December 14, 2009 COLOMBIA | PRESIDENT OF THE WEEK
Arnau: “There is always something pending; in our case, to bring a Cannes Lion next year”.
Recently named Creative Agency of the Year at the Nova Festival, which took place last November, DDB Colombia assures that, despite the crisis, the agency will close 2009 with a 22% growth compared to that reported in 2008. “We won Bavaria Corporativa, the Pilsen and Poker brands, Pintuco, LG electronics, with its brown line (televisions, sound equipment and cell phones), the Ministry of Social Protection and the Colombian Military Forces”, explains its president, and highlights the creation of a new advertising concept called “DDB Consulting Influence”.
“Colombia was more affected by the closing of the border with Venezuela than by the crisis itself,” said Arnau.
“I think we got to where we wanted to be: in the top of the most creative agencies in Colombia and one of the most contributing agencies of DDB Latina,” said Michel Arnau, president of DDB Colombia, an agency that was nominated as Creative of the Year in the recent edition of the Nova Awards.
Regarding the award, Arnau explained: “It proves our ability to produce outstanding ideas, especially for our clients who, despite the difficulties of a year in economic crisis, will give better results than expected, just like us”.
In this context, the agency reported an estimated growth of 22% by the end of the year, compared to 2008. And as one of the keys, its president highlights the creation of “Influencia DDB Consulting”, a strategy developed from digital thinking, strategic and creative planning, whose main purpose is to support clients in this time of crisis.
“DDB Colombia took on the task of getting to know clients better in order to understand their businesses and consumers in greater depth, research that defined the new strategic dynamics that would mark consumption in times of crisis. It was an interesting experience for the agency to discover, for example, that consumers were going to spend more time at home and that the consumption of household products would have excellent opportunities for marketing and advertising communication,” explained Arnau.
Thus, beyond the crisis, Arnau comments: “Since mid-2008 we prepared for the crisis, I think the key was not to think about the results at the end of 2009; rather we concentrated on working in key with our clients to find ways to help them sell in those circumstances. In general terms, Colombia was more affected by the closing of the border with Venezuela than by the crisis itself. Let’s say that our country has had a less vulnerable or stable economy, but the drop in exports was very significant for most of our clients”.
As far as new business is concerned, Arnau listed: “We won Bavaria, Pintuco, Celulares and the LG Brown line. We concentrated on government accounts and managed to win projects and contracts for the Ministries of Social Protection, Mines, Education and the Colombian Armed Forces, among others”.
In this context, the president of the agency points out as to how the crisis was survived: “We did not tighten our belts, but we drew up an action plan oriented to our clients, that is why what we are seeing at the end of 2009 is that most of our clients will close with better financial reports than expected, and so will we”.
Integrated thinking
“2009 was budgeted conservatively, however the speed we had been going since 2008 did not allow us to stop,” Arnau explains. However, he says, despite the cost of creating Influencia DDB Consulting, it was a good investment, as the results are showing.
“There is always something pending, in our case, bringing a Cannes Lion next year,” says Arnau.
Beyond this, the goals for 2010 extend beyond winning a Lion: “We want to strengthen the human, technological and business resources we need to generate the ideas our clients need to grow. We believe in 2010… The crisis is in the past,” says Arnau.
Finally, regarding the digital evolution of the industry in general and of the agency in particular, Arnau says: “Here comes a little bit of everything. Everyone thought BTL was the solution and we’ve seen everything, good and bad. Now everything is going online, and that’s good. Tomorrow other things will come… What I think is that people are not looking for what we are going to do or what we are going to tell them. What people want is to be taken into account, to be given the importance they have, that’s why the new media are those that allow a sustained conversation over time, that listen more and better. Convergence is the medium. As in love, you have to say nice things in many ways, but true and not all at the same time, but above all, you have to listen a lot. Ten years ago we created Tribal/DDB, it seemed crazy at the time. Today we have more than 80 people working in digital. DDB Colombia is much more advanced in this area than our competitors, the Nova awards in the Digital category were mostly ours. Now we are working in triplicate: planner, creative and digital, it is another way of seeing things, always in accordance with the evolution of the markets and, above all, of the people of today’s world”.
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