Seven tactics to disrupt the gloom

It sounds eerily familiar:

“Most of the Asian ad industry is reeling. Budgets and revenues are down. People are demoralised. Clients often force agencies to churn out rubbish with the threat of the axe over their heads. The result? Creative quality is declining. There’s little respect for the value an agency can add.

“So what are we hoping for? That next year the clouds of recession will lift. Clients will start spending again, they’ll buy our recommendations, we’ll work shorter hours, get bigger bonuses and thing will return to ‘normal’. That’s hopelessly reactive. We are a proactive industry. We cannot simply blame external forces. We must ask the question - what can we do about it?”

Well, that was then. But I could write those exact words again now and no one would quibble. There aren’t many people running agencies today who were running them then, and I know that many people now in management feel a little like rabbits frozen in the headlights. Assailed by talk of cost-cutting, headcount, layoffs, pay cuts, budget reductions - and having no idea where to turn.

The danger of this is that we focus purely on the negative and we forget about the positive - the fact that we are a resilient and proactive industry, and that a successful future is down to us. Of course we need to deliver bottom lines, and we will have to take decisive and firm action to achieve what we’re asked to achieve. But we mustn’t slavishly focus only on this.

There are seven decisive tactics that agency leadership must adopt as we plan for, and experience, 2009.

1. Brand - now, more than ever, agencies have to stand for something. That might be a strategic principle, a particular creative stance - it might be a business model based on fast/cheap turnaround. The mediocre, the middle-of-the-road and the ill-defined will be the ones who suffer. So we must ask: “What is our brand, what do we stand for?”

2. Morale - our people are worried and concerned about their jobs and their pay. They need strong, flag-bearing leadership at this time above all. Now is the time to roar: “We are a strong brand, a proud brand, we stand for something, we will turn this gloom into opportunity”. If it’s real, if it’s delivered with conviction, with confidence, people will follow. Morale will be maintained.

3. Being smart - No-one knows what is going to happen, but we need to offer smart and insightful thought-leadership. Revenue driving might become a little more relevant than brand-building - although the two aren’t mutually exclusive. We need to lead this. We need to think smart. We need to deliver solutions that will help our clients - and thus ourselves.

4. Innovation - We have a unique opportunity to reconsider how we connect our brands and our client with consumers. Traditional media spending may be flat - even down. But consumers haven’t stopped consuming, so the question is how can we be smarter and more innovative in finding ways to connect with them - what we call Media Arts. Online will be up. Experiential and activation disciplines will be up. How will you deliver this?

5. Talent - If we ignore talent by becoming obsessed with ‘cuts’ we are in serious peril - if we fire the best people, we’re doomed. This is the time to ensure that we attract and invest in retaining the best people, for only with them can we deliver.

6. Energy - there is no other industry which combines the thrill of raw, blank-sheet-of-paper creativity with real business solutions. Ours is an exciting and innovative business and we are lucky for that. However sluggish things may seem, we must maintain that spirit of vigour and energy.

7. Fun - finally, hard as it may sound, we must maintain the spirit of fun that is one of the main reasons we’re all in this industry. Creativity involves risk and risk cannot thrive amidst gloom. We must focus on keeping the fun alive, even as volatility continues.

We came through the 1998/9 Asian Crash. We came through the 2002 recession. The next year will be fundamentally different because the entire basis of our capitalist system was, and maybe still is, threatened, and no one really knows what will transpire. But now is the time to lead from the front, to raise the flag high, to focus on over-delivering with the very best people. That’s what we’ve always been good at and that’s what we really need to do now.

That way lies hope, some of the fun we’re used to in this wonderful industry and identifiable results. Agencies that travel this path will emerge stronger when the green shoots of recovery (finally) begin to sprout.

Ian Thubron
Executive vice president, TBWAAsia Pacific & chief executive officer, TBWAHong Kong