Dubai: It is easy for brands — and the marketers and agencies behind them — to get hooked on big, overarching themes. In recent years, one consistent theme relates to how any brand should aim to be in China or India if it wanted to stay relevant.
Of late, it seems to be the turn of “emerging markets” that has the industry in thrall. But given that some of the very same places are going through a period of wrenching economic turmoil, are global marketers better off hitting the “pause” button?
Tony Wright, chairman of London-headquartered Lowe & Partners and part of the Interpublic Group, won’t have any of that. “Hitting pause is not an option; as we look at the next decade, the numbers still show that growth will come disproportionately from those places,” said Wright, who is in town for the Dubai Lynx season.
“And markets have still not been won or lost — there are huge categories to play for. The early naming of BRICs (for the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China) led marketers to design everything around those four economies, with India and China to the front because of their sheer scale.
“But we now realise that the game is more complex and that a number of other markets hold massive promise and are the next eight to 10 enormous stories. I am referring to places such as Vietnam, Turkey and Mexico.
“Of course, the new fashionable discussion is around Africa — where again, on the face of it the numbers are huge, the middle-class is developing rapidly but there remains a host of fundamental issues.
Opportunity for Dubai
“This development is a major opportunity for Dubai — which is geographically perfectly placed to be a hub and centre of expertise for the region, in competition with the more obvious example of South Africa.”
While the global ad industry works on its emerging markets’ pitch, there are positives starting to be sighted from their old turfs, i.e., the US and even western Europe. “We are delighted that the US and Europe are coming back... it is not healthy for our business when these centres of talent are in the doldrums, as they have been,” said Wright.
“For our clients, Europe is still a massive core of their profit and revenue — it is now oddly contrarian to point this out.
“But we remain bullish about emerging markets, where Lowe happens to be particularly strong. But anybody who thought growth was going to be linear and direct was being naïve — there are still huge structural and political challenges to overcome.
“A real growth grid for a global brand now means that there is no such thing as ‘emerging markets’ in the traditional simplistic form and that it is clearly vital to retain share and revenue in the still massively important markets of Western Europe and North America. It’s gruelling and complex, but fascinating.”
Lowe & Partners has been busy on other fronts too, having recently acquired the digital agency, Profero. “Our focus is on acquisitions that add a new capability, such as in digital, rather than size for size sake — I feel that clients are increasingly sceptical about that,” Wright said.
“I think acquisitions are difficult to benefit from in our industry compared to others because everything ultimately comes down to culture and people. We are buying specific skill sets and capabilities but not factories and hardware. So sensitivity and open-mindedness are essentials to really creating value.”
