Goodbye 2000 and hello 2001! We welcome the New Year with
enthusiasm because our predictions last year for a strong 2000 turned
out to be met and we look to 2001 equally positively both for our
clients and ourselves.
Why?
The outlook, by industry measures, indicates a brighter prospect in our
region than at this time last year and some of the vagaries of the
Internet explosion have been embraced with increasing sanity and
reality.
Regional confidence compared with a few years ago is growing despite a
few pockets of resistance and concern, and the high tech world now
clearly looks to Asia-Pacific for its growing leadership abilities. An
exciting time with opportunities both for clients and agencies
alike.
With this, we anticipate consumer spending will create new opportunities
for creating consumer demand.
Clients will be seeking heightened communications skills in the fields
of customer relationship marketing, online activities, public relations,
experiential marketing and advertising.
Fortunately at McCann-Erickson, we are well poised to help our clients
with these opportunities in their continuous quest for raising consumer
demand.
Without question, we believe that the issue of branding - that is,
maximising brand distinctiveness and value - will become even more
important and our brand consulting skills and tools will be extremely
valuable for our clients.
We will continue to re-invest our own funds into research to give our
clients a competitive advantage in terms of consumer insights, strategy,
creative and media.
It's a truly exciting time to be in the communications business as the
opportunities for creativity in all facets of what we do has never been
greater.
And there lies our challenge - one that I know we'll relish addressing.
