This year will be challenging for FCB Asia-Pacific and the industry
at large.
We have a number of countries that are struggling to build stability in
their economies and political environment.
This is not just restricted to the Asean members - North Asia, Australia
and New Zealand have also stumbled with their economic recoveries.
On the brighter side, WTO for China - or its anticipation - should bode
well for the Greater China region.
Despite the above-mentioned turmoil, we expect FCB Asia-Pacific to
thrive in 2001.
We are forecasting a 32 per cent increase in revenue above 2000 record
levels.
This is based on existing business alone - not acquisition. Not bad!
Key contributors will be India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.
FCB will also be looking to strengthen its creative product, our direct
capabilities and our media offering.
Creative Product: While FCB has developed pockets of creative strength
(Sydney, Auckland and Japan), we still have some work to do.
In the latter part of 2000, we appointed Chris Kyme to the position of
Asian creative director.
Chris will be spearheading this effort to beef up our product.
Importantly, to complement Chris, we will be revising our system of
evaluating and rewarding country management with creative improvement
being a key component.
Direct/Interactive: In the fourth quarter of last year, we recruited
David Crane to head up FCBi in the region.
David's mandate is a challenge. We want to exploit and bring focus to
the skill sets we already have in the region.
Specifically, database management, classical direct and interactive
(design and strategy). No easy task.
Our objective is that by mid-year, we will be able to produce a number
of case studies that demonstrate different ways we use combinations of
these techniques for client advantage.
Media: In 2000, we experienced tremendous growth with the significant
increase in our media billings volume in key markets.
We are now ranked as a top 10 media operation in the majority of
Asia-Pacific markets.
Additionally, we complemented our media servicing capabilities with
several new senior media hires, both at the regional and local level, so
that we now have very strong full service media operations in all major
Asia-Pacific markets and a growing regional media team based in Hong
Kong servicing our multi-market clients.
Moving forward into next year, we have the platform to launch FCB's own
media specialist brand that will help take our media capabilities to the
next level.
This will be part of a global True North initiative involving our media
operations around the world.
It is true to say that we will be one of the last major agencies to make
this move, however, the benefit of not rushing into this has been that
we have been able to observe the different models established by our
competitors and learn from their mistakes.
In summary, FCB is going to have a good year - with more than a few
laughs along the way.
