FOCUS: AGENCY OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2000 - Advertising person of the year - Yu, Owen named admen of the year for all their contributions

Category: Advertising Person of the Year

Joint winners: Jeffrey Yu (Bates Asia), HK4As chairman; and Barry Owen,

regional head of creative, Ogilvy & Mather Asia-Pacific

In being named the co-recipient of Agency Person of the Year, Bates Asia

president and HK4As chairman Jeffrey Yu has been at the helm of an

agency that has been responsible for generating cutting edge advertising

and marketing campaigns.

He has also been at the forefront of efforts to re-engineer his agency

network to more effectively cope with the New Economy world.

However, it was his work for the Hong Kong 4As and his stand on scam

ads, which were the clincher to him receiving the award.

Mr Yu - president of Bates Asia and chairman of the Hong Kong 4As - is

no stranger to controversy and he gives as good as he gets.

At the beginning of the year, he introduced a pitch fee policy under

which clients were required to pay HKdollars 20,000 to each Hong Kong

4As agency involved in a new business pitch.

Despite opposition, he persevered, and by the autumn, the ball that was

set rolling more than half a year earlier was gaining in momentum as

both agencies and clients fell into line.

Part of the success was due to Mr Yu leading an educational drive to

explain to the market that the pitch fee policy was aimed at gaining

respect for the services and amount of work agencies put into a

pitch.

Agencies, he said, shouldn't be taken for granted.

Then came the issue of scam ads. He hit out at what he saw was unfair

and, in the process, set new standards across Asia-Pacific.

Today, we have more of consensus of what is a scam ad - it is an ad run

without the knowledge and/or consent of the client.

However, in getting to that stage, Mr Yu's harsh words against award

shows which allowed scam ads to make a showing sparked off a war of

words, in which he was labelled a trouble maker.

However, he stood his ground and continued to argue vociferously that

scam ads denigrated the credibility of the industry.

While his call for regionwide discussions to resolve the issue once and

for all appears to have fallen on deaf ears, awards shows in the region

have clamped down on dubious ads.

In Singapore, for example, entries to the Creative Circle Awards had to

be accompanied by a letter from the client stating that they knew about

and endorsed the ad.

At his own agency, Bates, Mr Yu has won his fair share of new business

such as winning almost all of General Motors' corporate and joint

venture business in China, the Singapore Airlines e-booking account and

BAT in Indonesia.

He has also taken the Internet and all that the New Economy has to offer

in stride.

He's taken a holistic approach to all things 'e' by encouraging many of

his staff to sign up for a University of British Columbia Internet

advertising and marketing course so that people at all levels and

sections of the agency look at the Internet as one more channel in the

marketing mix.

His catchphrase to staff has been, "Don't assume we are perfect and we

do not have to improve."

MEDIA's co-Advertising Person of the Year and Ogilvy & Mather (Thailand)

head of creative, Barry Owen, is known to a generation of Thai

advertising executives as a pioneer who helped elevate Thailand's

industry to global recognition.

Over his many years in Thailand, Mr Owen has trained dozens of local

executives, some of whom later went on to lead creative departments at

other international agencies.

BBDO chief creative officer, Suthisak Sucharittanonta, said that Mr Owen

led by example and was never above taking on the most menial task if it

meant giving better service to clients.

"The reason I joined Ogilvy was because of Barry's reputation. He really

was an inspiration to the younger generation because at that time he was

doing the best creative work in Thailand."

Mr Suthisak started working at Ogilvy in 1988 and stayed for 10 years

before leaving in 1997. When he started out, young Thai creative

executives wanted to focus on European and Western images to promote

products, choosing to ignore Thailand's rich cultural heritage.

"Barry was the guy who showed us there were lots of good things to be

proud about in Thai society; we had been adopting too much from the

West.

"He showed us with the Singha account that using very Thai creative

content was good, and for that he won a Clio.

"He was the first guy to put Thailand's advertising industry on the

world map. Barry made Ogilvy & Mather Thailand a star in Asia and people

will remember him for that."

Mr Owen was known by his peers as a man to roll up his sleeves and get

down to work, regardless of the size of the account.

No job was too small for him and he was known to work on consumer

product accounts, which most creative executives loathed, getting the

job done professionally without saying a word.

Known as a humble, shy man, Mr Owen never set out to publicise his

successes, preferring to let his co-workers take the honours.

Instead, colleagues praised him for leading by example and setting the

tone for others to follow.

Always the first in the office in the morning, he often worked late into

the evening to get the job done.

Those who had the privilege of working with him said his management

style was another key component to his success.

Mr Suthisak, said: "If you didn't go into his office, he was not the

type of person to come to you.

"He was not a dictator, he would let you manage yourself but if you had

a problem he was always there to help.

"He never cared about awards, he was very humble and never tried to

promote himself.

"That is Barry - a very down-to-earth person."

- Additional reporting by Tom Racette in Bangkok.