Clients want to be challenged: DWA panel

Howie Lau, vice president marketing and communications, Asia Pacific/Latin America (APLA) at Lenovo, said the market is moving fast and hence clients need works that can be delivered.

“We have been debating on the right agency structure and we are looking at the integrated nature of agency,” he added. “We have the 5P culture [plan, perform, practice, prioritising and pioneer]. We also want agencies that come and challenge us.”

Lau was speaking as part of a panel discussion in DWA’s customer engagement seminar, entitled 'Evolving your marketing strategy with consumption trends', yesterday in Singapore. The panel discussion was moderated Atifa Silk, editorial director of Campaign Asia-Pacific.

Ajay Mohan, Intel Asia-Pacific director, partner marketing and web marketing, marketing and consumer sales, noted that it is difficult for agencies to balance and to push the boundaries, because obviously they don’t want to offend the clients.

“They don’t want to lose the account and retainership,” Anol Bhattacharya, CEO at GetIT Communication, echoed. He added that clients are evolving and going for digital, and that agencies need to tell them “the right thing”.

On ROI measurement, Damien Cummings, Samsung's regional marketing director, digital and social media, said it can be difficult to decide whether a campaign has been successful, as the success or failure may rest on the marketing strategies or the product itself.

Bhattacharya noted that while clients can get consumer engagement on Facebook, the “like” is the only thing they can measure.

“We stop measuring the thing because we don’t know what to do after that,” he said. “Also, the gap between sales and marketing needed to be broken up. If they don’t break down the silo, it is hard to measure.”

Mohan, nevertheless, said every measurement is data, and translating these data and applying them meaningfully is essential. “It is the biggest input any agency can give back to me.”

Robbie Hills, head of media technology solutions at Google, said media agencies collect ample data from campaigns. Failing to get and analyse those data is a waste, he said.