I was at an APG talk last evening by Guy Murphy, Global Planning Director at JWT, on the subject ‘Planning around the world’. Essentially he spoke about how markets in East and South Asia, and some in areas like Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa are growing rapidly and provide an arena to experiment with creative thoughts and ideas in a way that more mature markets like the UK and US don’t, and also how the approach to planning differs considerably around the globe. It was a great talk, and what I’d like to do here is link to resources or case studies (ads) that were shown yesterday that are particularly demonstrative of this fact, and interesting to know.
1. BRIC Pop, a site based on research for a book that documents the next global trends in pop culture, which will come from the four super-powers of the future: Brazil, Russia, India and China, by Richard Monturo.
2. The work of John Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School. An insightful post he wrote on his blog recently is ‘how to create a blockbuster’.
3. Ads that illustrate some of the planning work in
-The UK and US: the MTV ad against drunken driving and the Stride Office Park ad for chewing gum. The need of the hour for people here is to function as change agents and innovate because these markets have well-established brands and mature consumers.
– Japan, Australia, France, Canada: the Ford Mondeo balloon ad (this is a homemade version and apparently the car really did lift off!!), the KitKat Break Ultime ad (great animation – it’s almost like watching a film, not an ad), and the Schick Hige Chen website (it’s Japanese) which is basically a site that allows men to visualise themselves with beards and moustaches because the brand realised that 80% of the men in Japan don’t have facial hair out of choice. In countries like these, planners need to be fighters, with no doubt about the usefulness of planning.
– China, Russia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Poland: the Knorr Love Story ad (Guy said that there’s no way the UK, for example, could have got away with this kind of sentiment but it worked well in Argentina). Planners here need to be pioneers, but keep the thought simple or risk looking stupid.
– India. Surprisingly, this was the only country he mentioned in this category, because it has a long history of planning due to its historical links with Britain, and yet a market that is just growing. So, like the Kurkure brand promo idea that shows a man on fire, it’s a place where you can really let your creative juices flow.
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