Independents go global

The recent TNBT and The Law Firm partnership reflects the increased demand from clients looking to expand overseas and seeking alternatives to the traditional big agency network offering, reports Debbie Cai.

Instead of operating like a holding company, The Law Firm is more like a "helping company", CEO of TNBT Palani Pillai says, which aids independent and entrepreneurial agencies in benefiting from each other's expertise around the world.

"We can't do it on our own. We can't organically grow and cover the rest of the world in the next 10 years. To expand our footprint in Asia and the world, it's critical we tie up with likeminded people like Andy," Pillai says, adding that The Law Firm will not step in to tell TNBT what it should or should not do, but allow it to retain autonomy over its business.

The Law Firm Group now spans 21 ‘nodes' in 91 markets, was formed on 4 July 2005, and consists mainly of independent full service agencies who themselves have been in business for up to ten years.

According to Andy Law, founder and chairman of The Law Firm, this defines the type of people in the network. They are new breed entrepreneurs and particularly for the younger generation creatives, "their views of where creativity can go are very different from our views".

The agencies within the network are linked financially, organisationally and culturally, he says, and they meet each other once a year and "hothouse the year ahead". The conversations that take place are also unique because of the different specialisations each agency brings - for example, Mexico specialises in political campaigning while France uses entertainment and mobile marketing to create brands.

"Our organisational template was based on the social networks on the internet, which is why we called them nodal centres," Law says. "It's a peer to peer network which is a fundamental difference from anything else that's out there. And people involved in it get as much out of it as they put in."

Pillai says the analogy on social networks like Facebook is right because someone invites you and you can accept. If you don't want to, you can reject, and this set-up turns every independent into a global company.

As of 15 April 2008, TNBT has taken on global responsibilities to manage the Group's Open Source Creativity process, where all the pitches around the world the agencies are involved in are recorded and exchanging of creative ideas and advice is encouraged - without charge.

When asked for his views on creativity in SE Asia, Law says, "If you were to judge advertising by everything you see in the newspapers or on TV over a few days, in every market you go to you'll see it's crap. Because the truth is 80% of output of ad agencies is crap. 20% is utterly brilliant and it's as good as what you see anywhere else.

[Box out]

Marketers who want their agencies to have regional or global reach have typically worked with those from the big five networks (WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic, Publicis and Havas). Now that there are more such independent agencies banding together to leverage on each other's different expertise, Marketing asked two heads of agencies from large networks if this will threaten their businesses in any way.

"Agency networks only work if they have a shared culture and great individual relationships. It's not easy and it takes time. Some succeed, others don't. Clients also want to know the agency can come up with consistently good solutions. A network alone is never enough," Angus Fraser, managing director Singapore, JWT, said.

"I don't think this patchwork of agencies brand present anything of a threat to the major agency groups - especially with major international accounts. Independent agencies tend to be personality/entrepreneur driven and have big problems in integrating and internalising brand identities and philosophies. Further they rarely have the depth of expertise and the strategic perspective that an international brand requires.

Independent agencies have always been around and have always had their place. What has made them especially viable recently was the relatively recent de-coupling of media and the rise of interactive - which have led to an increased focus on creative and on nimble effective solutions. It's true many agency networks have been slow to respond to these new dynamics allowing independent agencies the breathing space to grow. But firstly that is not the case with Publicis where we have been ahead of the curve in the digital arena and our creative standards remain a major focus," Thomas Neo, CEO, Publicis Singapore, said.