The first days of the new century bring with them a new optimism
for the economies of Asia-Pacific and for the agency business as
well.
The trials of the past two years are, hopefully, now behind us and we
can get on with doing what we do well: building strong brands for the
new millennium.
The brand-building process has, however, changed forever.
Brands which did not exist four or even two years ago are now at the
forefront of the new breed of potential advertisers for our
business.
Amazon.com now has a market capitalisation which is twice the size of
Disney Corporation.
At the same time, the retail and communication environments have changed
almost beyond comprehension.
So what is the way forward, how best can the advertising business cope
with the new advertisers and the new challenges that are thrown its
way?
Clearly agencies cannot resort to their traditional way of dealing with
such issues which is to hunker down and pretend it will go away.
It won't and agencies have to be fast and smart enough to adapt and
change or run the risk of their business being stolen by business
consultants/website designers and a whole host of other businesses which
were once seen as peripheral, but which have now become mainstream
players in the communications business.
With the fragmentation of media as well, the need for agencies to play
an even more pro-active upstream role in a client's business is greater
than before.
Thus, in my view, the need to invest in strategic planning is greater
than ever.
Of course, creative is crucially important, but the ability to devise a
well-thought-out strategic direction, that works in the increasingly
diverse media environment, is going to be a highly-prized agency
asset.
It's the most-effective way for an agency to add value to the
communication process at a very early stage and undoubtedly contributes
hugely to better creative work.
This is the reason why TBWA is investing heavily in the planning
structure in Asia-Pacific and why we are going to such trouble to
identify and train good local planners, even in countries that have
never embraced the discipline, such as Japan or South Korea.
At the same time, there has to be fundamental change in the way that the
creative department see their function.
It is no longer good enough to think only in terms of a 30 or 60-second
commercial and expect the job to be done.
The implementation process might take many forms, and it has to become
just as exciting to win awards for a website design as it is to win for
a TV commercial.
Whether we like it or not, that's our future and we ignore it at our
peril.
