Adoi Malaysia 2002 May Issue by Sledgehammer Communications (M) Sdn Bhd

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MAY2002 REGIONAL PUBLISHER

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

TSivananthi

STAFF WRITERS

Kelvin Wee Rodney Louis Vincent DESIGNER

Eric Chun

AD SALES ENQUIRIES

Kalai orCharlene Phone: 7726 5710 E-mail: kalai@ham.com.my

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3D0I magazine is published every month by Sledgehammer Communications (M) Sdn Bhd 22B, Jalan Tun Mohd Fuadi, TamanTun Dr. Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: +603 7726 2588 Fax: +603 7726 2598,7722 5712

Notes From The Editor Last month was simply a whirlwind of activity. In an industry where people move up and move on with life faster than anywhere else - a record pace was set in the last two months. The winds of change are blowing all around town. Ahmad Farid left Leo Burnett to join TV3 as its CEO. Many feel that Farid will provide the tv station with the steam it needs and help propel it further. Sreedhar Subramaniam, COO of Natseven TV, has left to start up a consulting practice and Michael Chan will take over his duties. In the same span of time, ntv/has positioned itself as the seventh channel on Astro's remote. But television is not the only battleground. The Sun Media Corporation is looking for some new ideas from some new blood. Charlie Peters, formerly of New Straits Times Press, has joined the Sun as its new GM of Marketing. He will join hands with Philip Karuppiah, the new Managing Director - to make the free newspaper idea work. The general feedback has been that a lot of people like the free, easy, breezy Sun - when they get it while they are having breakfast at McDonald's or grabbing something from 7-ns. Apparently, as a counter-move a particular leading English daily was also seen floating around freely in certain key LRT stations like Masjid Jamek and KL Sentral for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, the recent 2As AGM was a rel atively peaceful one. Zainuddin M. Noh of F&N was

re-elected as President along with Shahar Noor of National Panasonic as his VP. The council members consist of some old faces as well as a couple of new ones. Khoo Kar Khoon (Nestle), Bharat Avalani (Unilever), Tay Ai Leen (Coca-Cola), Rosman Din (DMIB), Lim Phaik Sim (Colgate-Palmolive), Peter Anthony Das (Perodua), William T.L.Tye (GlaxoSmithKline), Kala V. Devan (Celcom) and Hamidah Yusoff (Pernas International) are the 2002 line-up. The major task on the agenda of the 2As is to create a selfregulating industry as "it is in the advertiser's inter est to maintain public confidence in advertising'. The other challenge for the President is to iron out remuneration issues between clients and agencies. Around the same time, the Ministry of Agricul ture has decided to beef up the marketing of agrobased products. The Ministry is allocating RM 20 mil lion for the global promotion of the 'Malaysia Best' label. Producers of agro-based products can register to use the label, but will have to adhere to high pro duction standards. This move will help Malaysia mar ket her products around the world and it will be interesting to see which products will carry the label.

Sincerely,

3D0I What's hot in this issue... Highlights MORE Clients Face To Face With A Legend Star Bores The Virtue Of Restlessness

The Real Universe Is Always One Step Beyond Logic

jm jfl Interactive

27 32 39

Direct Marketing Buying And Selling In Bliss...With Extra Cheese

Features/Reviews Member of

£ Audit Bureau of Circulations

© All rights reserved by Sledgehammer Communications (M) Sdn. Bhd. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form with out prior permission in writing from the publisher. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the publisher and the editor assume no responsibility for errors or omissions or for any consequences of reliance of information in this publication. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher or editor. Advertisements are the sole responsibility of the advertisers.

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ASTRO Kicks Off Football Carnival TV Showcase: Perdana Agency Showcase: Ogilvy & Mather Focus On Clients: Ribena, Nike, MBFCards, MasterCard, Lee Kum Kee "The Key To Creativity Is Relevance" Creative Critique with Cary Rueda

12 15 18 21

Exclusive Interviews

Powering Up Screens Across The City Carat's Fortunate! A Brand New Day For The Sun

8 lit 20

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Shoot like a Pro. Organize like Mom. Digital cameras are revolutionizing the way we take pictures. Now, Apple provides the missing link to revolutionize the way we save, organize, share and enjoy them. Just plug your camera* into your Mac's USB or FireWire port and iPhoto automatically imports your photos, catalogs them, stores them and displays them on your screen. Then you can easily organize them into albums - birthday, vacation, wedding, whatever-for easy retrieval. (If you're familiar with iTunesT; think "playlists" for pictures.) Gone are the days of scavenger hunts to find pictures on your hard drive. Sharing and enjoying them is a cinch too: Push one button to view a beautiful, full-screen slide show. Email them to friends. Or print them on your ink jet printer. How much does this remarkable new software cost? If you're a Mac OS X user, iPhoto is a free download at www.asia.apple.com. But if you're a PC user, there's nothing like it at any price.

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Letters to the editor Upcoming Events

Dear Ed, I'm

a regular reader of ADOI from Penang and I find the amendments to the Food Advertisement Regulations are totally ridicu lous. Well, I'm with a small agency in Penang and what we do here are mostly food ads. I must admit that Yasmin Ahmad is right about some advertisers earning a fast buck through misleading advertisements. But most advertis ers out there don't practice that kind of thing! Even small agencies like us don't indulge in such practices. Now the proposed amendments (if they are implemented) will make most of us suffer more. I just cross my fingers and hope that this doesn't lead to more and more regula tions. Yours truly, Eddy Lee

Dear Adoi, First of all, I think that the AdFest pullout is a great idea. For all of us who were caught up with work, it gives us a good overview of what happened there. You guys should publish more ad events, not only local ones but also interna tional ones. Say for example, the IdN fresh con ference. Again, I didn't get to go but I would really like to know more on what happened. It would be great if you can do a similar pull-out for the IdN. Unfortunately reading about a party is not the same as attending it. However I must say that the AdFest results are quite dis appointing. Only one bronze from Malaysia?

19 to 20 May

Clio Awards in Miami, Florida. FMI: (212) 683-43oo0rwww.cli0awards.c0m

And only 8 Finalists? In an awards competition right next door to us? Why is this happening? While Singapore walked away with 5 Silvers, 10 Bronzes and 33 Finalists. While Thailand walked away with 29 awards including 'Best of Print'. Why is this so? Didn't we put up enough entries or something? I think that while at Cannes or Clios we can blame it on the cultural divide - it seems we can't score even in our own backyard. This is definitely a wake-up call for all of us! Disappointed Malaysian Via email. (Ed. First question - you're not working for IdN are you? Sorry but we were too busy putting the magazine together that we could n't make it down to Singapore as well. We're hoping to give a great spread on Cannes 2002 though!)

20 to 22 May

Celebrate the End of the Recession at Clio Festival in Miami Beach, Florida. FMI: (212) 683-430o0rwww.cli0awards.c0m 23 to 2i» May

Customer Relationship Management at Swissotel Merchant Court Hotel, Singapore. FMI: (65) 6372 2201 or E-mail: jaslyn@conferences.com.sg 28 to 29 May

Kid Power Asian 2002 at Grand Copthorne Waterfront, Singapore. FMI: 6325 6322 29 to 30 May

Successful Marketing to Working Women in Asia at Raffles City Convention Centre, Singapore. FMI : (65) 6225 9466 or E-mail: info@eventusconsult.com 30 to 31 May

Corporate Branding at Swissotel Merchant Court Hotel. FMI: (65) 6372 2201 or E-mail: jaslyn@conferences.com.sg 16 to 22 June

The 49th International Advertising Festival. More details to follow. 9 to 11 June

Dear Editor, I can't find ADOI in any bookstore. Why is that? Yours, Desperately Seeking ADOI Magazine

Association of National Advertisers' 2002 Global Marketing Conference in Ritz Carlton, Miami. E-mail: wally@iaaglobal.org 27 to 28 June

Marketing World Asia-Pacific 2002 at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. FMI: (65) 226 3069 or kenneth@inmeet.com 30 July to 1 August

(Ed. You can find us at Page One at Lot 10 and Basheer Graphic Books at Sungei Wang. But of course, feel free to subscribe - the form is on p.41 - and it will be delivered to your doorstep for only RM100 per year!)

DM Asia at Suntec Singapore. E-mail: phila.tan@dmasia.net We invite organizers of events for the advertising and marketing industry to submit information for publication in this monthly Upcoming Events column. Publication of information is based on availability of space, preference will be given to events taking place closest to the date of publication.

Recent Accounts Won and Lost Agency D'Arcy Leo Burnett Starcom Singapore Euro RSCG

Account Won Seiko (Regional) Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd Hutchison Priceline Yahoo South East Asia (Creative)

Hill £r Knowlton

Yahoo South East Asia (PR)

Initiative Media

Bulgari (Regional Media Account)

Grey Healthcare Group

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Eli Lilly (Regional)

CoverStory

Powering up Screens

PETER CHOO started off his love affair with the consumer 1/+ years ago as an cies, he switched over to the client side and has finally come full circle today, for introducing the PowerScreen into the market. The PowerScreen is a larger impact. Imagine a commercial on South East Asia's largest screen on the busy he feels that the city centres of KL, JB and Penang are ready for such an You have a long background in strategic planning ... Advertising is actually a game of understanding customers and con sumer behavior. Strategic planning is basically a game of finding the link that connects a brand with its consumers and customers. A thor ough understanding of customer and consumer behaviour is a sound starting point of any good campaign development. This is perhaps one of the most interesting jobs that you can find in an agency, as it requires insight into consumers, trade activities and motivations. It keeps you on the edge as the job always requires you to challenge conventions, innovate and bring fresh, new ideas to the table while supporting the recommendations with hard facts such as research, observations and past learning. The essential quality of a strategic planner is to be able to see light in any condition and to be 'opportunistic'.

time outdoors - they're clubbing, watching movies, shopping, meet ing for drinks after work (even if it's only for coffee). Two, the medium is in-line with the paradigm shift as more people become tech-savvy and expect to consume communication messages via a technology-driven media. Three, clients will discover that Outdoor Broadcast is the best solution in power branding. From the media point of view, impact plays the biggest role in branding. The poten tial of Outdoor Broadcast is immense - you can see the giant outdoor video screens dominating the cities of New York, London and Tokyo.

Why do you differentiate between customers and consumers? When you look at consumer behaviour, you have to have a thorough understanding of who the consumer is (those who consume or use the product) and who the customer is (those who buy and resell the prod ucts, meaning the trade or those buying the product for a 3rd party). The classification of the target (as customers and consumers) has a bear ing on media choice. For example, apart from reaching the consumer, every effort should be stepped up to communicate with the traders as well. Traders determine the exposure, sales and eventually the faith in a brand. Many brands fail due to a lack of understanding of trade behav iour.

You obviously had a deep understanding of strategic planning. Why leave the cushy life at an agency and start the difficult, uphill task as a media owner? I was not really approached to take the job. I was just having a casu al chat with group of entrepreneurs on how to market the product & the services. Being a keen strategic planner, I always give my views of how a product can do better with a proper brand vision.... I went through the whole process of how consumers & customers think and one week later I was asked "Why don't you join us?" I decided to go with it because I can see a huge opportunity in this medium because of three major trends in society. One, there is a shift in consumer behaviour - more consumers are spending more

8 3D0I MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

PowerScreens at Bangsar, Bukit Bintang andjalan P. Ramlee (left to right).

What's Outdoor Broadcast all about... The Outdoor Giant Video Screen (what we brand as PowerScreen) is not a billboard nor a giant TV. We broadcast entertainment and adver tising messages in high-density outdoor areas in cities. And we're com mitted to build this category in a big way. We combine the advantages of both TV and the outdoor unipole. Now, one can enjoy Outdoor Broadcast in the hottest and most happening areas of KL City such as Bukit Bintang, Bangsar, Jalan P.Ramlee and City Square, JB.

Why is it significant to compare indoor and outdoor media consumption? It works on the concept called "Aperture". The absorption of adver tising messages depends very much on the audience's frame of mind

CoverStory

across the City AE in Union ^5. After climbing the ranks in different ad agenas a media owner. As CEO of Hi-Q Media, he is responsible -than-life outdoor entertainment unit, which creates great Bukit Bintang road! ADOI sits him down to talk about why urban, active, exciting medium like the PowerScreen... for example, when your mother nags you, you shut off and don't listen. The same is true of advertising. An average working person is exposed to at least 500 mes sages in a day. Whether the ad message can secure an interactive process with the audience is the fundamen tal issue. Consumers react differently to advertising messages at differing points of message exposure e.g. the aspirational feeling to own a marque is most opportune when we are at the wheel and are exposed to the commercial. The advantage of Outdoor Broadcast

ferent stages of the communication process. Only few media can fulfill the entire process. Traditional think ing emphasised that the creative would play the crucial role of delivering the key message but the roles are now reversed as strategic thinkers in media specialist explore the option of achieving the communication objectives via strategic media options.

media is that it directs your messages to the consumer as they immerse themselves in particular upmarket activities.

tive development. Where does the PowerScreen fit in?

You've mentioned that media selection is based on objective - how does your media fit these objectives? There's a logical sequence which follows the con sumer's thinking process and leads up to the commu nication objective development. This must start from creating awareness, followed by enhancing knowl edge, then adopting preference, associating liking, con vincing endorsement and finally the purchasing act. Some media can be more effective than others at dif-

Then what you're saying is that different media are used at the different stages of marketing communication objec-

For me, Outdoor Broadcast Media covers a broad spec trum of the communication objectives simply by nar rowing the distance between the consumer and trade. This is what we call Proximity Marketing. Let's put it this way, running a campaign in isolation may not be able to achieve as much compared to a campaign sup ported by an event or a promotion. An awareness cam paign needs frequency; a brand building campaign needs to tell a story and create movement, agility and impact; sales promotion ads must push people when they are in the right frame of mind (right ambience); purchase action campaigns require you to be at the point of sale.

3D0I MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS 9

CoverStory The unique part of Outdoor Broadcast media is where it can fulfill the objec tives for the entire marketing commu nication process via an IMC strategy. The mindset of planners is beginning to shift from ordinary media mix solu tions to marketing communications solutions mix for example running a brand building campaign associated with a world-class event like the World Cup or the Fi with marketing initiative on sales promotions and selling activi ties.

Unlike the semi urban and rural groups, saving for the next generation is a secondary consideration for the former. We provide the best solution for image & brand building exercises. As marketers are becoming more demanding in their approach to brand building, the choice of media selection is gaining importance - apart from the creative consideration. After all, brand building is about reaching this specific group of people and not the others. Reaching the rest is just playing the numbers game by fulfilling the requirements of the con ventional approach. Innovators and early adopters are the actual target. They are the reference group in the eyes of semi-urban and rural groups. When a brand launches a new model and product, the adoption rate is spearheaded by this group. City folk are even more important to chal lenger brands as they help build that brand.

What are the key features of your media? PowerScreen has 3 basic powerful features. One, it is an active medium. As mentioned, our screen content entertains people when they are dead bored in a traffic jam. There's no zap ping, no zipping for this captive audi ence. Two, it is a focussed medium i.e. being the medium that specifically tar gets the affluent, trendy, youthful, high disposable-income target. This group of people consume large amounts of brand marketing i.e. they are willing to fork out the dollars for the brand. Hence, there is almost zero waste in ineffective reach. Three, it is a lifestyle medium. When I mention lifestyle, it must have a trendy & up-market feel. Where the audience is exposed to your commercials - sets you apart. Hence, location is key in outdoor media selec tion. A person's perception towards a brand very much depends on where the message is exposed. When your brand goes on a RM9 million screen - the impact is awesome!

People usually say that billboards after a while become a blind spot... As our delivery is non-static in nature we avoid the blind-spot syn drome. To secure attention from view ers, we always deliver messages in a refreshing manner. The word screen in our name reflects our core strength of moving images.

You mentioned that PowerScreen is the most Powerful Medium in the City, why are you concentrating on the urban? We are very keen on the city folk the modern Yuppies, the DINKs and the Whiz Kids who know how to appre ciate life and enjoy life. They spend while they earn and derive much satis faction from their flamboyant lifestyle.

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MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

£UB/ING PERMHA

Perhaps it's when they are stuck on the streets that people look at the com mercials as a means of entertain ment... I'd like to call them 'advertainment.' During the time you are most frustrated and bored in a traffic jam, when your objective is to get home as soon as possible - a series of commer cials and movie trailers will become a form of entertainment. But if your objective is to be entertained, ads then end to become more of a hindrance.

From top: PowerScreens in Ampang Point, SubangJaya, Klang Town, Komtar Penang and City Square, JB.

marketers are becoming more demanding in their approach to brand building, the choice of media selection is gaining importance apart from the creative consideration.

PowerScreen

What's you Number One priority? My priority is to provide a good product which enables strategic and media planners to adopt it strategical ly to meet clients' marketing needs. Eventually it is to be recognised by the industry as the leader in the Outdoor Broadcast category.

What do you enjoy most? To watch a particular thing grow and keep track of its progress. It started with my daughter, Audrey. My favorite past time is to watch her grow and appreciate her true self before she's influenced by the world around her. Now, perhaps I can watch the company grow in the same way and derive as much joy from it as I did from my daughter. Eventually we will take Hi-Q media regionally in the next 3 years.

TAKE ON THE BEST PROMOTION MARKETERS IN THE WORLD. CALL FOR ENTRIES

Media S p o n s o r s

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ENTRY PERIOD MAY 1st - J U N E 3 0 t h . To be eligible for entry into both programmes, each campaign submitted must have been in the field between June 1st 2001 and be completed on or before April 30th 2002.

y^vards Asia

Entries must be emailed by 5.00pm on July 1st to pmaaawardsramdsa.com.au Logon to apmaw.org for Full Details and Entry Forms.

WINNERS OF THE 2001 PROMOTION MARKETING AWARDS OF ASIA. THE BEST OF ASIA

The "Call for Entries" for the 2002 Promotion Marketing

141 Singapore "Walls Solero Shots - Do It Your Way"

Awards of Asia is now here and we challenge the Best in

GOLD WINNERS

Asia to participate.

Ogilvy & Mather. Philippines "Chivas Night Out: TriviB" 141 Singapore "Walls Solero Shots - Do It Your Way"

The Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia is the only Award

141 Singapore "Nokia 8250 - Walk on the Blue Side"

Programme that recognises excellence and mastery in

SILVER WINNERS

Promotion Marketing, across the diverse Asian Marketing

Team Mate Marketing Development, Taiwan "Return Back to Left Bank Cafe"

Industry and Region.

Batey Ads Singapore "Singapore Holiday Stopover"

Entry in the Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia also

Tequila Singapore "Absolut Vodka International Bartenders Event" Ogilvy & Mather. Philippines "Chivas Night Out: TriviO"

qualifies for an entry in the APMA "Globes" Worldwide

FM Communications. Korea "Festival of KTF Membership Card"

Award Programme. f

Zenith Media Singapore "Dare to get closer - Head & Shoulders"

The

I aIf l y V t \f)U\

APMA

Globes

FM Communications. Korea "Dash 1000! Go Digital Dream Team"

rewards

Behaviour Marketing. Japan "Paco Art Event" - Paco Rabanne

distinguished excellence in the

BRONZE WINNERS

Promotions Industry, and the

ICLP (AP) Singapore "Feeling Adventurous? - Air New Zealand" Ogilvy & Mather Advertising (Thailand) "Love & Care" Thai Life

The APMA Worldwide

A w a r d i

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Tequila Singapore "Amazingly Me" Palmtop M105 Launch Party

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Kirin Beverage Corp "Kirin Namacha" Conic Korea "Gatorade Promotion"

Marketing.

Ogilvy & Mather. Philippines "Chivas Night Out: Trivia"

Two World Class Award Programmes. One Entry Fee. CHECK THE APMA WORLDWIDE WEB SITE

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Ogilvy Live. India "The Rabies Roadshows" 141 Singapore "Nokia 8310 - Rhythmn of Life"

apmaw.org F O R

ALL ENTRY DETAILS.

PMAA Administrator: M i k e Da Silva • International Executive Vice President for the Asia South Region for the Association of Promotion Marketing Agencies Worldwide

X/^irketing

• Director of the Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia • Zonal Director, Asia Pacific for the APMA Globes.

Secretariat: Mike Da Silva and Associates Promotion Marketing.

15 Grosvenor Street, Neutral Bay, Sydney. NSW 2089. Australia. Tel: 61 2 9953 9633. Fax: 61 2 9953 9901. mdasilval9mdsa.com.au

MORE Clients _ CONSULTING for a Sydney agency on its longoverdue new-business drive is proving a fasci nating and frustrating experience. Fascinating because new business is the most adrenalincharged aspect of advertising. Frustrating beca use of the interplay if not outright conflict the project excites between the personalities and prejudices of the people involved. As you'd predict, the older heads in this long-established but low-profile agency see wis dom in building on its stable of mostly small, staid business-to-business clients by hangingon to what they have and aquiring more of the same. While equally unsurprisingly the young up-and-comers view the agency's past as the route that led it into its current rut, and are itching for new departures and directions. Finding myself in the middle of this classic "Evolution Vs Revolution" stand-off, and striv ing to remain the mediator rather than the meat in the sandwich, I've devised a system

that might just talce the discussion out of the emotional zone into the rational. It can help evaluate current clients to determine whether they're worth keeping and cultivating, and also rate prospective new clients according to the real contribution they'd make. I call it "More", or, more precisely, "M.O.R.E." M, of course, stands for Money, always the most cru cial issue if an agency is to survive, thrive and

high-interest category? Are its marketing peo ple smart and stimulating to work with? Is there a genuine opportunity to produce out standing, high-visibility advertising? Will cur rent agency staff be excited and proud to work on it, and the best new talent in the business be attracted by the opportunities it presents? So much for the test. Now for the results and interpretation. From my own observation

Money, Opportunity, Reputation, Excitement grow. And here is how I suggest the money question be asked of each client or brand, cur rent and prospective: is expenditure as big as promised, or as necessary to achieve advertis ing objectives, and does it deliver excellent cash flow or profitability or both? 0 is for Opportunity. Is the client a thriving and/or growing advertising-driven business in a buoy ant or expanding category and with manage ment talented and energetic enough to make it go places? Then there's R for Reputation. Are the client and its brand(s) well known, respected or even admired that the agency's reputation is enhanced by having them on its list? Finally, E for Excitement. Is the client in a

and personal experience I'd say that most adver tising agencies have never had a client that would rate a 4 on my M.O.R.E. Scale, and never will have. And the agency I'm currently con sulting for is no exception. It has a couple of 3s, a few that will never exceed 2, and of course the usual handful of is and Zeros. My advice to its management people will be that, if they dis pense with clients that rate less than 2 and approach only prospects rating 3, they'll likely end up with an agency with a good deal more going for it than most. Dean Johns is a partner in the regional creative hotshop CreAsia and strategic consultancy StrADegy. Email stradegy@optushome.com.au

ASTRO Kicks Off Football Carnival IN conjunction with the 2002 World Cup, ASTRO kicks off its 2002 Football Carnival in 24 locations throughout Malaysia. The carnival will last from April 19th to June 14th and of fers participants days of great fun with out door and indoor events designed to test their brains and brawn. Participants can expect to be duly rewarded with lots of prizes and sou venirs. Indoor events include "Dress to Impress" that will test your football fashion sense; "Beat the Buzzer" that will exercise your knowledge of international soccer; "Pieces into Faces" that will test your speed as well as other games and activities for the whole family. Viewers and listeners can also meet their

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MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

favourite DJs from Era and My.Fm such as Seelan Paul, Khairil Rashid, Lim Teilc Yin and Ling Hun Sing - at any one of the outdoor events and stand a chance to win fabulous prizes when they spot our Squad Perodua ERA and My FM Ford Escape Team. Everyone can also, take part in a 3-a-side challenge - a knock out competition. Aside from all this, free limited edition football jerseys will be given to all who sign up for the ASTRO service at any of the ASTRO 2002 Football Carnival venues. Current ASTRO sub scribers (who bring the Astro bill as proof of subscriber status) who sign on (or "introduce") two friends to the service will also be eligible

for this great limited edition ASTRO football jersey. All ASTRO subscribers also stand a chance to participate in the ASTRO Dream Team Challenge. Contest forms are available in the May issue of Astro Magazine or on www.astro.com.my. Astro will be giving away 20 trips to Korea / Japan but the final whistle blows May 31st 2002. The indoor venues in Peninsular Malaysia include Star Parade, Alor Star (May 3rd-5th), Megamall Pinang (May nth-i2th), Mid Valley Megamall (June 5th-9th). Amongst the outdoor venues are Esplanade, Penang (June 1st) and Stadium Shah Alam (June 2nd).

This could be the net to capture your audience

Over 2,000 hours of world class football action, 4 exclusive channels -100% coverage. All key matches LIVE during prime time. ONLY ON ASTRO! This June, World Cup fever will grip Malaysians once again and these are some of the reasons why more eyes will be riveted to ASTRO. Over 4 million potential viewers from the most affluent homes will get front row seats to the greatest sporting event of the year. This audience is truly a marketer's dream. Check out our innovative ASTRO World Cup Flexi Advertising Packages today and discover the perfect match for your advertising message.

Call Advertising Sales at Tel: 603-9543 6688 ext 8602 Fax: 603-9543 0566 e-mail: su-wei_wong@astro.com.my

The future is Direct-to-Uâ&#x201E;˘

MEDIAMAGIC

Carat's Fortunate!

By T. Sivananthi

WHEN Carat was first launched, they went about making a difference in the world of media specialists. For Lam Soon which was their first Carat client, they created a karaoke belt understanding full well that Malay housewives loved to sing. The idea was a hit and more than achieved its campaign objec tives. This went on to other "big ideas" in media, such as the creation of the friendship positioning and friendship day for Fisherman's Friend, the Festive Greetings for Cadbury (both where Carat closely worked with ntvr and Brand Energy) as well as negotiating and organizing with Channel V vj - Asha Gill to promote adidas streetball in Malaysia. "You can only do something new once - so you have to constantly innovate" reminds Margaret Lim, CEO of Carat Media. ADOI recently interviewed this vivacious, zesty lady about some mat ters pertaining to media... Is it the age of media independents? Today, almost every media department has been rebranded as a media specialist. Many clie nts still tend to think that because x is their cre ative agency, it follows that their media specialist must be the media specialist linked to that agency But clients will not get thebest media ser vices if they continue to have that mindset. For sure, clients should appoint a creative agency because of their great media and client servicing, but they should not settle for the media specialist that comes along with it unless they have evalu ated them to be the best for their needs. Unbund ling, i.e. separating the creative account and the media account will enable advertisers to get the best of both worlds. And I know of many adver tisers whodo not unbundle because they are con cerned about the cooperation and coordination between the creative agency and the media spe cialist. Carat is a Media Independent (which means we are not owned by any creative agency group) and we work well with all the creative agencies appointed by our mutual clients. That change in "not wise to unbundle" mindset is already happening among major advertisers. I think we're about 25% there.

Did media suddenly seize the spotlight in the industry because of fragmentation? Fragmentation has always existed. I believe that media specialists are playing an increasing ly important role due to the need to understand audience habits better in an increasingly media proliferated market where media options are countless. For advertisers, it must be the confi

1ft aDO! MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

dence of knowing that you are dealing with spe cialists in this area, people who understand your brand needs and will deliver the best communi cation strategy at the best prices.

You've been in media for a long time - how has the industry changed? Today media is not only about planning and buying spots - it's more exciting because we delve more into the brands as we have a direct relationship with the advertiser, and we have the mandate as we dialogue with media owners and explore areas that have not been done before. That's the challenge media specialists are facing - we have to understand the brand, understand our consumers and the media they consume and use this to make the media deliver our brand needs most effectively and efficiently.

You have a new tool called Fortuna - when we talk about the different problems of fragmenta tion - how does a tool like Fortuna help a client to reach the right person at the right time? Fortuna gives us a deeper insight into TV viewership, it analyses TV viewership on com parative bases and is a tv optimizer. In addition to the traditional TARPS, Fortuna enables us to evaluate TV options based on QRPs (qualified rat ing points). Sometimes when you watch a com mercial it works harder on you than at other times. Why is that so? If you're watching a cook ing programme - and a commercial about a culi nary product comes in - it makes more sense because affinity comes in. If there was a very popular programme on the other channel - what

is the chance that the viewer will be switching to the other channel? So Fortuna calculates the risk factor. Fortuna uses the same raw data from Nielsen but there are insights to the data that the industry subscribed Nielsen research does not make use of - like affinity, zapping, length of time that viewers look at the programme. We set all the stations side by side - TVi, TV2, TV3 and ntV7 so that we can see very clearly the risk fac tors of the audience moving to another channel. Fortuna helps make more effective tv buying decisions.

But you've also had other tools in the past? We've had Tracer and Scheduler for a couple of years. Tracer is a database tool - it helps us understand our client's market and how things are moving. It can tell us in a minute what hap pened historically, for example when we adver tised during a promotion what happened to sales for our brand and for our competitor for that period. It helps us make smarter decisions and makes the media work harder. Currently we are using it for 'Tops' where we can compute the adex information and the retail information and ana lyse trends and patterns to make smarter deci sions for the future. Scheduler, on the other hand, helps us sched ule our TV plans based on maximizing awareness levels in addition to the usual reach, average fre quency and TARPs benchmarks. Scheduler shows us how advertising recall is affected - if we stop advertising and it also tells us whether we are advertising excessively when increased advertis ing weights will not improve awareness further.

Title: Leaf (Teaser)

TVSHOWCASE

Perdana Dreams

Product: KFC Popcorn Chiken Production House: Passion Pictures

*&.'

f -i

Client: KFC Holdings Berhad Agency: BBDO

INTERFACE'S new commercials for Perdana V6 revolve around realising the dream of ownÂ ing a luxury car. Two different executions one featuring a male protagonist, the other with a female - play with the ideas and the images of what owning the Perdana V6 means to people. While the Perdana is not a BMW or a Merc, nevertheless it still stands for luxury in the minds of the common people albeit an affordable luxury.

Executive Creative Director: Huang Ean Hwa Art Director: Jules Tan Copywriter: Kym Chong Agency Producer: Joanne Lai Cinematographer: Zainuddin Mohd Film Director: Teck Tan Producer/f AD: Brian Francis

PASSIONPICTUflES

Line Producer: Penny Woo

DIRECTOR REPRESENTATION and PRODUCTION SUPPORT No.210, Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 60 3 2166 6448 Fax: 60 3 2166 6468 www.passionpictures.com.my

MEDIAOWNER

Reader's Digest's SuperBrands

By T. Sivananthi

L-R: Bharat Avalani (Unilever), Margaret Chua (Reader's Digest), TayAi Leen (Coke), Kala Devan (Celcom)

German Martinez (Avon) chats up TayAi Leen (Coke).

Adrian Tay (Coke) flanked by Megawati Md Rashidi (Avon) and Shahira Ahmed Bazari (P&G).

SuperBrands 201 Awards Presentation

The Canon client with his ad-man Charles Hor (Spencer Azizul).

ins zuuz intation Dinner

All the SuperBrand winners are all smiles.

IN today's highly competitive marketplace with a diverse range of products and services available, it is interesting to see what brands emerge as champions in the minds of con sumers. Every year, Reader's Digest conducts a SuperBrands survey amongst its readers. Respondents from six markets - Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines were asked to vote for their most preferred brands from 37 categories of products and services. The categories range from luxury goods to everyday necessities. The SuperBrand Gold and Platinum award winners achieved their status by receiving the highest ratings from con sumers. These brands were rated quantita tively and qualitatively on value, trustwor

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thiness, strong image and understanding of customer needs. The Gold SuperBrand status is awarded to brands whose performance rates significantly above others in the catego ry. Platinum SuperBrand status recognises top-notch brands and only a handful achieve this status. In Malaysia, many consumers demon strated brand loyalty and kept voting for recurring strong brands. Global brands such as Coca-Cola, Sony, Canon, Nokia, Nestle and National continued to dominate the brand landscape. The brands that came to the fore front in the survey for Malaysia are listed in the table on the right. On the whole, it might be interesting to note who emerged victors amongst brands in

Asia. Across the region, the following achiev ed Platinum status. Shangri-La (hotel), Singa pore Airlines (airline), Shell (gas station), Canon (home office equipment), Nokia (mobi le phone), Sony (tv, cd/md player, dvd player & video camera), National (washing machine), Lipton (tea), Nescafe (coffee) and Johnnie Walker (whisky). Asians typically wanted to wear a Rolex on their wrist, sip Coca-Cola, wash their hair with Pantene, use Avon cos metics and use Johnson&Johnson for their babies more than anything else. Peter Jeffrey (Regional Publisher) and Margaret Chua (Regional Advertising Director) came to town with their team to give away the awards to the Malaysian winners during a fun-filled evening for all.

Title: Bride for Brothers Product: HSBC Production House: Passion Pictures

The Malaysian SuperBrands according to readers of RD • — Car Hotel

0 Honda

• Toyota

Hilton

Shangri-La

Airline

0 MalaysiaAirlines

0 SingaporeAirlines

Gas Station

9 Shell

0 Petronas

Computer

0 Acer

0 Compaq

Home Office Equipment

Canon

Panasonic

Mobile Phone

0 Nokia

Television

0 Sony

CD/ MD Player

0 Sony

DVD Player

0 Sony

0 Panasonic

Camera

0 Canon

0 Nikon

Digital Camera

0 Sony

Watch

0 Rolex

Quality Pen

0 Parker

Washing Machine

0 National

Refrigerator

0 National

Air Conditioner

0 National

Mineral water

0 Spritzer

Soft Drink

0 Coca-Cola

Tea Coffee (Instant) Milk/ Milk Product

0 Panasonic

Canon

Video Camera

BOH

0 Dell

Sony B Canon

Sheaffer 0 Electrolux

Fraser & Neave 0 Lipton

0 Nescafe Dutch Lady

Fernleaf

Cereal

0 Kellogg's

0 Nestle

Soup (Canned or Packet)

0 Campbell's

0 Maggi

Cooking Oil

0 Knife

Seasoning Products

0 Maggi

Instant Noodles

0 Maggi

Beer

0 Carlsberg

Whisky

0 Johnnie Walker

Brandy/ Cognac

0 Hennessy

Shampoo/ Conditioner

0 Pantene

Toothpaste

0 Colgate

Skin Care

0 Johnson & Johnson

Cosmetics

0 Avon

Baby Food

0 Nestle

Baby Care

0 Johnson & Johnson

Nestle

0 Ajinomoto

Client: HSBC Agency: Lowe Worldwide / Lowe & Partners Sdn Bhd Creative Director: Chris Howden Agency Producer: Shahroom Ahmad

0 Darlie

0 Estee Lauder :

Heinz

Passion Pictures Exec Producer: Sheen S. Singh Film Graphics Producer: Marge Mclnnes Cinematographer: Keith Wagstaff Film Director: Matthew Humphrey Passion Pictures Line Producer: Razlan Ramdan

PASSIONPICTURES

DIRECTOR REPRESENTATION and PRODUCTION SUPPORT N0.210, Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 60 3 2166 6448 Fax: 60 3 2166 6468 www.passionpictures.com.my

AGENCYSHOWCASE

18 3D0I MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

Agency Showca

;e: Ogilvy & Mather AT the recent AdFest in Pattaya, O&M performed slightly better than the rest of the agencies in Kuala Lumpur. Here we showcase some of the work that has come out of the agency and has caught the eye of international judges. At the AdFest, O&M scored Final ists for Guinness' Rugby Stocking, Mattel's Fi and Police. Mattel's 'Worm' (not shown here) gar nered a Bronze. At Cannes, Finalist certificates were award ed for Guinness' 'X'Mas Stocking', 'Ying & Yang', 'Elephant' and Bata's 'Clown Goalie'. At the London International Advertising Awards, O&M again notched Finalists for Guinness' 'X'Mas Stocking', Panadol's 'Not Tonight', Eno's 'Balloon Stomach', Dove's 'Baby Bottom' and Bata's 'Formation, Canon, MIG 29' (not shown here). A sense of humour and wonderful crafting have help ed these ads capture hearts and minds. ADOI dedicates these two pages to O&M's awesome work!

1. Guinness - 'Ying & Yang' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Tan Chee Keong Copywriter: Alex Wong Photographer: Melvin/ Barney Studio 2. Guinness - 'Rugby Stocking' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Edmund/ Barney Studio 3. Guinness - 'Elephant' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: B. Raghu & Manish Bhatt Copywriter: Manish Bhatt £r Ian Lee Photographer: Melvin/ Barney Studio 4. Guinness - 'X'mas Stocking' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Jesse/ Barney Studio 5. Bata/Power Football Boots - 'Clown Goalie' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Fai & Raymond/ IFL Studio 6. Dove - 'Baby Bottom' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Raymond/ IFL Studio 7. Mattel - 'Police' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Fai/ IFL Studio 8. Panadol - 'Not Tonight' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Paul Lim Photographer: Fai/ IFL Studio 9. Eno - 'Balloon Stomach' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Gavin Earle Simpson Copywriter: Gavin Earle Simpson & Alex Wong Photographer: Raymond/ IFL Studio

•I

10. Mattel - 'Fi' Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Brian Capel Copywriter: Case Deenadayalan Photographer: Fai/ IFL Studio

3D0I MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS 19

MEDIAOWNER

A brand new day for The Sun

By T. Sivananthi

an orderly layout with plenty of short stories and with a stronger focus on graphics and pho tos. As for quality, I always draw an analogy with a budget airline. For a low fare, a budget airline gives you a no-frills service. However, it absolutely has to meet certain standards to make sure you fly safely, on time and you reach your destination satisfied. Similarly, while The Sun is free, we have in place editor ial -standards to make sure you get the latest news, events and information in a breezy, timely, balanced and accurate manner.

THE SUN is now free! With the increasing pop ularity of Today and Streats - two free newspa pers - in Singapore, the idea may actually catch on like fire here. ADOI met up with Phillip Karuppiah, Managing Director of The Sun to find out how sunny days are here for newspa per readers ...

Tell us a little about how the 'free' newspaper idea works... Well, technically, it's not "free" - as all of us know, there is no such thing as a "free lunch". That's true with your copy of The Sun too. The newspaper is actually paid for by advertisers. Under the new business model, our source of revenue will be completely from advertising. While our readers will have to pay a 30 sen delivery charge to their vendor to have the paper delivered to their doorstep, they can also pick it up for free at numerous locations nationwide. We have formed alliances with about 350 business partners that together provide us with more than 500 channels to distribute the paper to their staff, tenants and customers. This figure continues to grow as we sign up new partners. Our alliance helps increase traf fic flow to our partners and adds to their cus tomer service, resulting in a win-win situation for all parties. These business partners include, among others, major office complexes, convenience store chains, fast food and F&B outlets, banks, stockbroking firms, colleges, petrol kiosks and private medical centers, to name a few.

But the idea of a free newspaper is not new... While this model is a first for a national English newspaper in Malaysia, we are merely introducing an international trend that has been implemented successfully in Europe, the

20aDOi MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

US and other parts of the world for quite some time. Some good examples are the Metro in London and the Today newspaper in Singapo re, which has a readership of about 650,000 daily. Recently, Metro International launched its free Metro newspaper in Hong Kong. However, there is one big difference with regard to our model in Malaysia. In Europe and the US, public transportation is the main form of transportation for people in the major cities. You find that many people use the rail system to commute. Hence the newspapers in these countries mainly target rail commuters. In Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley however, public transportation is not necessar ily the preferred mode of transport of our tar get audience. Hence, we have adapted the model to suit local conditions. We have thus decided to form alliances with our partners to distribute the paper at key locations. This way, we make sure our distribution is focused and we directly reach our target audience.

You've also revamped the look and feel of the newspaper - an easy, breezy read - what can readers expect? We have revamped the paper to make it more convenient for it to be read. The new Editor-in-Chief, Zainon Ahmad calls it a "quick-and-easy-to-read" newspaper. The national and foreign news sections will con tinue to cover such areas as politics, socio-eco nomic affairs and crime, but in a brisk, shortand-sharp way to cater for the busy executives. The business section will focus on market wrap-ups, stock picks, stock quotes and nation al and international business. We also have a very strong sports section and an entertain ment section that provides the reader TV high lights and news on movies and celebrities. The Sun is now a more compact paper, with

Comparisons are odious but where do you stand compared to Malay Mail and Adsvantage? We are of the view that each of the three national English newspapers in Malaysia has its own role to play. Each paper caters to dif ferent market segments. Similarly we have identified our own market niche for The Sun a market segment that is different from that of the other two papers yet, in a way, comple mentary. It is not a question of The Sun replac ing either one or both of the two newspapers. Please bear in mind that there are only three national English papers in Malaysia. It is a relatively small number. As the country develops, people want more options, they want different ideas, opinions and views to be high lighted. They also expect different angles to stories - and the new Sun will play its role in addressing this need.

PRODUCTINNOVATION

Ribena Gets Mobile By T. Sivananthi

The Ribena Tvc

PRODUCT innovation is something that everyone aspires for, but only a rare few get right. Ribena seems set for success with its new Ribena Mobile drink. Targetting the away-from-home teenage and adult consumers, Ribena Mobile comes in a larger, trendier foil pack. Thanasekaran Dorairajah (pic ture above), Country Manager of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), explained that this was a possi bility that always existed - "Ribe-na is one of the brands that makes a connection with the consumer at a very young age - we've always been talking to children and the communica tion has been childlike. However we realised that the children of yesteryears have grown up and our research figures indicate that 30-40% of our consumption comes from adults. But we've never gone out and exploited the mar keting opportunity because we have to be care ful of dual or triple personality as brands. We can't suddenly sell the Ribena concentrate to adults. Suddenly this idea came and we decid ed on a pack design and the mix felt right." Brands under the GSK belt include Horlicks, Panadol, Scott's Emulsion, Eye-Mo, Eno, Aquafresh, Sensodyne and Oxy. GSK's to-tal a&p investment totals more than RM30 million yearly. With that many products and brands under their care, product innovation is quite central to Thana's paradigm. He elaborates, "When you talk about innovation most people

22 aDOI

MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

think you have to invent penicillin. The thought of it always puts people off. But it's not always about inv-enting penicillin - it's more about continually improving the product. I belie-ve in bri nging news to the brand. And every year - whether it's a new tvc, new packaging, new label or a product improvement - we strive to do that with our brands." In line with this, GSK has had quite a num ber of new products like Maltese for Horlicks, Pastilles for Ribena, Panadol Soluble and Panadol Menstrual for Panadol and Eye-Mo Moist for Eye-Mo. According to Thana, all have delivered the expected results and some outdid their expectations like Pastilles. "Ribena has been a resilient brand for us through the eco nomic downturn. We hope that the launch will be successful and will contribute about 20% to the base Ribena business in two years' time." Ribena Mobile was first launched in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. GSK is spending RM3 million on the Ribena Mobile launch and Thana feels that the invest ment is justified because "We don't roll out new products every month and when we do, we have to back it up well." The launch is centered around events catering for teens and pre-teens with activities like inline skating and skate boarding. The company brought youths to the event with a viral marketing campaign - via an e-card. But the driver for the campaign is abovethe-line advertising. A new tvc was launched with Sarimah Ibrahim as the face and attitude of Ribena Mobile. The familiar Ribena Berry is around to keep the ties with the brand. Grey Advertising handles Ribena through a globally aligned account. In fact all of GSK's brands are spread between Grey and O&M. GSK is still an ardent proponent of main

stream advertising and spends70% of their bud get on tv. "Print is a good support, and we use radio tactically. At the end of the day we will also have a certain amount of money left for experiments. We are not big spenders in out door because if you want to do it - you have to do it well and then you'd have to sacrifice the mainstream which we don't have the luxury of doing." At the same time, GSK is also exploring the internet, e-marketing and customer rela tions marketing possibilities - Kids' Health - a newsletter which caters for mothers is one such result. Last year, Ribena chalked up an impressive performance and grew by 13%. The GSK brands notch an average of 7% across the portfolio with the exception of one brand. How is it that GSK is growing while the rest of the world is moaning about shrinking sales and market shares? Thana emphatically says "Don't talk to me about the economy being down - everyone is being paid to majiage in that environment - to move products in whatever situations we find our selves in. And in our company advertising is not compromised, promotions are not compro mised, so there's a platform for sales to take off." Clients have expectations of their agencies and for Thana it is imperative that "Agencies have to really understand our brands. In fact the agency person handling the account shou-ld be able to be an alternative brand manager. Let's say if my brand manager is away - the agency person should be able to fill in for him. It would be better if agency people could have a competi tive perspective - they need to know what others are doing and what's happening in the market ing world so that they can bring this informa tion back to us. They need to be strategic to demonstrate strategy - weigh the pros and cons so their analysis is incisive and when they pre sent the proposals there is a great deal of clari ty. Because they are agencies they have to bring the head and the heart together."

MARKETINGPLATFORM

By T. Sivananthi

NIKE, has come with a brand new marketing platform - the football game. Recently launch ed, its timing coincides with the World Cup when awareness of the game is at an all-time high. However, Nike decided to capture the imagination of Consumers by doing a slightly different take on football. Nike's global cre ative agency - Wieden & Kennedy came th a very short, sharp, stinging version of calling it the 'Scorpion League'. It's a new game, taking place on a small pitch which is caged up and the rules of the game are simple: 3 players to a side, first goal wins, max imum time - 3 minutes. The 24 international football stars which Nike has signed up played the first and original 'Secret Tournament' which was then shown as a tvc. Interestingly enough Eric Cantona is the referee for the tvc matches. Before the launch of the 'Secret Tour nament' scorpions showed up all around town

- introducing nikefootball.com in an enticing way. This was followed by the LRT attacks, a city attack and an internet attack with an eyeblaster. Nike also distributed postcards and stickers and sent up a team to deface a billboa rd by stencilling a scorpion. They also sten cilled planks and fields. When the slick 'Secret Tournament' tvc was shown, audiences watch ed some really great players endorsing a very urban, compressed and almost subversive ver sion of football - but a game which is actionpacked, speed-based and employs unconventio nal skills. The Scorpion League then filters down to the masses - invitations were sent to school football teams to participate. For those not athletically inclined - they can play it on nikefootball.com.

Nike previously used basketball and tennis with great success and football will enable it to enter more markets outside the U.S. But the game is not new to Nike - they have done a lot of below-the-line football activity like the Nike Premier League for under-i5s as well as 3otball for Kids' with FAM for the past 4 to 5 years. According to Sharon Ong, Nike Malaysia's Marketing Manager (below left), "we've always been in football but not everyone knew about it." Now the aim is to merge the below-the-line and the above-the-line - and make football a strong platform for Nike. "What football has done for Nike in Europe is phenomenal" elaborated Sharon. In the English Premier League, Nike sponsors both Arsenal and Leeds and the football used in the EPL is the Nike football. The Nike football is also officially kicked around in the Spanish League. "They've really hit home because today when you think about the two brands in foot ball - they are Nike and Adidas. And Nike is the latecomer on the scene." In the World Cup, Nike is a strong player and is backing the teams from Brazil, Portugal, Croatia and Rus sia - and they will turn up on the field in full Nike regalia. Sports celebrities have always been the stronghold of Nike - and it's no dif ferent for the new marketing platform. This time round they have signed up many of the athletes who will be playing in the World Cup: Nakata (Japan), Figo (Portugal), Ronaldo and Carlos (Brazil), Henry (France) as well as Totti (Italy). Players who are playing for the nonNike teams are limited to wearing Nike boots. "In Malaysia, our sportsmen include Zainal Abidin, who is our football ambassador. The captain of the national team - Ahmad Shahrul Azhar, the top striker of the M-League - Khalid Jamlus as well as Ahmad Juzaili Sameon (who used to be with the Nike Under-15 team and is presently a midfielder for the national) are all our Nike men on a mission. Naturally, Titus James, the football prodigy is also someone we are sponsoring and he's currently playing for a team in France. After all, the picture wouldn't be complete without a football version of Air Jordans. This time round, the shoe on the foot is the Mercu rial which is "very streamlined and very sleek" and as Sharon puts it "the technology going into this shoe is simply mind-boggling." Nike allocates 7-10% of its revenue to a&p every year.

A city attack!

The Secret Tournament Tvc.

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MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS 23

SALESPR0M0TI0N

Who Wants To Be A MBF £.power MasterCard H9 cards

This could be YOU. Be an instant millionaire with MBF MasterCard 2002 FIFA World Cup™ ONE MILLION RINGGIT Fever.

Millionaire? By T. Sivananthi

our cardmembers enjoy the best acquisition offer in town. The target market for the acquisition programme are football fans, sports enthusi asts and anyone who is attracted to the RMi,ooo,ooo prize pool" said Selina. Interesting promotions are very often part and parcel of MBF's cam paign to acquire as well as retain their members. Selina explains - "As an innovative credit card company and as part of our effort to continuous rewarding our cardmembers, we carry out promotions on a regular basis for our existing cardmembers as well as to acquire new cardmembers." Most companies chase new members while forgetting to reward theloyal followers. An example of a promotion that helps keep cardmembers with MBF is their Spiderman Promotion which rewards "20 lucky CardMembers with a free trip to Universal Studios, Florida to see SpiderMan live' behind the scenes. This is a spending campaign where all a CardMember has to do is charge a minimum of RM100 on their MBF MasterCard to be in the running. Every 100,000th transaction will win one of the 18 trips to watch Spider-Man at Universal Studios." MBF Cards has done quite a number of promotions which proved to be extremely successful. This includes their 'Unique Signature' contest

Capitalising on football frenzy.

which rewarded existing cardmembers for their support with thelargest ever prize pool in the country worth RM5 million. Spending and acqui

PROMOTIONS keep bringingin the crowds. The lure of the free gift is so

sition contests include the '10 Years free Living Contest' in 2001 and '6

irresistible that it keeps us collecting coupons, completing slogans,

Free Peugeot 206' in 2000. Promotions have also been used to inculcate a

entering contests, eatingregularly at certain food outlets, openingbank

certain lifestyle as the 'Call 'n Pay 10 Years No Bills' promotion aimed to

accounts and signing up for credit cards. In a similar spirit and to add

do. And the reason that promotions work must simply be because at the

to the excitement of the football-crazy atmosphere, MBF Cards is giving

end of the day, deep in their hearts, people like to dream about winning. Perhaps with a little bit of skill and some luck, the dream can come true

away more than RMi million. Leveraging onMasterCard's sponsorship of the World Cup, MBF Cards

for some!

has created a promotioncentered around the 2002 FIFA competition. The contest works very simply - all new approved applicants can enter the contest where they will rank in order the teams that will finish as the top eight (including the result of the Final) of the 2002 World Cup. Selina Kok, Assistant Manager of Acquisition £1 Product Development at MBF Cards, adds that "There is also a 2nd prize worth RMioo,ooo and a 3rd prize worth RMio,ooo. Successful applicants will also enjoy a waiver of their joining and first year annual fees, a free mobile phone and the opportunity to win a daily cash prize of RM300 for the lucky 188th approved basic cardmember." The promotion is backed upby a combina tion of print and electronic campaigns which talk about the contest and share interesting trivia about the 2002 World Cup. To assist the partici pants of the contest, MBF Cards is also sponsoring a radio programme on WOWfm (97.6 fm) where Shebby will share with the listeners the strengths of the 32 FIFA World Cup teams during the morningpeak hour. Naturally the aim of the promotion is to drive new card acquisition across all card types and sales channels. "We wanted the contest to gen erate the same excitement as the 2002 FIFA World Cup while ensuring

(+aD0! MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

From left-right: TonySavarimuthu, Executive Vice President (MBFCards), Yasmin Yusof, . General Manager of WOWfm, Shebby and Gan Kheng Chai, Director Member Relations (MasterCard International)

SPORTSPONSORSHIP

A Priceless Sponsorship By T. Sivananthi

The special World Cup affinity cards.

COMPANIES have successfully used sports sponsorships to build business and brands. But sports need not necessarily be the domain of sports goods, sports apparel and health drinks - in fact MasterCard shows how it can be done for financial services. MasterCard sponsors the Jordan Grand Prix Formula One, the PGA Tour and the title sponsor of the Senior PGA Tour as well as numerous football tournaments includ ing the 2002 FIFA World Cup. ADOI catches up with Jim Cheah(left), Country Manager of Master-Card to talk about how this particular spon sorship benefits the company. "Using sports as a platform has always been our forte" declares Jim." MasterCard is a glob al company and 1.7 billion people around the world carry a card which bears either Master Card, Maestro or Cirrus. Because of the global scale of business, we have to find a platform that fits strategically - sports is a healthy sub ject which strikes a chord of passion in people and thus has a broad fit which allows us to reach out to the world." MasterCard uses its sponsorship of sports to reinforce brand image and awareness as well as generate business building opportunities for MasterCard mem bers and merchants. Thus far Jim counts 9 member institutions in Malaysia and Singapore leveraging on the World Cup sponsorship with more to join. "Our members use it to build the business - both to acquire new members and as an incentive to use more of the card." The sponsorship not only allows MasterCard to have their logo at the side of the field but also allows them to use

the FIFA official World Cup logo. "We can pass the sponsorship to our members - which is a big benefit, we have access to tickets - another big benefit which allows us to run promo tions." MasterCard has been sponsoring the World Cup for more than a dozen years and Jim reck ons that the sports platform has paid off bigtime for the company. "The way for us to mea sure the return is to see the kind of support we get from our member financial institutions -

because we do it to help them. In1998,356 mem bers in 71 countries spent US$ 80 million mar keting or using or leveraging the World Cup to build their business. That speaks volumes for us and I'm waiting to see in August this year whether we top that." Just on the affinity cards alone (these are the 6 special edition credit cards launched during the World Cup), MasterCard notched up a whopping 1.5 million cards in less than 3 months. These affinity cards usually bear the image of Pele (who is the ambassador for MasterCard) and are issued only during this period. Pele also conducts coaching clinics on behalf of MasterCard and Jim notes "We even brought Pele to Malaysia and he did some coaching clinics - this is something healthy for the youths. Pele is one of the world's greatest football players - he has more than 1000 caps - he is an icon, living leg end that people look up to. It's good for us to have him as a spokesperson." Besides the World Cup, MasterCard also sponsors the Euro Cup and the Copa America.

Currently MasterCard is literally the mas ter amongst cards - 2.2 million out of the 3 mil lion card holders flaunt the red and orange cir cles. But for Jim "Our main competitor is cash as only 10% of all transactions are made thro ugh the credit card. There's a huge market waiting to be converted. On the competitive front - we're about 60% ahead of our closest competitor." In the next 5 years, Jim hopes to see MasterCard having 75% market share. When credit cards were first launched they offered prestige but today consumers are increasingly looking for lifestyle and payment options. "I want people who are paying their phone bills, their insurance, their children's education, hospital bills to put all these pay ments on their card. That's the vision and the dream." And perhaps by offering some priceless football moments - it might become a reality.

MasterCard.

r®

aDOl MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS 25

BRAND8UILDING

Flavouring Life The Asian

Way By T. Sivananthi

"The taste is key to our product and that's why we choose such a strategy." LEE KUM KEE is one of the most resilient Asian brands in town. It started off with a man named Lee Kam Sheung who, in 1888, invented an oyster sauce so popular that he was bottling and selling it to his neighbours in his village of Namshui. But his little factorycaught fire and he moved to Macau. In Macau his business thrived and he moved again - this time to Hong Kong. Ever since then, the brand has stayed put and has grown from strength to strength. It may come as a surprise to many to find out that for the first two generations, Lee Kum Kee was a two product company resting on its 'Premium Oyster Sauce' and its 'Fine Shrimp Sauce'. It was only in the third gener ation, with Lee Man Tatt, "that the product range was considerably increased" said Lam Yue Choong, Senior Area Business Manager of Lee Kum Kee. "One of his brilliant moves was to come up with a middle-range oyster sauce which is sold under the Panda brand. Today, this is the best-seller amongst our products" explained Lam. Although the panda is com mon enough an icon for Chinese products, Lee Man Tatt chose the panda because Zhou En Lai presented a pair of pandas to Nixon during

26 aDOl MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

the latter's state visit to China in 1972. The Panda for Lee Man Tatt represents the symbol of goodwill to the West. With a similar inten tion, he chose a bridge as the company's logo. "He had the vision of the company bringing Chinese cuisine to the rest of the world. The food was a bridge between China and the West. Today, surprisingly enough the States is our largest market. In every China Town and in every Chinese restaurant - there's Lee Kum Kee!" explained Lam enthusiastically. The company has not taken the route to diversify their products into other areas and are sticking strictly to providing Chinese sea soning and condiments simply because it is their forte. Over the years they have had many additions to their sauces - amongst them black bean, chilli, garlic, black pepper, 'hoi sin' and 'char siew'. In Malaysia they even have a brand named 'Mahsuri' and this is because "although all the sauces are halal, some consumers are still very cautious espe cially in the East Coast. It was important to have a Malaysian brand name" Lam elaborat ed. They recently introduced the handy and convenient sauces in sachets which undoubt edly will be quite successful. Although Lee Kum Kee is a dominant force in the local market (especially in the Chinese segment), there are about 50-60 small players in the Chinese sauces and condiments market. Lee Kum Kee has 30% share of the local mar ket and about 60% in Singapore - and they are still looking to grew very strongly. "As con

sumers become more discerning of not only taste but also factors such as quality of ingre dients, food safety and hygiene, we are confi dent that the brand will notch double digit growth" said Lam. Lee Kum Kee is also the strongest player in the Indonesian market but it is selectively distributed. "The company is now looking at Malaysia as the regional sourcing base for ASEAN." A brand like Lee Kum Kee has an annual a&p budget that ranges between RM 2 mil lion to RM 3 million. Still a low profile brand, they advertise mainly in Chinese newspa pers "because there's where our target mar ket is" explained Lam. "English newspapers are more expensive and there's a lot of clut ter in a couple of them." Lee Kum Kee also prefers to use billboards because they span "a longer time and are sustaining. We can also be very strategic about where we put our self." On TV, they've chosen to be on Wah Lai Toi and "we're very focussed and we only advertise our 'Premium Brand Oyster Sauce' on tv" said Lam. The company has signed on Agnes Chang who does cooking demonstra tions and after she has mesmerised her audi ence of 400 or 500 people, they can sample the food. "When they do that, they can taste the difference. The taste is key to our prod uct and that's why we choose such a strate gy." From time to time, Lee Kum Kee also runs consumer contests like the recent 'Pick the Favourite Malaysia Dish' which gives away cash prizes to reward loyal consumers.

Lam Yue Choong (centre) with his Marketing Manager and the Lee Kum Kee range.

Face to Face with a Legend Abhijeet Dutta Ray, Strategic Planning Director Ogilvy & Mather, Thailand

THIS is an-exclusive for the readers of Adoi, I have worked with several living legends in my previous lives with other agencies. However no one comes close the one I wish to write about today. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the first woman to head up a multinational agencyoffice in Asia. The first Asian to be nominated to the worldwide board of a multinational age ncy network. An astute businesswoman resp onsible for putting her country office on the global map of hugely successful agencies inter nationally. Someone who has run a largely pro fitable office for nearly three decades. I pre sent to you Khun Sunandha Tulayadhan, exChairman of Ogilvy & Mather Thailand Group. Even as you read this piece, she is just begin ning to enjoy her very early days of retirement from professional life. She has just handed

ice. During her tenure, she took several new initiatives - at times even ahead of the parent organization. Examples - spinning off the gra phic design unit into a new company called 'Artistree' (which has since merged under Ente rprise IG) and launching the Public Relations discipline as a separate entity from the main agency before Ogilvy PR took shape interna tionally. Ogilvy had an in-house research cell, right from the seventies to help clients under stand consumers and grounding strategic rec ommendations on validated principles. Recently I asked her to think back and tell me about the most defining moment of truth for her as far as the agency was concerned. She recalled a worldwide meet a couple of decades ago in New York. Several days had been spent with mind numbing financial details and it seemed all too hard and complicated, when David Ogilvy stood up to give his closing rem arks. By the time Mr. Ogilvy sat down, it beca me crystal clear to K. Sunandha that it was unlikely that she would ever move out of Ogil vy, and it had all to do with the guiding prin cipals on which the agency stood, freshly affir med by Ogilvy himself. I was fortunate to chat with her on her

noticed the trend towards dressing down in the office. I have nothing against that, but I think it is very important to dress in a manner that makes you both comfortable and respec table. Apart from the dress the traits of charm and decency are very important. Decency can be contagious." On assigning jobs to staff: "I have learnt that assigning people to positions is like cast ing for a performance. Each position is a role that needs to be played out by the best possible cast. I have always taken a personal interest in researching each role in terms of all that the

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"These days younger people are more confident, they are able to take more

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risks in the hope of getting more rewards. We should harness this ability and stretch them beyond their perceived limitations to get the best results." over her responsibilities to Tim Isaac who is also Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Asia Pacific. The story of K. Sunandha's life reads much like a film script based on ad agency life. Back in 1974 she was heading up Account Manageme nt in a home-grown agency called Inter Asian which got bought out by the "Red Machine", where she continued in this role. In 1977 she met the other legend - Barry Owen who came to head up Creative. Their partnership took Ogilvy Thailand from strength to strength to emerge as the creative powerhouse that it is today. The partnership lasted a quarter of a century - possibly one of the longest anywhere in this industry. In 1980 K. Sunandha took charge as Manag ing Director of the Thai office, only the second Art Director in the network to head up an off-

many experiences over the years and I soon began to realize that the richness of details and the supporting documents and photogra phs lend themselves easily to the making of a great biography. While I hope she does for once rise above her uncommon sense of humility and put it all down in a book one day, let me share some gems of wisdom that I picked up from her. On new young recruits; "These days younger people are more confident, they are able to take more risks in the hope of getting more rewards. We should harness this ability and stretch them beyond their perceived limi tations to get the best results. This helps emb race both the business needs of more creativi ty as well as helps build careers" On the trend of dressing down: " I have

job demands as well as client expectations...it is only then that I have looked for appropriate people. When a member of staff is unable to fulfil a role, the senior management who hired or assigned him is to blame as they basically miscast that person." On perennial cynics: "Cynicism is the worst enemy of excellence." And in the interest of space, here is one final thought provoking one on email: "I find people spending too much time on email. Some think that by sending across a strategy document over email, they have done the job. It is only a speeded up system for delivery of messages. Has the strategy been communicated?" If this is not true inspiration, I am not sure what is.

aDOl MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS 27

INTERACTIVE

News Briefs: M'sia • 3 WIN LIA AWARDS The 2001 London International Awards saw three winners from Malaysia. DY&R won an award for its radio spot 'Anaconda' created for Nike. D'Arcy won two awards for the Direct Mail: Trade for its book 'The D'Arcy Creative Forum - An advertis ing book without the Bullshit' and the Copywriting Category for 'Cat's Food'. Six others received finalist certificates: Bozell, BateyAds, OgilvyOne, O&M, Naga DDB and FCB.

The Real Universe is

Always One Step Beyond Logic by Josh Sklar, global Chief Creative Officer CCG.XM -jsklar@ccgxm.com

pressure to deliver quickly coupled with this inexperience that causes people to act so irra tionally. And it seems that to go back the next time after having done a 360 to see what went wrong and get a little smarter is equated with losing face. Talk about your vicious cycles. I really want to write about the brilliant successes that my counterparts have crafted for their clients and end-users. It's not my in tention to be the ever-dissatisfied critic of my peers. I just don't see change. Not in the proces ses I've observed in my experience with many types of companies and certainly not in the deliverables that are publicly available on the Web and often supported by marketing. There

• NEW CEO OF TV3 Ahmad Farid (previously Executive Director of Leo Burnett) was recently named the new CEO of TV3.

• AFFIN BANK AIMS FOR 100,000 CARD HOLDERS Affin Bank exceeded its modest target of 50,000 when it launched its credit cards last year. The bank credited the favourable response to the fact that it promoted its credit cards as an entire package rather than focus on individual features. Card members were offered free travel insurance, transfer of outstanding balance from the banks for low interest rates, rebate of interest rates at a tier rate and cash bonuses for retail transactions.

• BAT RECORDS RM229 MILLION PRE-TAX PROFIT BAT's pre-tax profit for the first quarter ending March 31st 2002 increased by 2% to RM229.085 million from RM224.133 million. The rise in prof itability is attributed to better domestic margins though revenue declined to RM769.82 million from RM782.937 million. Dunhill continued to notch steady, marginal growth while Kent, Ben son £r Hedges and Peter Stuyvesant performed satisfactorily.

• AIR ASIA RECORDS FLYING PROFITS AirAsia is raking in around RM1.5 million in profits a month. The new business model as a nofrills airline is apparently working out well for them. The company has also managed to pay off up to 80% of its debts. Tune Air took over the management of AirAsia from December last year.

• HEINEKEN TO SELL MORE BEER TO MALAYSIANS Heineken is poised to carve out a bigger share of the Malaysian premium beer market. Heineken posted over 20% growth in its current financial year. Heineken, according to an official stateme nt, has been a trailblazer in developing and growing the premium beer market in Malaysia and prospects are promising for the brand to eventually dominate this market segment.

• RECORD NUMBER OF SMS ON CELCOM Celcom is set to achieve its traffic of 20 million text messages a day. Celcom successfully trans mitted 600 million text messages on its network during the first three months of the year and in that period had achieved 33.5% of its year-end target of 20 million messages daily. Celcom's SMS-based services enjoy the highest traffic in the country compared to Maxis (80 million monthly), TMTouch (30 million monthly) and TimeCel (15 million monthly).

283001 MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

THAT'S the sort of title that makes you space out for a second, isn't it? To prove how quali fied I am to be in the interactive industry: it's a quote from The Sayings of Muad'Dib by the Prin-cess Irulan in the Dune books by Frank Herbert. Now in my case, the "Real Universe" is this very field and it follows that logic, though seemingly intrinsic in a business depen dent upon technology, is just out of reach. I shouldn't be, but I'm still constantly ama zed that people on both the vendor and the patron sides seem to not understand that care fully planned steps are a requirement to a suc cessful project. I'm becoming such a cynic that I'm not sure whether it's due to ignorance, arrogance or apathy why research isn't regu larly first carried out - not to just qualify but validate an approach. Why isn't the intended audience first screened for their needs and opinions? Why aren't past successes and fail ures analyzed against current needs? Up-todate competitor comparisons mapped to the client's situation and proposed solution? Oh - money. Fair enough to a point. How ever, if initial trials prove that the science of applying a logical progression to attacking a problem is successful, then how can compa nies (and so agencies) work in any other way? If a systematic, thoughtful approach can more or less extrapolate an outcome, why not spend for the sake of predictable success? Why bank everything on a gut feel? Can business be seri ously maintained in such a way? I've harped on the inexperienced joining the Internet revolution ad nausea, no doubt. It still seems to be a lingering problem though. Even now corner-cutting is happening at the best of places to the detriment of the holy grail: ROI. No one wants to fail. It must be internal

...if initial trials prove that the science of applying a logical progression to attacking a problem is successful... may well be extremely skilled and talented people still plugging away in new media, striv ing to deliver the first-class work they're cer tainly capable of producing. But if they are not given the tools they need to connect the dots in a manner that will be successful for the unique population they are targeting, then you will still have, ultimately, an expensive failure. It may look fabulous in an Art Director's portfo lio or as a case study mired in theory, but it will unlikely make good on a business-oriented objective. The solution is cold, pure logic. Think the problem through. Use common sense to help plan how to test the effectiveness of an idea. Do interviews, focus groups and workshops. If budget is really a major concern and you're not buying into the idea of reason, gather a small er number of participants or apply only a few of the steps to see if the results improve at all. To keep moving in an unsubstantiated, subjec tive, ad hoc style will only guarantee that you fail. It's only logical.

Copywriters wanted. Please send resume to jamaliyah.rp@bbdo.com.my

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News Briefs: Asia

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• BBDO DOES SOME SOCIAL MARKETING IN INDIA RK Swamy BBDO intends to establish health care, social and rural marketing divisions.

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The Economist Group has launched CFO China, a

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News Briefs: World • JAY CHIAT LEAVES THE WORLD Ad Legend Jay Chiat passed away on April 23 of lung cancer. Born in the Bronx in 1931, Jay opened his agency in LA in 1962. Six years later he and Guy Day started Chiat/Day Adage's Agency of the Year in 1980 & 1988. And of course who can forget the '1984' Apple ad which was their brainchild?

• NEWSWEEK WINS OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB AWARD Newsweek Magazine was recently awarded one of the most prestigious international reporting awards for its coverage of the war on terror. The Overseas Press Club of America awarded a team of Newsweek reporters with the Ed Cunningham Memorial Award for best reporting from abroad on April 25. Contributing photographer Luc Delahaye was also presented the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for a portfolio of photo graphs from Afghanistan.

• DEUTSCHE TELEKOM RECRUITS STAR TENNIS COUPLE Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, are to star in an international campaign for the German telco giant's T-Mobile subsidiary. The couple's baby will also feature in the ads. The campaign was conceptualised by Saatchi&Saatchi and uses the international life-style of the high-profile couple which lends itself well to frequent use of services such as telephone, voice or SMS text messaging via mobile or photo mail.

• RECKITT BENCKISER PICKS TWO Household products giant Reckitt Benckiser has split its estimated $430 million global advertising business between WPP Group's J. Walter Thomp-son Co. and Havas Advertising's Euro RSCG Worldwide. JWT will handle the surface care and health and personal care brands and Euro RSCG will handle fabric care, dish washing and homecare categories.

• LARGEST PHOTO BY CANON? Canon Europe has wrapped a 2,000-square-meter Photomosaic poster around London's IMAX cinema. Part of its "You Can" pan-European ad campaign, the poster consists of 40,000 separate digital photographs (of self-portraits of Canon employees) spanning the 'seven ages of man' made famous by William Shakespeare.

• OMNICOM TURNS OUT 7 INSIDERS Omnicom recently streamlined its board of directors to eleven, cutting seven insiders. Those departing the board, effective after the May annual meeting are: Keith Reinhard of DDB Worldwide, Allen Rosenshine of BBDO Worldwide, Jim Cannon, CFO of BBDO Worldwide, Bernard Brochand of DDB Worldwide; Thomas Harrison, chairman, CEO, Diversified Agency Services; Michael Greenlees, evp, Omnicom and Jean-Marie Dru CEO of TBWA Worldwide.

• UNIVERSAL MCCANN WINS NESTLE Universal McCann, New York, the global media agency for Nestle, has retained and added to its responsibilities for the Swiss marketer, winning the client's consolidated US$375 million media buying account in a two-shop shootout against PHD, St. Louis, sources said. With the win, Universal McCann now handles close to $1 billion in Nestle media business around the world.

aDOl

MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

A galaxy of light splashing gloriously out of the world's ad press. THERE appears to be a lot of stuff about famo us personalities cropping up recently. Most notable is that few have anything at all to do with the products they're endorsing. And some are even fronting totally different prod ucts at the same time. Take lady kung fu whiz Zhang Zi Yi. Media Magazine has featured her Visa Credit Card appearance while at the same time she was also appearing for TAG Heuer wat ches, ("Is that really the time? Must buy some new pajamas, a new sword and new manage ment"). This grew to silly proportions in Japan (surely not? Ed.) with pop star Sting appearing in two concurrently running TV campaigns, one for video tape and one for beer. Neither product related to Sting and neither product related to each other (unless the advancing wrinklage and hair departure is demanding out-of-focus home movie viewing.) Most dramatic is the large number of sports stars bouncing up. Adage reports that General Motors is making Tiger Woods (he's been in other ads too, hasn't he?) the first-ever hon orary chairman of the Buiclc Scramble, the world's largest amateur golf tournament. I can see it now, Woods tearing up the fairways in a GM Hummer running over caddies, side swip ing his opponent while being chased by the groundsman. Golf and gas-guzzlers, a hole in one. Adage also informs us that Deutsche Telekom has hired 'the world's most famous tennis couple', Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, to star in an international campaign for their TMobile subsidiary. Adage describes one TVC showing Andre sitting in his garden, watching sports event via his mobile phone. In a second commercial, Steffi is in New York taxi and pho nes her husband to ask "How are you doing boys?" Andre replies from the kitchen "Great, we're just eating." Riveting stuff if you ask me. Now, I dare you tell me that using a star is merely a substitute for a good idea. Even movies are using sports stars to attract audiences. Adweelc reports that, at "The Scor pion King" movie premiere, the audience clear ly appreciated its star, the famous wrestling 'athlete' The Rock. Most likely the real appeal would be the film's close resemblance to the

standard WWF plot. Good guy gets bashed, good guy returns to bash bad guy, big bosomed girl cheers. It'll make a mint. Singers feature too in this star renaissance. Adweek sports a piece about how McDonald's will break a new campaign with singer Alison Krauss. Where's the connection? Fast food is cheap, mainly low in nutrition and stodgy. Alison's recent album, with country band Uni on Station, has her sitting at the bar of a fast food restaurant. That'll be it then. Adweek again tells us that singer Britney Spears is peddling her Britney 4 Wheelers sig nature roller skates. Spend was not revealed. Connection also not featured. She probably uses them to swiftly escape possible hymen inter ference. But who cares, I would buy anything Britney told me to. In Australia's B&T they say that Dulux owned British Paints has ditched Rolf Harris for actress Sophie Lee as part of a major repo sitioning aimed at revitalizing the stagnant brand. Talk about positioning changes. Ms Lee appeared in a TV show called Sex, and was the beautiful/ugly protagonist in the movie Muri el's Wedding. Bit of a bimbo but certainly colo urful. She's replacing Rolf, the man known mainly for his family appeal, his wobble board and tying his kangaroo down. The reason for the switch, according to British Paints brand manager Anurita Kapur, was, "While British Paints has traditionally had a masculine mar keting skew, the new campaign signals a new female-focused positioning for the brand." So are we to assume that it's Ms Kapur? Finally so as not to feel movie stars are be coming totally redundant as pushers, Media Magazine tells us that Shoppes Manila, a classy clothes store is about to feature Alicia Silverstone as their spokesperson. Apart from her perfect relevance; ditzy, blond, chubby and fading into obscurity, this paves the way for some outstanding adverts. Posters currently on view read "Is she clueless or could she be a bat of a girl". I think Tiger Woods would have been a better choice.

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CREATIVECHARACTER

He's Back!

By T. Sivananthi

JIM AITCHISON has come out with his third book on advertising - 'How Asia Advertises'. He is also in the process of finishing up 'Cutting Edge Radio Commercials' and a media book. No stranger to KL, he was back in town to launch 'How Asia Advertises' and ADOI caught up with him for a chat... How did you make the journey from writing a few words - to writing so much? Advertising taught me brevity, clarity and relevance, good assets for a writer. Yes, writ ing a half-page print ad requires fewer words, but you could spend weeks honing those wor ds. So the discipline is essentially the same. Could I say it shorter, clearer? Will my reader still be hooked?

In the process of writing this book, did you discover that advertising across Asia had many different voices and faces? What were some of these? Yes, but what I really discovered was a com mon thread in all the work...The universal truths of successful advertising applied to every campaign, irrespective of country, cul ture or language. All the work had singulari ty of proposition (it didn't try to say every thing), it had simplicity in execution, and it was relevant to the consumers it addressed. Petronas, for example, says "we are Malaysi an", it tells simple engaging stories, and it choose subjects relevant to every Malaysian. And because of that, Petronas work automat ically takes centrestage in Malaysian adver tising.

In this book you compile ground-breaking campaigns from all over Asia. Tell us a little about the work your newest book covers... I wanted to find campaigns from a whole range of different product categories that would be representative of their country's culture. I wanted marketing people to have a real reference source covering their own area of business, as well as other case histories that might inspire innovative solutions for them. Until now, no one had produced such a book. Some of the campaigns will be really surprising. The use of humour across AsiaPacific amazes and delights me. Humour has

3^aDOI MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

always been a powerful communications weapon and it's great to see people using it well and getting good business results. Interestingly enough, the Thredbo Ski Resort in Australia used humour just weeks after the resort was partially destroyed by an avalan che!

good advertising, and put our own spin on them. Why did movies like Shine (Australia) and The Piano (New Zealand) win Academy Awards? Because they were great stories told with their true cultural values.

What are your favourite campaigns in the book and why?

There is a greater confidence in Asian work. Brands are using more humour, in all countries. Television production values have improved, but scripts generally haven't. There are more new media opportunities available. Creatives can stretch themselves in ambient media, transit and limitless new ways. The biggest change, to my mind, is the emergence of the media specialists. Without their media departments, agencies have been forced to reassess what they are and what they do. Suddenly it's imperative to have a creative track record. The threat of becoming a dinosaur haunts many a big agency. New, smaller agencies are springing up everywhere as disenchanted young talents decide to go their own way, which is a very healthy trend and makes the industry more vibrant.

No favourites, I like them all, that's why they're in there. Each one impressed me with a different strength. Petronas for reasons of its cultural and social honesty and relevance; I loved the humour in the Times of India cam paign, and of course the Emperor of Kowloon for Swipe. But I can't single out one piece of work.

Many people have the misconception that Asian advertising is somehow less creative and less daring than Western advertising. What's your take on this? Asian advertising uses less sexual innuen do and shock tactics. Good thing, too. But let's be honest: why do we worship Western adver tising? Have you ever sat through a night of television in America? The commercials are dreadful. Creativity, to my mind, is a loose kind of word. If you define creativity as what one does with what one has to work with, Asia-Pacific is in good shape. We are swamped with British and American award annuals and we constan tly berate ourselves that our work isn't British enough or American enough, which is absolute nonsense. The reason British and American work is so impressive is that it is true to its own culture. The Japanese are true to their culture, so are the Thais. They don't try to be British or American. We have to come to terms with a new reality: it doesn't matter what the West does. We should use the universal truths of

How has the advertising landscape in Asia changed?

What are the creative powerhouses that are emerging in Asia? India and China will probably take Asian creative leadership within the next five years. Thailand and Japan will be the supporting cast. Everyone is waiting to see the next wave of Chinese work. China has already scored its first One Show Gold (albeit conceived by a Singaporean, Daniel Lim). Meanwhile, India is still cranking out great copywriters and art directors, many of whom migrate elsewhere on the strength of their talent. Malaysia and Singapore have lost great talent to China. Will they be replaced quickly by new blood? Time will tell. Both countries have a heritage of gre at creative achievements.

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HRMANAGEMENT

Creating an Effective Workplace By T. Sivananthi

Brand: Artie Mint Title: Park Bench Duration: 15 sees Client: Kraft Malaysia

"It is imperative to get the creativity habit - this is the oniy advantage over the competition in this business." - Wayne Lotherington

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Creative Director: Sonal Dabral Art Director: Kelvin Chiah Copywriter: Kim Yang Language: English Summary: This sensationally cool mint not only makes you feel cool but also makes you look cool.

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Brand: Biore Milk Moisture Title: Droplet Duration: 15 sees Client: Kao Trading (M) Sdn Bhd Agency: Hakuhodo Malaysia Creative Director: Thean Wooi Hoe Art Director: Alan Ho Copywriter: Marita Miranda Language: English, Malay

£r Mandarin

Summary: The facial foam not only cleanses your skin but it also moisturises and keeps your skin feeling soft and supple.

Brand: Dutch Lady UHT Milk Title: Romeo & Juliet Duration: 10 sees Client: Dutch Lady Goodness For Life Agency: Bates (M) Sdn Bhd Creative Director: Ajay Thrivikraman Art Director: Khoo Choo Kian Copywriter: Mike Chin Language: English, Malay & Mandarin Summary: The UHT milk magnetises the consumer just like how Juliet mesmerised Romeo. It's so attractive that it is the most wanted milk in town!

Brand: Ribena Title: Guala Duration: 30 sees Client: GSK Agency: Grey Worldwide Creative Director: Edwin Leong Art Director: Clare Lim Copywriter: Raymond Ng Language: English Summary: Having a Ribena drink which is as mobile as your hand phone is really convenint and it can be con sumed wherever and whenever you like.

Brand: Sharp Plasmacluster Air Conditioners Title: Plasmacluster Duration: 30 sees Client: Sharp-Roxy Sales & Service Company (M) Sdn Bhd Agency: Publicis Malaysia Creative Director: Hisham Art Director: Ben Choo Copywriter: Jan Lai Language: English, Malay & Mandarin Summary: The air conditioner will make your home cooler and also protect you from harmful bacteria and odours. It's the first of its kind.

Brand: Toyota Corolla Altis Title: Distracted Duration: 30 sees Client: UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd Agency: Saatchi £r Saatchi Creative Director: Edmind Choe/Szu-Hung Lee Art Director: Loh Chan Wai/Im Copywriter: Szu-Hung Lee/Adam Miranda Language: English Summary: Get the feeling of Corolla Altis because you can't take your mind off it.

fflediaBanc For more information please, call Izza Ismail ofMediaBanc at 03-79836668

36 aDOI MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

ONE of the major concerns of agencies and organisations is to keep improving the quality of their staff. LB PR recently brought down Wayne Lotherington to help them to do just that. Wayne's company 'AllSorts Habit Creation' is based in Singapore and used to do training and development for Leo Burnett in this region. 'Habit Creation' in the company name helps remind Wayne what his job is really about i.e. to help people create habits. He was in town to do some SOCCeR a thinking tool that helps people distill the critical question. He was using the method to train LB's PR to understand a client's problem and to come up with a strategy. Sue D'Cruz, LB's PR Director, explains "Not all clients are geared for a PR brief. And sometimes the client does not realise what the real problem is because they're too close to the brand. In our line of work, there are a lot of blurred lines - a method like SOCCeR helps our PR staff separate the grain from the chaff and to work together with the client to come up with the right PR strategy." Wayne believes that if you learn the method and master it, then you can create it in your workplace. One of the workshops that he conducts is on 'Creativity Skills' and he elaborates "It is imperative to get the creativity habit - this is the only advantage over the competi tion in this business. This course is about thinking differently and we teach back-to-front thinking and we force the participants to think differently." Such skills are essential in today's marketplace where clients are looking for more and more solutions from their agencies. Sue D'Cruz adds "Such skills will help PR practitioners to raise the bar - a PR person very often takes the brief, writes the solution, sell the ideas and even collects the money! They have to be multi-skilled!" While skills are essential, team building is also a fundamental ingredient for a successful organisation. Recently, Ragunath Murthy (picture below), who runs an insurance company called Super RM invited me to spend a morning with his company. I had to drag myself out of bed and be there by 7.45am! Gosh I hadn't woken up so early since my schooldays and I wondered cynically if freelancers (like insurance agents) would actually turn up at that hour. But surprisingly enough they did. And mind you, this is a daily ritual. At 8.00 am sharp, everyone sits and goes through what seems to be a very informal medita tion session - where they contemplate on their individual goals. After the quiet time, each person writes down whatever comes to their mind. They also spend some time in a circle where (very much like an army) they repeat their corporate mantra with great vigour and enthusiasm. At the end of the session, each person share their personal experiences with their clients and the others chip in with words of advice and encour agement. Such a routine allows the people who work together spend time together. More often than not, all of us are so busy doing our jobs that we very often forget the people we work with. But all team mem bers are crucial to a project's success. Building a strong team should also be a the priority for agencies.

DIREC MARKETING

Buying and Selling in Bliss... By Kurt Crocker, Creative Director, Drayton Bird, Crocker & Mai10 Sdn Bhd

IN a perfect marketing world, you would know who is buying your pro duct, when they buy, where they buy, how much they buy, how often and by what means ... customer by customer. In that perfect world, you would also know who does not buy your brand and why they don't. You would know if they buy a competitive brand and why ... and when, where, how much, how often and by what means. Prospect by prospect. Although a "perfect marketing world" may be currently unrealistic, you can, as my illustrious Brit partner phrases it, take "one step closer" to it. So what if you do? Would the grey haze of imperfection dissipate so sunlit rays of blissful happiness can shine down on the earth's capital ists and consumers alike? Well, yeah. Or at least the bliss would begin. Take just one step towards that perfect world — through Direct Marketing — and you could make quite a bit of that annoying haze go away right now.

Identified Customers Do you have individual buying profiles for each and every one of your customers? If they are buying from you directly, you should. If you don't, you're missing an ocean of marketing opportunities. It's easy to gather and take advantage of buying profiles. Just record and store consumer activity on an individual level. Make sure you have the information you need for a meaningful marketing analysis across your entire customer base. And be sure you can select and group crite ria that could be used to create a communications strategy. Take Domino's Pizza, for example. I'm sure they know how many pizzas I've ordered from them since they established here in Malaysia. They should have the orders by date. If they wanted to, they could prob ably see a pattern in my pizza preference. What could they do, marketing-wise, that would make me happy ... and increase their sales? First they could calculate my value to them. Let's say they did that, and discovered that compared to others in their customer base, I'm pret ty high value but could probably order from them more often. In other words, high value (based on past orders) but not enough loyalty (because other high value customers order more often). In fact, I do give Pizza Hut a call now and then. Once they've calculated my value, Domino's could do a number of things to discourage any future calls to Pizza Hut. Let's say they are about to promote a brand new pizza choice or introduce a special offer. They could mail to me (and others like me) directly — ahead of any advertising or leaflet housedrops — and iden tify me as a special customer. Advance notice of the upcoming deal would make me feel that I'm important to them. An exclusive coupon with a valued customers-only offer would make me smile ... and order. If Domino's examined their database, they would discover that 90% of my many delivery orders have been for thin crust pepperoni, regular with extra cheese. How about a "Here's a Special Deal on Your Favourite Pizza!" mailing. All high-value customers with a high percentage of repeat orders in their pizza-consuming histories would receive this mailing. Domino's could computer-print each individual's "personal favourite" pizza on the coupon. Expensive? Well, not cheap. But figure the promotion cost against the potential return on investment. These are high-value customers and very likely responders. You'd probably need to mail to a moderately

large base to economically justify this type of personalised promotion. But don't forget to calculate the long-term value of these customers. If it all equates to a promotion that adds profit short-term and keeps val ued customers longer, then it's a no-brainer.

Non-Identified Customers & Prospects If you don't sell to customers in a way that enables an immediate database, don't despair. There are many ways to identify buyers of your brand, and build the marketing information you require for future communications and on-going selling opportunites. On-pack promo tions, contests, purchase-connected take-ones ... these are just a few ways to add these customers to your database. The most important thing to know about any one who is not buying your brand is if he or she would ever buy your brand. And the easiest and most reliable way to obtain that bit of knowledge is to ask them to "raise their hands." At the very least, you ask, "Interested?" If they answer "Yes!", and your question has been formed to avoid a flippant response, you've identified a potential buyer. Where can you ask prospects to "raise their hands" in interest? Responsive advertising (print or broadcast) websites, events and exhi bitions, telemarketing. Again, the list goes on. With advances and broadened consumer involvement in interactive media and technology, the list will grow. And as I mentioned earlier, while "perfect marketing" may not be currently attainable, those same advances in interactive media and technology make it increasingly possible. But perfect marketing, if it is ever to occur, will always depend on your knowledge of customers and prospects, and how well you use it.

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HOTHAPPENINGS

The First Media Skills Workshop In Malaysia RECENTLY ntvy brought to Kuala Lumpur the first-ever media skills workshop from April 19th -20th. The workshop was conducted by D.Sriram, CEO of StarcomMedia Southeast Asia & India, and Vishnu Mohan, MD of Euro RSCG Singapore. Both speakers have conducted the workshop when they were working together in DYR India. From basic groundwork and terms to the finer points of media planning, both speakers shared everything they knew with the participants. The workshop was both gruelling and intense, but at the end of it all - the particÂ ipants had no doubts about what matters in media. In between the breaks they also took the opportunity to mingle and get to know each other a little bit better. ntV7 exclusively invited key media people in town to attend the session. The event was organised by Adoi. D. Sriram And Vishnu Mohan

The participants listen intently to Sriram.

Michael Chan opens the session.

Rishya shows how to reach for the top!

L-R: Bharat Avalani (Unilever), Rishya Joseph (DYR), Michael Chan (ntvj) and Rashid (Airy).

38aD0l MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

Two of the more sought-after participants.

"The key to creativity is relevance

By T. Sivananthi

...the focus has always been on making the sale and not serving the customer better...

m DON E. SCHULTZ, integrated marketing guru extraordinaire was in town and AD01 did some time with him. According to Don, traditional advertising is usually driven by what is out there but interactive has enabled dialogue with consumers. "Marketing communications today is not about how to give information to customers but rather about how customers want to receive the information" said Don. He explained "Traditional advertising grew from consumer packages where the manufacturer has complete control over every element of production. That's where the branding comes from. On the other hand, organisations have the people element - do they deliver the promises that are made by the brand? For

example, in an airline the experience at the counter before you get onto the plane. The brand starts inside the organisation e.g. with the hotel staff and the airline staff." It is most certainly true that agencies can create great advertising - but the first point of contact with the organisation is very often the people who work there - many a time we are served by grumpy waitresses who wear a 'Service with a Smile' badge. Don points out that one of the ways that companies can take care of this is to keep talking to one's employees and share holders "Very often we look at how the organi sation, the company or the agency is talking to people outside - but we overlook internal com munications. The critical ingredient is com municating to the internal employees and gathering shareholder support as well." When the focus shifts to customers how will that redefine the role of creativity? Accor ding to Don "The key to creativity is relevance and it should be able to create relationships. Right now the people who evaluate creativity

for example in the Cannes competitions judge it by what I call the 'I wish I'd done that' criteri on. They should be judging it by the 'I'd buy this' criterion." When organisations start becoming customer focussed - one of the problems that they will run into is defining their brand. Don clarified that this happens because "the focus has always been on making the sale and not serving the customer better." Most organisa tions give the best deals to the new customer and often forget that existing customers also need to be rewarded. At the same time, organi sations also reward customer service personnel based on the number of calls that they handle, instead of the type of problems they solve. 3 TIPS FROM DON E.SCHULTZ 1. You have to restructure your organisation to be customer focussed. 2. Change reward system for customers and employees. 3. You have to sell customer service from inside.

The Virtue of Restlessness By Julie P. Lingan

HE usually or ders wine, now all he wanted was juice. He usually asks for Tabasco or chil lis from hell, now he pushed away the basic salt and pepper. He was even wearing a suit, something he used to call funeral uniform. His behavioural change was glaringly drastic, he would make a perfect case study in Prozacrelated research. Within minutes, I realized I was having lunch with a stranger. Where was my dear CD friend who always flaunted his neurosis to electrify the ordinary in life and charge it with pulsating vibrations? He used to be all fire. Now he was a lake. I'm restless, he whispered as though he had a predicament that was embarrassing like bad breath or body odor. I calmly asked about his love life which has always been the root of his problems in all the time I've known him. His litany began. He had no flavour of the

month, not even flavour of the week. Nothing was exciting anymore. He was climbing moun tains that had no peaks. He wanted to do some thing but didn't know what it was. His pas sion, I felt, was stamped out like a cigarette butt in the rain. He was viewing life from a completely detached perspective, pretty much like a watchful soul floating in mid air as his body lay dying on the operating table. Hey, the cheerleader in me chirped. Forget this mindset about restlessness. Restlessness has a good side, I reassured him. Remember what I taught you guys years ago? How to turn the nervous energy before a major presenta tion into something positive, resulting in the best performance of your life? Remember the euphoria of victorious opening nights on Broadway? He nonchalantly nodded, picking on his food. The lunch had turned into a motivational session. You are restless because you are burst ing with ideas waiting to be born, I said. You are swimming in a percolator brewing the world's best coffee. You are like an amoeba

searching for new form, moving incessantly under a microscope we once peered into in biology classes of long ago. Like a balloon in mid air waiting to be released, you are always on the verge of creating something that has to be better than your last, failing which you are never satisfied because you are no ordinary CD, I said with volcanic passion. This is your pain and your blessing because you will never be like those mercenaries who are content with just meeting deadlines. The restlessness before the act of creation is where you're at, I found myself saying. And it is this constant jumping about in seemingly contrived abandon that propels you to venture into new levels of creativity that will bear just one set of footprints: yours. So don't lose it, my friend, I whispered. There is virtue in restless ness. Use it. I knew I made my point clear when he start ed attacking his steak voraciously, as he alto gether raised his other hand to signal to a wait er and order the most expensive wine on the house.

aDoi MARKETINGC0MMUMCAT10NS39

HOTHAPPENINGS

Ambient Media takes the spotlight RON GRAHAM, Regional Director of Poster Pub licity Asia, recently shared his ideas on ambi ent media with more than 250 people in KL. The talk was sponsored by Big Tree and Kurnia Outdoor, and co-sponsored by ntv7, PosAd and MMT. Ron highlighted that outdoor is poised for great growth but also voiced the need for research in the medium. He showed examples of ambient ideas that worked well and those that flopped. Ron emphasised the best ambient ideas were those that were based on a longterm strategy and communication process.

L-R: Rashid (Airy), Eric De Cruz tr Ron Graham (Poster Publicity) with ardent ambient fan.

L-R: Ho Hwee Zee (PosAd) with Ng Soo Yen, Cheng Yan Thing and Sim Choy Yeen (Universal McCann) pose with Cheryl Tan (Ganad).

L-R: Kevin Chang, Steven Koh & Paul Sapwell (Kurnia Outdoor) with Angie Chiew (MMT)

L-R: Anne Looi (Bloomingdale), Janet Lee (Fixgo Advertising), Mary Koh (Big Tree) & Ling Lee Lee (FCB).

L-R: Ng Keng Ming, Samantha Tan & Domino Chong (Pos Ad) with Sara Patricia Ooi & CHLam (IndoCafe).

Dawn Lee and Poh Yin of Poster Publicity Asia.

Christine Sterck and Brian Eravelly of AsiaOnTime.

Phang Koon Sang (Dumex) &Jenny Yan (Pos Ad)

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CREATIVECRITIQUE

Never underestimate the importance of local knowledge.

HSBC 'Football'

Matchbox 'Worm'

Nike 'Tornados

Sony 'Walkman'

Rueda Carries His Point Home!

CaryRueda, Creative Director, DY&R.

YOU keep a very low profile. Those were the first words Ham said to me at one lunche on. Maybe that's why they asked me to do this ad review. As you begin to read this article usu ally written by the likes of Yasmin Ahmad or Pat Fallon, thought balloons could range from "Let's see what he has to say" to "Who the hell does he think he is, anyway?" So on grounded soil and with no ax to grind, here it is. This HSBC ad is far more meaningful than their last brand campaign. While we've all hea rd of this corporate mantra years ago, it'll be interesting to see how the bank fulfills its pro mise. Precise art direction, though I find the Malaysian analogy quite the opposite.

i^aDOl MARKETINGCOMMUNICATIONS

Featuring three young rebels out to destroy their Pinochet, the Nike "Tornados" poster does have the feel of a Latin American guerril la movement. But it doesn't offer much more. For Matchbox, the "Worm" is a quick and clear metaphor. Cunning and cheeky, yet somehow lacks that certain Matchbox play fulness seen in their previous "true to life" campaign. Although the beach jogger ad is my favori te, the Sony Walkman's charm is difficult to resist. Like many of today's more awarded campaigns, what seems literal turns out fresh. In a jaded world, this one speaks with brave simplicity.

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Life.

plrli/LLe.cje.1

Still Malaysia's No.i radio station.

Source: AC Nielsen Listenership Survey, 2001.

Klang Valley 103.3FM • Penang 103.6FM • Ipoh 103.7FM • Melaka 90.3FM • Johor Bahru 104.5FM • Seremban 103.6FM • Kuantan 98.0FM • Kota Bharu 103.3FM • K. Terengganu 102.8FM www.my.com.my