Guy Abrahams, Regional Communications Director, ZenithOptimedia

Guy Abrahams, Regional Communications Director of Planning in Asia, ZenithOptimedia, plays the role of leading the agency's communication and strategic planning across the region by driving the agency's expertise internally and externally -- a role that Abrahams sees as immensely satisfying and also interesting as it throws constant challenges. He has been ranked in the UK's Campaign magazine as one of the 'Top Ten Best Media Thinkers', and over the years, has built a reputation in the UK as a creative thinker who delivers effectiveness for clients.

In a conversation with exchange4media's Tuhina Anand, Abrahams talks about the challenges in the Asian market, ROI, and more. Excerpts:

Q. Does that also mean that you have the option to interfere with the creative?

If you need to deliver ROI, then you need to understand the construct that will deliver this. We need to know how message works and if that doesn't happen, all our efforts are null and void. It's not about interfering in the creative process; it's about making a better creative brief that works for the clients. I am not messing with creative thinking, there has to be a strategy to decide the creative role. There has to be an agreement to consumer pathways, look at possible solutions, and a brief of messages on each media. I don't want to do creatives, I am just looking at ways and means of delivering in a better manner.

I don't think it becomes more challenging, but it becomes more interesting.

Every agency might talk about ROI but it's about understanding the mindset and philosophy of people who deliver. If you look at our mindset, it's about understanding the real world and what works, it's about investing clients' money and not spending it, and it's about understanding the cost benefits. It's about internalising these tenets among our people and the more they do so, they are likely to deliver the ROI truth. Everyone might be talking about ROI, but we are the ROI agency; the reason being that we have a culture, which helps in delivering that. There is no point in having an idea if you are not aware what that idea can do. We are in a commercial industry and at the end of the day we do require to talk about numbers, which no one can deny. As an ROI agency we are looking at getting closer to the truth, and that means finding better metrics that will help in achieving this. It's about thinking ROI, believing ROI and delivering ROI.

Mobile. It's interesting to know that one is still finding out ways to do mobile marketing. ROI from mobile is seen as one of the best performing media. You look at Japan and you see 56 per cent of Japanese people obtain advertising on the mobile phone because they want it, and clearly it's working both for them and the advertiser. Direct messaging, using the facilities on the mobile phone for colourful messaging and banners can further develop mobile marketing. Contextual advertising, where one looks for a word and relevant messaging shows up, can also be explored.

It depends on the dynamics of the market and your client. In certain segments, digital would probably be one of the most cost effective ways. Going forward, one does need mass media to communicate. It's a communications journey. Even with direct mailers, one can't get people to click seeing the mailer; there should be activity surrounding it. Any media cannot survive alone; there has to be various touch points. Even a television commercial cannot work alone; there must be packaging around it.

The big new thing in television is the Juice TV by Sky. People behind it are busy launching various platforms for thousands of on-demand channels, and it's going to be advertising funded because they realised that people actually don't mind watching an ad or two. In fact, the audience appreciates that because it allows them to watch the television programme for free. The important thing is you give people advertisements that they want. You and I watch the same programme but I can watch advertisements that I want. I have demanded advertisements for video games and I get to see that. You get what you are interested in, and as a marketer I get the specific TG. People who run Juice probably thought that people buy magazines that run advertisements, so why can't television be the same.

You don't start with tools and techniques, but instead begin with your brand business and understanding the consumers. One can work out a communication strategy or plan media without tools. These just aid in arriving on a solution but are not enough if relied just on tools.

At ZenithOptimedia, we are increasingly practicing and taking forward the belief that we can't get away with anything in a black box. All our processes in the future would be transparent because we want our clients to understand them. When we put a proposal code, it's not an imaginary frequency or model, but it's a reflection of reality. For us any tool that we are looking at in future will be one that teaches people about how communication works, and then this tool will help them in arriving at answers. The answer can never be in a mathematical equation; it has to be within the person and his or her understanding of brand business and consumer.

Difficulty is a tricky word, as each time I get a challenge it becomes interesting. The most interesting thing for me would be to understand the Chinese beauty market because in China they legalised make-up in 1982. There is nobody to teach children or adults how to put on make-up. The entire concept of beauty within China is very different from rest of the world, whereas in China beauty is more inner-directed. So while lips are important feature in other part of the world, eyes are the most important feature in China.

We have a process which is the 'customer journey', where we start by breaking down and understand each step of the journey and by doing that we have a theory, we talk to some consumers where we would go wrong and my role as Regional Planning Director is to ensure we go through the right planning process and procedures. You cannot learn beauty in China from a computer screen or numbers. You will learn by talking to clients, teams, reading books, observing, by watching and seeing how people interact, and then feed the data into that. Understanding of data becomes relevant only when it's put into relevant context.

I think everyone is creative and every agency is creative. The issue is not creativity, but it's about having the understanding and arriving at the right answers. Sometimes the right answers could be quite boring but one needs justification of why one needs to follow that. And if you are able to show how every pound spent delivers profit, then there could be no dilemma in following that plan.

One of the reasons why I have joined an ROI agency is because that's inbuilt in the philosophy of the agency. The ROI comes first and the creativity sometimes helps in delivering that ROI. Doing something brilliantly creative which does not promise any return is of no use.

For me, challenges are interesting and not intimidating. More than challenges, what I found interesting were the similarities in various markets. I think the biggest challenge in Asia is probably the youthfulness of the industry, which leads to an imbalance between demand and supply in talent. Talent is heavily demanded in these fast growing markets, yet the truth is that there has been an acute shortage of talent in advertising across the world and the problem is more acute in Asia.

The other thing that I find challenging is the different forms of data. I wouldn't say data is scarce as that would be wrong since there is ample rich data. Third is the innumerable cultural difference both between countries and within countries, which makes some kind of uniformity a difficult proposition.

We have a process like any other agency, and through the ROI blueprint we ensure that the philosophy flows across our people and build up a set of values and procedures. We have a ROI blueprint, which is constantly under revision. It's like Wikipedia, which is constantly reviewed and is democratic. We want our people to answer three basic questions: from business perspective -- how does the business you are in make money; from a brand perspective -- what makes a brand different; and from the consumers' perspective -- who are the consumers and why do they buy. The understanding of these basics would help people in meeting the ROI.

Fundamentally, when one does segmentation, it is important to understand the similarities and not the differences. It helps in delivering if one found the common thread in different segmentations. Clearly, in some private conversation like mailers one can look at customization, but if communication is in the public domain one has to look at similarities. There could be one piece of communication but two different take-outs; it's the ability to reach out to multiple customers with the creatives.