VIDEO: Brands in post recession should enjoy the ride, says Jonathan Sands

On his whirlwind trip across the world, Jonathan Sands, chairman of Elmwood, stopped by Singapore to share inspiring ideas that will ensure and endure a brand's success. Here he speaks to Media about his views on branding, the traditional model of ad agencies, the proliferation of new media and how to manage a brand's global-local equation.

Brands in post recession is to "go ahead and enjoy the ride", said Sands. "One of my business heroes is a guy called Archie Norman, the chairman of Asda supermarkets in the UK which was later sold to Walmart, whose advice for 'recession virgins' was that this is not a short-term thing. And once you understand that, you can then get on and enjoy it," he adds.

Sands believed that Norman's notion of enjoying the recession was very perverse, but also very interesting. "What he was actually saying was, 'what is the alternative?' You can use it as an excuse for failure, you can decide that it can be a problem, or you can say that I am going to be a winner in this," he said.

Enjoying the long-term recession was also a sign of confidence which he believes is a reflection of the company's personality. "We have a saying in our business: attitude equals altitude. Basically, in tough times, customers want to see an attitude of confidence; they want to know that they are in a safe pair of hands.  Therefore, a brand that has an attitude of confidence in a downturn will be successful," Sands says.

Brands, according to Sands, are like a family. Too many people think of brand to be an all-encompassing mark that means the same thing wherever it goes.

"Within a family, you have shared DNA, shared values and shared beliefs. But you will also have different personalities – the quiet one, the joker, the intelligent one, the sporty one, the stupid one, but they will be bound together by a common thread. The same is with a brand. Great brands adapt to their local communities while maintaining their brand identity as their sacred totem," he said.

When asked by Campaign, why companies continue to seek professional advice and results from advertising agencies over branding, Sands said the ad agencies were only a recluse to lazy marketers.

"Some 20 years ago, an ad agency was pretty much like an outsourced marketing department where most of the budget was spent. The agencies would carve the budget up and spend it in the most appropriate way according to the brief; some on creative, some on advertising space, they might book a brand a number of exhibitions that were relevant, they spent some on PR and some on promotion and so on," says Sands.

He added, "Quite typically, they would earn their revenues not so much from their creatives, but from the margins they will make on the media side. But things have now changed with the proliferation of media. As a result, marketing has become a highly sophisticated department with experts in each area making decisions."

Sands feels that ad agencies have have lost their way. "Their main avenue of ad spend is now swiftly transforming; they don't control PR or design or branding which is the realm of specialist agencies. Marketers are much more interested in a digital agency who understands how to reach a certain community," he says. "Branding agencies are important now more than ever and busier than before. They have become the starting point. And marketers are now questioning what the big advertising companies are there for."

He went on to say: "I think the old agency model has changed and is unlikely to ever go back to the model it was used to. Ad agencies now are only beneficial to marketing departments that are under-resourced or dare I say, lazy marketers wanting to outsource their job."