| Which office are you based out of? | |
|---|---|
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Anocha Luksanasut, CCO | Bangkok |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Bangkok |
| What is your background, in terms of agencies, accounts, and client-side experience? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | - Marketing and business development at DTAC, a mobile phone operator and at Truevision cable network - Strategic planning at Far East DDB and Leo Burnett |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 19 years in agency. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | I have been working both on global and local brands in various industries for branding and business tasks. |
| What is your staff size and how has that changed over the last 3 years? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | 7 including me. 5 years ago there were only 2, and about 4 pax 3 years ago. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | >100 staffs |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | 25-30 persons in Account Management Department, Project Management and People & Culture. High turn-over due to shortage of talent and competitive hiring within the industry. More versatile skills, especially on digital is needed. |
| What has been your role in the new business and organic growth efforts of the agency? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | As a planner, not much in terms of finding new potential customers but regularly involved in pitching to win new customers. And little effort in organic growth. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Producing creative ideas and helping with strategic approach. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Pursuing new business credential pitch. |
| As if you were writing to a prospective client, describe the agency in no more than 3 sentences: | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Leo Burnett is a passionately driven to provide creative business solutions, with "humankind" working philosophy at heart. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | A brand building agency. One of the first agencies that produced beyond traditional advertising. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | We are offering sustainable branding strategy with creative solutions for brand & business issues. |
| List the top few agencies that you do/will compete against most often: | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Ogilvy and Mather, BBDO, JWT, Y&R, Monday |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Ogilvy, JWT, Y&R, BBDO |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Ogilvy & Mather, BBDO, JWT, & YR |
| In the eyes of clients, what do you provide of value, that none of your competitors do? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Strong in branding campaign. . |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Long term brand building. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Strong and sustainable branding campaign with impactful meaning towards people. |
| In the eyes of clients, what do your competitors provide of value, that you do not? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Digital works |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Talk of the town work. Funky work. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Digital & project targeting generation y or younger audience. |
| Are there any negative perceptions about the agency that might hold your new business efforts back? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Can't do digital, clients need to have a lot of energy to work with LB, slow. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Expensive and difficult to work with reputation. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | We're not strong in Digital, Social PR, competitive price, time-to-market service & project targeting generation y or younger audience. |
| What are top 2 or 3 trends you see in terms of how clients are interacting with agencies in your market? What most makes clients unique in your market? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Project based remuneration and the end of retainer fee. Multi-agency structure--one client uses many agencies. A rise of small, digital-focused agencies who work faster and cheaper. Digital-led campaigns as clients think they are cheaper than traditional above the line campaigns. Big corporations building their brand through CSR campaigns. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Clients seem to look for an agency with digital capability. Most of them are looking for more effective communication than just awareness and reach. Budget cut. Cheap & quick turn around. Thai clients tend to think short term than long term. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Project-based contract with more involvement from procurement team. Need a quick fame from digital short-term disruption. Layers of authority. The working team has no real authority to make decision. |
| How has most new business come into the agency (i.e., competitive reviews/RFPs, proactive prospecting, organic growth, referrals, etc.)? How many competitive reviews/RFPs have you pursued over the past 2 years? How many did you win? Please explain. | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Mostly from credential pitches by invitation with winning rate more than 75% in the past few years. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Pitching. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Credential pitch and work pitching by invitation. Winning rate is at 7 out of 10 ratio |
| Please explain how your particular client roster is made up of multi-national vs. local clients. What is the current situation and what are your goals moving forward? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Mostly big local clients. We currently seem to get more projects from smaller (i.e. medium size) local businesses who seems to invest more for an opportunity and as a preparation to compete in AEC. I personally like to move forward pursuing mid size client with fast moving projects. Projects that come quickly and go quickly. Big business seem to move very slow. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 30% internationals, 70% locals |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Only a few global clients including Samsung and P&G, which both of them are working with other agencies and several content creators in the same time. If we can have a few giant brands with long-term retainer contracts, we would have more security. |
| Please explain how your office is currently experiencing AOR vs. project-based client work? Are you seeing a shift? What are the biggest challenges you’re experiencing? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | We hardly have any clients with AOR. Most clients, old and new, are on project-based because they use many agencies. Biggest challenge is trying to get the most number of projects from our current clients and make them keep us as their main agency. Also, if project-based is the way to go, how we effectively manage our resources. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Most of them are project-based. It’s more difficult to find clients who would pay retainer nowadays. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Most of our clients are in project-based deal with us. They've been using several suppliers in deliver the marketing communication works; e.g. digital agency, film production, PR agencies, media agency. Our competitive landscape is so fragmented. Clients select suppliers for the jobs by their specialists. |
| On a scale of 1-10, how well do your presentations back up the agency’s recommendation with an irrefutable logic trail? In other words, how well do you typically build a strong argument for the agency’s recommendation? (10 = we are always strong in this area) | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | 7 |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 8 |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | 8 |
| On a scale of 1-10, how well do you build your presentations around a new and unexpected strategic consumer insight vs. a predictable consumer insight? In other words, how well do you always have something brand new to share about the client's target audience? (10 = we are always strong in this area) | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | 6 |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 7 |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | 8 |
| On a scale of 1-10, how well do you build your presentations around a new and unexpected creative/concept/program/tactical idea? (10 = we are always strong in this area) | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | 6 |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 8 |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | 7 |
| On a scale of 1-10, how well do you demonstrate the business impact of your recommendations? (10 = we are always strong in this area) | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | 5 |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | 7 |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | 7 |
| Overall (and as you consider the questions above), what do you believe most holds back the effectiveness of your client and new business presentations? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Time, commitment, and teamwork |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Lack of time for each pitch leads to lack of new information. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | We tend to make things complicated while clients want something simple and business-focused. |
| Bottom line, what do you think the agency most has to do to improve at new business? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Ability to adapt fast to the changing environment. Have efficient and sufficient resources. Have a good mix of people. Perhaps new thinking/working process that will allow us to provide more services than traditional advertising. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | Story telling and convincing process. |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Be clear on our positioning and demonstrate our distinguished outputs for the future world in communication. |
| Any advice for us as we prepare the training program for you? | |
| Sonatee Hongladaromp, Head of Planner | Perhaps some role-specific contents as different role might contribute to new business differently. Some real case studies. |
| Paruj Daorai Executive Creative Director | More successful cases examples |
| Anocha Luksanasut, Chief Operating Officer | Coaching & retaining talents. Restructuring the organization to cope with the world of change. Talent recruitment. |