How to select the right interactive agency in China

Rethink your agency selection strategy for the Chinese market to adapt to local market complexities. Historical, political, and cultural nuances; fragmentation of local platforms; unreliable metrics; lack of local digital talent; and conflicting global and local mandates all pose barriers to successful agency partnerships.

Most interactive agencies fall into one of three categories:

■ Local agencies within the largest global agency holding companies.

WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Publicis, Dentsu, and Havas each have a number of networks and agencies with local operations, including GroupM, Isobar, MRM, OgilvyOne, TBWA DAN, Tribal DDB, VML Qais, and Wunderman. Each offers significant scale and global credentials, but some have deep localised resources with intimate knowledge and experience of interactive marketing in China, while others do not.

■ Boutique local Chinese agencies.

Within the rapidly maturing interactive marketing landscape, there are also native Chinese agencies such as CIG, Hylink Digital Solution, Allyes, and others with strong local consumer and platform knowledge, but not necessarily with the scale and global resources of the larger agency networks.

■ Hybrid interactive marketing and eCommerce agencies.

The convergence of marketing and commerce across digital touchpoints is driving hybrid agencies such as Acquity Group, Digitas/Razorfish, Possible, and SapientNitro into the region. These firms not only have strong roots in designing and implementing enabling technology such as e-commerce platforms and mobile applications, but also provide multi-touchpoint marketing and commerce solutions.

The basics of agency selection are important

With any firm you choose, there are going to be tradeoffs. So where should you start? Before you even enter the Chinese market or start your agency search process, you need to:

■ Ensure that you have your marketing objectives clearly defined.

We have encountered many stories of firms with undefined objectives wasting untold sums on channel efforts across social, search, and display with nary a positive outcome. The director of eCommerce in China for a retailer we spoke with offered the following sage advice: “For every brand or function, you need to first come to internal alignment about your objectives, investment, a list of things that you won’t compromise on, and so forth. Only then can you develop a checklist for agency evaluation.

■ Develop a shortlist of agencies based on core qualities.

Start by asking the agency’s headquarters for a list of global agency partners that may have local capabilities and determine if the local office will be able to leverage the agency’s pre-existing knowledge of your company and brand. Then do yourself a favour, and reduce the list to no more than 10 to consider in China, using these baseline criteria: deep understanding of your brand in the context of Chinese consumers; core competencies and capabilities in the most important technologies, media, and channels you seek; strategic versus tactical implementation focus; and experience with the kinds of marketing challenges you face. These are table stakes and critical for any agency partnership across any region in which you operate. Doing this first will give you a more reasonable shortlist of firms to evaluate in your next steps.

Use four key criteria to vet potential agency partners

The four criteria you should use to vet agencies for your digital efforts in China are:

1) their knowledge and real-time intelligence about Chinese consumers.

In this the age of the customer, only those companies that become customer-obsessed will survive disruption and maintain sustainable competitive advantage. Nowhere is this more important than in a country as diverse as China. Based on your objectives, your agency should be able to provide you with an intimate profile of your ideal digital marketing target, with more than just technology adoption and demographics. Expect insights that will shape strategy, creative, and media planning—not just a 20-minute primer on the Chinese consumer. Press for intimate portraits that illuminate how the agency will translate your brand into messages that resonate. And determine if the agency has sophisticated methods to harness intelligence gained from a customer’s interactions with your brand and translate the impact on your marketing objectives. As one executive from a large retailer said in our interview, “A lot of what we concentrate on is the differences between tiers of cities. Any partner needs to be able to take our core brand ethos and represent that to the local consumer in a way that we envision.”

2) Their China-specific digital platform proficiency and focus on business outcomes.

Most agencies will claim to know the key digital channels and platforms in China. But don’t be
satisfied with the stories you hear in the pitch—ask for client references, case studies, and
specific examples that detail a consistent history of successful execution on digital platforms in
China, including the ability to avoid running afoul of government regulations and censorship.
You also need to evaluate your agency based on a history of delivering business outcomes and
not just fluffy volume-based metrics. Even if you obtain great localised creative, if the agency
can’t deliver it at scale and demonstrate results, you might as well frame it and hang it on your
office wall. Agency remuneration in China, especially due to the pervasiveness of false data,
needs to be tied to results anchored in outcomes such as increased number of sales transactions, average revenue per user, and other business metrics. An agency that commits to such performance-based compensation has the confidence that it can deliver in China.

3) The depth of their local digital talent.

In this evolutionary period for digital marketing in China, those with the knowledge and skills to support your team are incredibly challenging to find and retain for both users and agencies. As Edmund Tan, the head of corporate interactive marketing at 3M, told us: “If there is only one thing to evaluate, it is the people who will lead the project.” You must carefully evaluate the team that will actually drive your digital marketing campaign in China. Don’t fall for the old bait-and-switch; insist on a mix of global talent with sophisticated marketing and branding knowledge and local staff. The team working for you needs to be stable and deep as well as have at least a few senior-level localised personnel who are credible based on previous experience. Only then should you have confidence that they can translate your brand into messages that will truly resonate with local consumers.

4) A flexible partnership model with a focus on innovation.

China’s consumer and technology landscape is changing faster than supermodels in between struts down the catwalk and certainly faster than more mature markets in North America and Europe. Take, for example, Tencent’s January 2011 launch of WeChat. In the short time since its launch, adoption of the platform has skyrocketed to more than 300 million users. In such a dynamic market, any agency that comes to you with a “tried-and-true fail-safe” methodology for success in China isn’t being truthful. The defined level of autonomy and flexibility for your local interactive marketing teams and your agency’s willingness to pilot and experiment in China beyond traditional methods are important given the pace of change and the unique attributes of Chinese interactive marketing. Ask your agency about its ability to balance global manifestos with local innovation that will help translate the brand for local impact. Flexible local partnerships, local innovation labs, and a history of innovative experimentation are the key indicators of a mature and worthy partner.

Keep a watchful eye to ensure agency partnership success

Keep even closer tabs than usual on your agencies in China, in light of the rapid pace of change there. Make sure that they communicate with you often and in depth, and keep their efforts aligned with your objectives. Also, interact with their local talent, and stay on top of experimentation with emerging methods.