CAREERS: Zenith's Koitka puts focus on research

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.

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