MARKETING TV: We need to lift our game

SAATCHI & SAATCHI   KEVIN ROBERTS 

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Advertising agencies haven't reinvented the way they work or the value they bring to clients during the recession, according to Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts.

Roberts, who was in Singapore this week, spoke with Marketing TV about ‘winning ugly', his set of principles for beating the recession, and about how currently there are too many award shows in the industry.

"There are going to be winners and losers wherever you go. It's about focusing on what you can control. It's about inspiring people who are left behind," he said.

Roberts said the advertising industry has been "very slow" to react to the challenge of the recession and consumers have "sprinted ahead of us".

"They've [consumers] redefined their lives in this environment, like that. I think agencies, a little bit, are still sort of looking at the world as it used to be, as they'd like it to be," he said.

Roberts spoke about the focus of Saatchis in Asia Pacific following the appointments of John Foley as CEO in Australia, Dean Taylor as CEO of Singapore and Malaysia, and the merger of Saatchis with Fallon in Japan. He also said that traditional awards shows aren't keeping up with the pace of change in the advertising industry.

"I think it's gotten out of hand," Roberts said.

"I think it's become somewhat self-serving. Award shows conceptually are good things. [But] some of these shows are really just about generating revenue through getting more and more people to enter."

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