Tribal DDB established itself in Asia in 2007, with the appointment of strategic specialist Amanda King, partnered by creative heavyweight Dirk Eschenbacher, who immediately set about building the network into the region’s leading digital agency. Expansion was the theme over the past two years; in 2009, facing a year of economic uncertainty and cautious clients, Tribal’s vision was to continue building its reputation, credentials and capabilities in order to be acknowledged as the best in Asia.

Firm commitment to this aim paid off with strong results. Building on 2008’s growth average of 50 per cent, Tribal DDB this year achieved excellent growth across the region through new business wins and further investment by existing clients. Clients were also shifted into strategic digital brand development, demonstrating the value of a focused digital strategy.

Four offices evolved into standalone operations: Singapore, the Philippines, Beijing and Taipei, with separate offerings in Malaysia and Japan.

Six digital strategists were hired in Sydney, Melbourne, New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong to provide greater insight, better integration and to enhance the overall group offering. The nurturing of talent and cultivation of skills resulted in the creation and launch of a proprietary digital training programme, focusing on five key pillars — strategy, creativity, technology, analytics and delivery. A first for the region, this innovative best-in-class training educates DDB group staff and gives clients an insight into the business. It also launched ‘People day’ to help mentor career development for staff.

In terms of its creative offering, Tribal DDB was the most awarded network at the 2008 Digital Media Awards, organised by Media, and most of the network’s 17 offices are ranked as top creative agencies in their local markets.

Tribal DDB also set out to create opinion leaders, hiring key digital leaders across the network. It launched Tribal Voices Asia-Pacific and introduced Tribal Smoke Signals to alert staff to new trends and keep clients ahead of the game. In addition, the network began to focus on trend specific communities and monitor/influence blogs using proprietary programmes.

The Auditorium

After my speech we had dinner in “downtown” Subic where I came across these walking billboards. If equipped with a mobile phone, will these guys represent the future of digital marketing in rural areas?

She then also took us to this exclusive exhibition opening featuring some of China’s best know artists.

But of course the party went on

The keywords for today were “Loading …” and “Average time spent on this website was 11,43 minutes”. I am not sure how valuable this measurement criteria has become over the past year, every second digital entry stated the consumer’s time on the website as main success factor. Given that most of the sites were mostly “loading …” it seems to be mostly irrelevant.

Overall the work was good. I was impressed by a few Indian campaigns that made it into the second round, and also the Indian section at the lunch buffet was great.

Going through the first round online judging of the Digital category it seemed like a lot of entries were from the mainland. Lets see how many of these are left when we are presented with the shortlist tomorrow. There was certainly some great work out there. The Japanese as always have entered a lot of outstanding campaigns with highly innovative use of technology. But also Malaysia, India and the Philippines have left me with one or two campaigns to remember.

Its going to be an interesting judging over the next three days. To start with I don’t know any of my fellow judges. That’s rather unusual at an Asian creative award show where you tend to bump into the same faces at different shows. Not so unusual especially for a digital category is the fact that there is no girl on the jury … three days of digital, promo and design judging with nine blokes … I reckon we will all know each other very well by the end of the week.

While the numbers of internet users are extremely high in China, that doesn’t mean we are talking about highly sophisticated consumers. The marketing and advertising industry is merely 15 years old, and in many cases, you don’t really need to be all that creative to cut through the clutter. In fact, Chinese consumers don’t really mind the clutter. It might even be part of their culture. Just picture a postcard of Hong Kong at night, and you’ll conjure up thousands of neon signs. That is exactly what communication looks like to Chinese consumers; high visual impact. This also applies to online advertising. In the Western world, you would have one to three banners on any single web page, where as in China, you will have up to 30 banners all competing for attention.

Adopting innovation
The extremely high growth rate of the Chinese online population reflects the general mindset of consumers in this region; early adoption. In the west, things take a while to be truly embraced and accepted by the general public, while in Asia consumers are constantly on the look-out for innovation. Instant messaging, social networking, browsing websites on mobile phones, interacting with outdoor ads, even watching TV on mobile phones, are not really considered or talked about much. They’re just there, part of everyday life. And this behavior is visible in almost any culture and country across the region.

In Japan for example, surfing websites on mobile phones was popular long before consumers used computers to go online. Today the mobile phone is the single most important access point, offering information from news providers and blogs, to friends, colleagues and social networking services. The phone serves as ubiquitous media player, as a payment option, as a general link from the real to the virtual, or vice versa. Think 2D barcodes, they are basically found everywhere in Japan.

Japanese consumers are extremely sophisticated in how they receive messages through their personal digital channels, so it takes a fair amount of creativity to get through to them. This works like a catapult, in order to get the message out, marketers and agencies need to spend considerable effort conceiving creative and innovative approaches, as well as packaging and distributing that message. This in turn spurs even further sophistication amongst consumers. No wonder Japanese digital agencies are consistently the highest awarded at international creative shows. Their work sets new standards in the innovative use of technology and in creating new digital channels.

In Korea, everything is about high speed internet access. There are few homes it seems, without a 100Mbit connection. Three out of four mobile phones connect through 3G and receive broadcast TV shows. Koreans make avid use of this technology, especially by connecting through MMOG (massively multiplayer online games), or by logging on to cyworld, the Korean Facebook which dates back as early as 1999 and connects about 25% of the Korean population. But while consumers in Korea are spoiled by this advanced technology and sophisticated gaming and communities, there seems to be a gap in what marketers are willing to push for. The rather conservative mindset of Korean marketers leaves plenty of room for ground-breaking innovative campaigns.

The electronic government
The fact that Asian consumers quickly adopt emerging technology into their daily lives, has led to many improvements being made by governments around the region. Singapore is a shining example of this early advancement with roll-outs of e-government services not just for Asia, but globally. The relatively small population, yet dense dwelling, has made e-government services both an ideal test market as well as a necessity. Accenture has consistently ranked Singapore as one of the top three countries in the world in regards to maturity of e-government. Singapore has over 1,600 government e-services available. More recently, Singapore has also started putting up free wireless broadband kiosks in shopping malls and public buildings.

In Malaysia, where broadband penetration moved from 1% in 2003 to almost 18% in 2008, blogging is one of the most wide-spread hobbies amongst its multicultural citizens. With more than 500,000 bloggers, Malaysia ranks among the highest per capita blogging countries in the world. And everyone blogs, from religious leaders and the ex-prime minister, to the opposition party leader. In fact, during the March election, official statistics showed that around 70% of Malaysian voters had been influenced by blogs. In a society where most television stations and newspaper publishers are controlled by the government, blogs, text messages and viral videos became the most influential source of information for voters, resulting in a historical blow to the Barisan National party, who had ruled the country for more than 50 years.

Creativity in Asia
Asia is one of the most competitive creative markets when it comes to creativity in advertising and design. Especially agencies from Singapore are constantly listed amongst the highest awarded creative shops in the world. Thailand is world famous for its unique and humorous story telling craft in TV commercials, while Malaysia and Hong Kong are renowned for beautiful design and art direction. Japan has probably the most sophisticated and innovative creativity in new media and increasingly also other markets like China, Korea, Philippines and India invest in and grow their creativity.

Asia’s advertising creativity originates in a dire need: Historically most large scale brand and product campaigns were not originated in Asia but been developed in New York, San Francisco, London or Paris. These campaigns then were sent to regional headquarters or directly to local markets for local language adaptation. This left creatives with the daunting task of localizing, vs actually creating new and talked about campaigns. Money in Asia to shoot new commercials, develop new print campaigns or create impactful online campaigns therefore has always been limited. And with limited resources, one has to get more creative to achieve great results.
Article in ADMAP magazine
Implications for marketers
According to an eMarketer study from January 2008, an estimated 543 million people are on the internet in the Asia Pacific region alone. That is almost as many people as Europe and North America combined. According to this study, within the next four years, almost half the world’s internet population will be from Asia. Pair this with steadily increasing online ad spend (China is up more than 25% year on year), and online marketing makes for a very attractive target for agencies and marketers alike.

But in order to conquer Asia, marketers must be aware of and have an inherent understanding of cultural and behavioural differences.

For the latter, big numbers are not any longer favorable criteria. On the contrary, those numbers raise eyebrows and doubt about the work’s creativity. Broad effectiveness doesn’t necessarily translate into brilliant creative thinking. Therefore it is fair to say that the more niche a campaign is targeted, the more difficult to reach the audience, the better the creative product has to be.

In the case of China, I think this is what is going to happen over the next year and beyond. While digital channels, and especially online have certainly reached a mass medium stage, it will be the very targeted campaigns that will set the creative standards, which then in return will be copied and re-used for broader campaigns further down the road.

Over the past 12 months we could already see things going his way. Many a campaign website has seen a significant increase in production budget, which enables creatives to work with talents from outside the own office: 3D artists, music composers, illustrators and camera men and directors. These websites create buzz, word of mouth even without spending much money on media, and are well known even beyond the target audience.

Especially in China entertainment has been high on the list of things people do online, and with a more figured out situation in the video sharing industry, branded content and brand entertainment will certainly be a thing to watch for in the next 12 months. Partnerships with professionals from outside the industry – script writers, actors, and directors – will play a significant role in creating successful online content.

Mobile is rumored to have a breakthrough in 2009, what this means though I don’t know. My personal opinion is that mobile will always be a difficult one to crack when used as a mass medium. In targeted situations this medium can become a real killer though. Social networking, location based services, flash players, high resolution cameras and many other new innovations will make for great use for in more targeted campaigns.

The global killer application on the internet is social networking and while xiaonei and kaixin are expected to grow their user base to unprecedented heights, there is still plenty of room for marketers to weave a smart SNS component into their campaign. Especially useful applications and widgets will give brands a positive appeal amongst the networkers. But the real opportunity here lies in the power of word-of-mouth, turning consumers into evangelists and spreading the word without investing big dollars in media.

Finally I believe a big trend that comes from Japan and Europe will make a significant debut in 2009 in China: the cross-over between the virtual and the real. Campaigns will increasingly make use of interaction other than with the mouse. Webcams are a hot item, when used properly they can really add the fun element into any campaign. Convergence through mobile phones and also digital outdoor that is connected to the internet will be something agencies will certainly look at.

2009 will be another year of growing up in China. While the numbers will get even more gigantic, it will be the ones who have to reach a sophisticated audience that have to be creative. Like Bill Bernbach said in one of my favorite quotes: “… the future, as always, belongs to the brave.”

On the International Herald Tribune you also get very international ads, brands similar to those which advertise in Time magazine. And Spiegel is one of the biggest German weekly’s and I need to know which big account are doing what campaign at the moment. If you run a big campaign in Germany you cannot get around spiegel.de

Do you think the core of ads changed when we release them on internet while not newspaper, radio or television?

No, the core of an ad shouldn’t change according to the choice of media. Within the creative process we have to communicate a message, this message is at the core of everything. The way we communicate it is with a strong idea. If the idea has to be communicated in different media, then it should be either so strong that it works across all those channels, or there are several ideas that work differently in different media but all together they bring the message across. Both are good approaches, it depends on the nature of the campaign.

But here is the biggest difference between traditional media and the internet or actually all digital channels. Traditionally, a creative team could come up with an idea, say for a print ad, write the ad, shoot the ad, and then pass it to the media. You could see the ad in magazines, newspapers, outdoor, in stores etc etc. Digital media on the other hand is defined by its constantly evolving use technology, and while we could put a print ad into a banner, we would all agree that this is not the best way to use the media. The strongest digital advertising is actually made specifically for the medium or location they appear in. In fact, more and more often times advertising defines the channel or medium. For example a widget can be advertising. Yet the widget works only as a widget.

You joined O&M Beijing in 2001, what have you seen about the changes of Chinese interactive market since then?

When I arrived in China, we had a total of 18 million internet users and most of those were dialing up with their modem or were sitting in universities. Today we are well beyond the 250 million and almost everyone has a broadband connection. Chinese netizens want to be entertained, they download music, share videos, chat in forums. The internet in China is not longer dominated by the affluent, the early adopters or an intellectual audience. The internet in China evolved into a serious mass medium. It is in fact a very popular and populist medium, much more so than in other countries. The Chinese net community by now has a certain power and influence over the whole nation. Opinions are formed quickly and news spreads like a wild fire. The internet I believe is probably China’s very own and unique pop culture.

It is also interesting to follow the trends visible on Chinese internet. From the early flash videos on flash8 or flashempire to the crazy content on the video sharing sites to the new importance of kaixin and xiaonei, the usage of the internet in China evolves constantly.

You once said “technology only affects the execution aspect of ad, while the increasing of internet users is the back force to push internet advertising forwards.” What’s your insight about these increasing users in China?

Yes I still remember saying this and it holds still true. As the internet user base grows in China, we now have a variety of different consumer types and classes online. It becomes increasingly more difficult to find the right audience for a specific brand. The more users are online, the more sophisticated internet advertising has to be to find the right ones to target. Once we know where they are, we then have to do much more than a few years ago to win their minds and their hearts. We have to play with all new applications like social networking, video sharing etc to make sure we do our best to bring them closer to our brands. And in order to do so, we have to find smarter ways, push the standards higher. Both the agencies and the clients are waking up to this and investing more time and money in their digital efforts.

Since we still don’t have any certain way to measure the result of interactive ads, do you think there is a certain standard to judge interactive ad is good or not?

An ad is successful if it sells our client’s products or at least helps to build our client’s brands. Measurement online is a very deep topic. Some like to see everything measured from click through to impressions; some just want to build a brand and create impact. For every direction there are different KPIs to use.

We know you served lots of clients like Motorola, IBM, Audi, China Mobile…if the course of innovation is experimental, how did you persuade clients to put their money on it?

Every client is different and so are their consumers. Insight-studies into different consumer profiles reveal different behavior and preferences online.

Technology clients like Motorola or IBM cater to a technically very sophisticated audience. These users know a lot about internet technology and they need to be impressed with innovative ideas. Clients know their consumers very well and they understand when it makes sense to go for a more innovative and experimental route. Other clients like Lipton or McDonalds cater to a broader range of people, here social trends like online entertainment or social networking play a big role and these brands don’t shy away to try something new.

In the end the sophistication of our online experience is to a large part shaped by the kind of campaigns big brands roll out. So for example the car industry contributed a lot to the way we shop or look for information online. Product configurations and high end website production is largely a result of the automobile industry realizing that their consumers research a lot online before buying a car.

Brands have a certain responsibility to push things further, and who doesn’t want to set the bar so high that it blows the competition away?

Which work is your favorite one among all those works you every done in China?

I am proud of every campaign we did. No matter which team I work with or for which client the campaign is for, we always push the standard a little bit further. The last campaign is normally always the best.

You attended quite lot activities like OneShow to help train the young creatives, that’s really great. In your opinion, which abilities that a creative person has to obtain in interactive aspect?

Of course the most basic of all skills is mastering the tools of the trade. If you are a designer, then your photoshop and illustrator skills should be perfect. If you are an art director, then you should have a great knowledge of styles and trends and photography and fashion and so on. As a copywriter, your crafting of words and your flexibility in styles and tones should be unmatched. But, of course this is only where it starts. Many young Chinese creatives do not realize the potential that lies beyond these skills.

The most important thing to learn in our industry is conceptual thinking. The persuasive and inspiring power of an idea is something that is hard to get and only once you had a few yourself will you realize that it is the most beautiful and fulfilling part of your job, to sit down and think and have an idea. Over time you will learn the differences between ideas and big ideas, between weak ideas and relevant ideas, between ideas that can sell a product and ideas that can build a brand. I think this is the most important ability of a good advertising creative, and it doesn’t matter if he or she works in traditional media or in digital media. An idea is always the most important part of any campaign.

Tribal DDB in China is not known for many people yet, what is your target in the coming years?

Tribal DDB is a young agency in China, we opened our office in 2006. We are not big, but also not small, and we are lucky to have the resources, brains and creativity of the DDB Group in China behind us. We are also part of the Tribal DDB worldwide network, and this network truly works. We have access to all kinds of smart people from around the globe that do anything to help us out if need it.

Recently Tribal Shanghai left the first major footprint on the China digital marketing scene with the McDonald’s Cheer for China campaign. This campaign really created noise in the market and also won us a China Gold Effie. For the future, we will continue to grow and expand our offering. Our creative vision is to be the best digital creative agency in China, and we have some great clients that appreciate creativity and support us to get there. To be the best sounds ambitious but the team is extremely passionate and everyone is committed to giving the best.