Strategies to be aimed at consumers
IN an attempt to combat competition and make advertising more directed, BSB Hongkong has joined the growing number of advertising agencies investing in a strategic planning department.
The agency appointed a strategic planning head, Mr Charles Wigley from Bartle Bogle Hegarty in London, at the end of last year. He joined planning heads Mr Dharen Chadha at J Walter Thompson (JWT), Mr Howard Wang at Bozell and Ms Catherine Ling at DDB Needham.
Strategic planning was pioneered by London agency Boase Massimi Pollitt over 20 years ago.
It was adapted by JWT, which was, along with Bozell, one of the first agencies to bring the concept to Hongkong.
Strategic planning's function is to initiate an advertising strategy by taking the advertising's problems and looking at them from a consumer perspective. This is done via research and other information which is collected, analysed and interpreted in order to set the advertising strategy, its targets, role and what response it should initiate from consumers.
''Planners are the bridge between what account managers think and what creative directors think,'' said Mr Chadha.
''They have two main roles. First, task definition, which means we point creative in a certain direction, and the second is inspiration which sees us helping to get the creative juices flowing by giving the creative department information from which to build ideas,'' he said.
JWT has had a strategic planning department in Hongkong for almost four years.
Bozell has separate strategic planning units in seven Asian offices including Hongkong, which was the first to be set up in 1987.
Growth in Asia is in part because of the current worldwide recession, Bozell's Mr Wang said.
''Every dollar has become more accountable. Pressure on the marketer has made strategic thinking more important,'' he said.
''Planning direction brings an understanding of the market and the consumer to product advertising,'' said Mr Wang.
''Strategic planning inputs added value to a brand while elevating the value of an advertising agency,'' he said.
Not all agencies would agree.
''If you have an account director with half a brain, you don't need a strategic planner,'' said Mr Kingsley Smith, chairman and managing director of McCann-Erickson.
''It is a flash in the pan as a sales tool. The product group that works on a client is in possession of as much knowledge as it possibly needs to provide the best service,'' he said.
''If strategic planning does add value then account servicing is not being run in the right way,'' he added.
Much of strategic planning involves research, an area where agencies are paying more attention.
Bozell began the first in a series of studies in 1989, when it produced lifestyle and product information on Hongkong women.
''We want to inject the viewpoint of the customer, bring in an added dimension of what he or she thinks,'' said Ms Ling.
''It means that creative has a more strategic approach and we are not wasting clients' advertising dollars pushing a message that is not relevant,'' she said.
Agencies with strategic planning departments stressed that the function will become more important, driven by increased competition.
''Problems are becoming more intractable and agencies need to look at issues in greater depth than before,'' said Mr Chadha.
''It will follow a cycle. A few agencies will use strategic planning, others will dismiss it, then the momentum will pick up as word gets around and clients demand it,'' he said.
