The Asian challenge

For Aaron Lau, chairman and chief executive officer for Asia of DDB Worldwide Communications Group, Inc., the Philippines holds a particular fascination.

"The local agency’s 360 (degrees) integrated approach around a brand idea is a model for Asia. Here, our operation is not just focused on the line business but on other businesses around the core idea as well, which allow us to deliver more value to our clients," said Lau. "Our business is all about vision. We must have control over our deliverables. That is what makes the 360 approach successful."

DDB Asia is a regional federation of 15 agencies. In terms of billings and creativity, it ranks as either number one or number two in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. In the Philippines, it is among the top five agencies in terms of billings and is among the top three in terms of creativity.

"Advertising is a local business. We want to build a strong local agency with a sense of community in all the countries that we are present in. The next frontier will be to build a strong regional network that would harness the knowledge and pool of talents of all our local agencies to better serve the needs of our clients all over the region," said Lau.

Local Growth

DDB began to expand its Philippine presence in mid-1999 with a manpower complement of 40. Today, the local agency employs 160.

"We chase after the things that make the money–people and product. The only way we can live up to our corporate promise to come up with ‘better ideas, better results’ is to constantly challenge the standards set by the industry. We don’t just want to come up with a one-time provocative ad, we want to successfully build brands over time," said Lau.

At DDB, an amount equivalent to 2% of total payroll goes to staff training. A self-assessment of each local agency is also conducted annually, wherein everybody from the president down answer 110 questions on such business aspects as people, leadership and training.

"Based on the results of our last self-assessment, our people feel that we should take a higher profile as a company. They want the pride that comes from working with a company that is known even by non-industry people," said DDB Phils. president and chief executive officer Gil Chua.

Creativity

On the creative side, staff from all over the region not only regularly chat with each other, they are brought together as a group to exchange ideas.

"We want to encourage media-neutral ideas–the ideas come first and only then do we decide which medium, whether this is traditional or non-traditional, would best deliver the message," said Lau. "One of the original founders of DDB, Bill Bernbach, once said: ‘Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten. And he’s been right all these years."

In trying to be the agency of the future, DDB Asia intends to be a balancing act of regional oversight and local creativity. In the Philippines, DDB has shown that it can be done.