While Asia struggles in its attempts to decouple its fortunes from flagging markets further West, its multinational PR agencies are grappling with a continuing client proclivity for global alignments that do not always translate into stellar returns over here.
The latest contender to opt for this approach is Unilever, which is finalising a global agency roster organised according to brand. The FMCG giant is hardly alone in its preference for a consolidated approach to its PR requirements, but the development highlights what Burson-Marsteller global vice-chairman Bill Rylance calls the “awkward factors” that accompany global AOR arrangements.
“Often a big global account is seen as a highly prestigious win, but quite often what’s being globally aligned is a lot of executional work,” says Rylance. “You’re talking about a multi-market, global tactics-driven programme and that puts a lot of pressure on the global pricing model.”
Pricing is just one gripe for Asian agencies that are compelled to take on business mandated by headquarters in the US and UK. Some believe that the very concept of a global account is flawed, given PR’s status as a necessarily local function.
“I can’t name one truly global alignment,” says Edelman Asia-Pacific president Alan VanderMolen. “More often than not what you see is a coalition of the willing at global HQ and regional HQ, but it very rarely is pushed down through to local, simply because the business is by and large local. Media and government relations are local, unlike advertising where creative can be cookie-cutter globally and then localised.”
MasterCard communications VP Georgette Tan, whose agency business is globally aligned with Weber Shandwick, admits that the approach can be “like putting square pegs into round holes.”
She adds: “There might be best- case learnings and that may be where the benefit comes about. But as you drill down you still need a localised, customised approach.”
Rylance is less concerned about the concept of a global account, but points out that any multi-market PR strategy cannot originate solely from a global headquarters.
“The best global strategy gathers insights from around the world,” he says. “It really requires the agency and client to adapt, and there are cases where it clearly doesn’t happen.”
The corollary to any global alignment, clearly, is how conflicts are handled. Unilever’s nascent roster has attracted headlines because of a lengthy conflict list which may yet force agencies to resign accounts in Asia. VanderMolen says any global agreement must be accompanied by global decision-making ability on the client’s part. Otherwise, he warns, there is no guarantee that local-market agencies will benefit from the alignment. “Exclusivity is a two-way street but I don’t know one client that means it this way,” he contends.
MasterCard’s Tan notes that none of her agencies can work for a competitor anywhere in the world. But she admits that this kind of commitment must cut both ways. Weber Shandwick, for example, has been able to grow its MasterCard business into numerous local markets in Asia. “As a large global agency, that comes with the territory,” explains Weber Shandwick Asia-Pacific EVP Ian Rumsby. “That’s why the focus with our significant clients is very much on developing the relationship further.”
Rylance is similarly mollifying, saying a “reasonable degree of reciprocity” is necessary. “It would be kind of a first refusal. Where the client chooses to work with another agency, that should release the agency in question from the clause in that market. But it doesn’t often work like that.”
