Highlights from the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival

McCaughan drew on research to show that encouragingly, while a greater sense of caution has entered the public mindset, the overall sentiment points to a relatively fast recovery.

Following McCaughan’s session, Charles Wigley, the festival’s content committee chairman and regional chairman of BBH, offered some take-home messages from yesterday. One recurring point, he said, was that the industry needs to form new paths rather than continuing to follow tried and tested ones. He also underscored the importance of problem solving over advertising creativity: hard commercial targets, he noted, are more important than “wooly, feel-good” aims. In addition, Wigley criticised the marketing industry for being “culturally colonial”. New York and Europe-based thinking was often not relevant to Asia, he said.

This provided a fitting introduction to the day’s sessions, which concentrated on the industry within the context of Asia. First up was Sau Hoong Lim, chief executive and ECD of 10am Communications in Singapore, who outlined her approach to delivering creative work for different Asian markets. Lim dispelled the notion of a single-minded proposition when developing powerful campaigns in favour of a more fragmented approach. She added that creative ideas should not be seen as the preserve of the creative department.

Lim’s presentation was followed by an overview of social media platforms in China and suggestions as to how to integrate social media intelligence into marketing communications, delivered by Sam Flemming, founder and chairman of CIC. Flemming noted that social networking had been an important feature of life in China since the 1990s and that activity on platforms from forums to networking sites should be monitored closely by marketers. “Social media can and should be measured,” Flemming said. “You don’t want to be managing a Weibo account only from your gut.”

A subsequent session by PT Black, regional senior creative director at Thoughtful Media, added to Flemming’s presentation by further analysing  opportunities and pitfalls for marketers operating in China. In particular, Black stated that a common mistake due to China’s scale was to collect a mass of data that did not serve any real purpose rather than a smaller amount of targeted, quality data that would ultimately contribute to marketing systems and brand building.

The afternoon included sessions from Ogilvy & Mather’s global effectiveness director Tim Broadbent and JWT China chairman Lo Sheung Yan. The latter drew on a series of case studies to show ways of tapping into China’s distinct cultural values; Broadbent, meanwhile, argued a compelling case for creativity in addition to effectiveness, and dismantled longstanding concepts that supported a non-creative approach in Asian advertising.