Evolution of new thinking and passing the baton, key role in a creative agency
While the world is evolving with new ideas, new thinking and technology that constantly changes the culture of people’s behaviours and habits, passing the mantle of responsibility from one generation to the next plays a pivotal role in a creative agency.
Arosha Perera
It is important that any industry evolves and young people are empowered and young minds are given the opportunity to think, add value and bring to the table a plethora of new ideas to keep them alive, fresh and innovative.
The Business Times recently interviewed the new CEO of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka, Arosha Perera who took over the position from Ranil De Silva, a well-known veteran in the advertising industry.
Mr. Perera stated that there has to be fresh and young thinking in any creative agency in order to keep ideas alive and innovative. “We have a lot to learn from the senior people in the industry, absorb the good, the principles that do not change and add value in our own way with new thinking. The older generation’s responsibility to give the next generation that opportunity is what will keep the industry alive and vibrant moving ahead.”
Plan for the right time and groom the upcoming generation with responsibility. The youngsters must be able to stand up and take that mantle. Having a succession plan and at the right time give it to the right people and let them carry on, he added.
Mindset
He also mentioned that for advertising, being a business about changing people’s behaviour and mindset towards another brand, to be effective it has to be fine-tuned with how fast the consumers are evolving. The young audience today commands more of the attention, spending power and power of mind.
Advertising and creative agencies must embrace new technology, new ways of thinking to be open to what’s happening around the world since there are other markets that are many steps ahead of Sri Lanka. “You need people with the exposure who have seen how things have progressed in other markets and are able to see how our market will evolve in the future. An agency must have the technology within it, the thinking power, the disciplines that are required to be effective, not now but 5 to 10 years from now.”
“Even though Sri Lanka is a small country and not developed as other big markets, we have some advantages,” stated Mr. Perera. One of the benefits for Sri Lanka being a small market is that people adapt to things faster. With high smartphone usage and Internet penetration people consume entertainment more online. Sri Lanka has gone far ahead in embracing technology and new ways of consuming things.
Digital space
Looking at the digital space, Sri Lanka is behind because many things done in the digital medium is very basic. “We use social media for display purposes with a little bit of content and engagement. But in other markets they have taken it to much higher levels. In Singapore, China and most of the Asian countries, data is a key aspect, where they use data to their advantage. Sri Lanka is still not doing that here; we are still at the start of the wave. Even companies that have rich data are not quite sure how to make use of them,” noted Mr. Perera while adding that for real engagement for future brand-building, to reach out to the younger generation you have to be on digital and use it efficiently. Targeting the right audience with the right tools is very important as a creative agency.
Explaining values attached to a brand, he pointed out, “You need to believe in long term value of brands. As creative brand agencies you need to be responsible to be ethical, be sensitive to gender, community, sexuality and so on. To go after short term gain at the expense of long term brand value is a mistake. At the end of the day you need to leave a message about a brand to the consumer.”
Mr. Perera also emphasised that more growth on advertising investment is happening in the digital medium, but still the percentage of overall spending on media is very low. A bulk of the money on advertising is going into the traditional media such as TV and newspapers, which is shrinking in time to come. Advertising expenditures grow year-on-year, but it’s going into the new medium as opposed to the old mediums, he noted.