Daunting as it sounds, expecting the unexpected breeds stoicism and resilience in the people who live in such volatile environments. Enough for Mark Ingrouille, CEO of McCann Worldgroup Thailand, to declare that “extraordinary events are really not that extraordinary” — according to him, most of what outsiders read about Thailand are “soft punches”.
While budgets are not affected much in the short run, flexibility is imperative. “Most companies have committed spending, so the only thing that changes is on the planning side,” says Roche Rosales, business development director at Indonesian boutique Matari Advertising. “For example, instead of launching a big Chinese New Year-themed campaign, companies will now celebrate it in a low key way in view of the current situation.”
And despite Jakarta’s recent flooding situation, reportedly the worst the city has ever seen, Rosales’ clients — including Indofood — haven’t been affected as much as some might think. “You can’t say adspend plummets because planned campaigns either continue or are moved to a later date,” she says.
“In volatile markets, clients are flexible. And most of the time, there’s a back-up plan.”
For Sesh Sampath, director of BBDO’s regional Procter & Gamble account, volatility makes planning more critical and, sometimes, opportune. “It does make budget planning a big challenge,” he says, “But it also poses timely opportunities to think differently to find new solutions. For example, one might get better rates with the TV stations as they do not want to lose their budgets.”
This suits Sampath just fine, given that people tend to stay glued to their television sets at home during external crises. Furthermore, Ingrouille says, in softening markets, upmarket brands remain unaffected while the mass market might trade down. “Sometimes, clients will shift into more rapid response advertising,” he says.
Sony Ericsson’s Bangkok-based marketing team, on the other hand, scheduled more above-the-line ads following a series of bombs that exploded from streetside trash-cans last December. According to marketing manager Pongnarintr Tantrakul, the telco has decided to reduce spend for road shows, events and outdoor media. “(The bombings) affected shopping malls first, since the Government warned people not to go there,” he says. But any budget cuts will be determined during the next round of annual planning, based on consumer confidence levels. “As a handphone manufacturer, we became more conservative with our sales forecasts, which of course hits marketing budgets next,” he says.
The general outlook in 2007 has not been as positive compared with previous years. Consumer confidence levels have fallen, but to what extent is unclear for now.
Another recent event, the Taiwan earthquake which hit on Boxing Day last year and practically shut down internet access in many markets, forced Cathay Pacific to rejig its digital media plan.
But, clearly, Albert Chong, manager of loyalty marketing for Cathay Pacific, has, like many of his counterparts, dealt with much worse: “Unless we’re faced with a wide-spread epidemic scenario like Sars back in 2003, which affected global travel and retail consumption, certain localised, one-off events will not have a major impact on the marketing budget,” says Chong.
