but the goal
is to find the balance and find the break-even point with which the
client will be happy.
Music-loving Mr Cheng plays the organ and violin and has recently taken
up the saxophone as well as being the bass baritone in the Hong Kong
Oratorio Society.
While happy to be in Beijing, which he refers to as his virtual home, he
recognises differences. "In Canada there is a greater balance of life.
People expect you to have a life which is not always the case here," he
said.
Source: CMM Intelligence.
