ASIA-PACIFIC – Agencies who “parachute expats” into Asia-Pacific to lead their local market operations are going about business the wrong way, says Joe Celia (pictured), chairman and CEO of G2 Worldwide.
Celia, who visited Hong Kong for a regional G2 conference, spoke candidly about the network’s strengths and weaknesses in Asia-Pacific, noting that G2 has seen its share of success partly due to placing local heads at the agency's operations in each market.
“Don’t treat it as a region - think of it as countries and people,” Celia advises, warning that Asia-Pacific’s diversity presents problems to agencies looking to implement a strict regional structure. “Resist the temptation to homogenise.”
Celia goes on to note that G2 is most established in markets such as Malaysia, Japan and Korea, but has had a harder time making a name for itself in China and Australia.
Of China, Celia tells Media that G2 will only be able to grow and gain greater prominence through new business wins.
“What we’re really trying to do is go hunting and gathering every day,” he says. “Acquisition of significant agencies is not really an option in China … so you really want to grow organically.”
In terms of digital, Celia further offers advice to global clients looking to strengthen their interactive reach: take the time to learn the platforms.
"Every client needs to invest in learning. In the past five, six, seven years there has been more change in terms of marketing-communications vehicles than ever before," he says. "Now clients are scrambling to get into blogging, Facebook, mobile - but a lot of this sentiment is fear-based because they think they need to get into it. Take the time to learn before engaging."
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