Zenith Media Hong Kong has appointed Jane Koitka as strategic
resources director, with the dual responsibility of enhancing the
quality of training programmes at the agency and encouraging the
research industry to keep pace with market needs.
The appointment comes at a time when clients are demanding much more
from their agencies in an effort to counter the impact of the global
slowdown.
At the same time, media agencies have been clamouring for research
houses to go beyond surveys which only yield demographic data.
Zenith's regional operations director, Roland Crouch, said: "We need to
try to push research to the next level because the research industry
currently conducts very similar surveys. There's not much psychographic
and consumer research which is what our clients want, given the
fragmentation of media."
Koitka said one of her key tasks would be to try "to push the (research)
industry in Hong Kong into the 21st century". She added: "There is a
large amount of research in the market, much of it duplicitous and
focused on demographics. We need to try to move the industry towards
understanding consumer motivations and return on investment for our
clients."
As an example, she said most of the research to date pointed to the fact
that television is the most effective advertising vehicle. "You can
reach a lot of people but given that there are so many other more
targeted media channels available, the wastage could be enormous.
Koitka was previously the business development director at Zenith
Australia where she set up a business development unit comprising
research, technology and human resources.
Her experience includes working on the media owner side of the business
- in radio and television - in addition to spending more than 10 years
with George Patterson Bates/Zenith Media in Australia.
Koitka also established the Zenith Media College, which offers courses
on specific media skills to business development knowledge for the
agency's staff and clients. Its success was recognised by the Australian
Government, which awarded the college with an official accreditation -
the first accredited media programme in the world, recognised in
Australia as being equivalent to a university programme.
She said that training is another area in the marketing communications
industry that could do with a much-needed boost in terms of methodology
and processes. The secret in building up talent lies in a combination of
training and coaching plus the application of knowledge, according to
Koitka.
