Agency of the Year 2006: Ogilvy & Mather

Advertisers generally either prefer working with independent agencies or with multinational networks. While independent firms are slowly gaining ground everywhere, Singapore client marketers still prefer the latter type.

That advertisers would most like to work with a big traditional network is by no means a negative thing - by virtue of Singapore being a regional hub for many industries, many advertisers may choose to go with a network for the optimisation and convenience that it offers, in terms of regional reach when rolling out regional campaigns, or the fact that a big agency can offer a raft of complementary services.

That clearly comes across in this year's Agency of the Year 2006 edition, with Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) once again voted top shop by client marketers, for the second consecutive year.

O&M should be credited for having been able to stay agile even as the agency expands. The agency has been able to keep up with the industry - not only in the creative sphere, but also in the public relations, direct marketing, interactive and branding sectors. In the five out of seven categories that O&M and its subsidiaries were voted in for this edition, it consistently ranked in the top three - quite a feat when you consider how many competitors the agency is up against in each category.

The strength of the agency and its separate disciplines are obvious - however, Stephen Mangham, group chairman of O&M Singapore is keen to have the agency seen as a united whole as opposed to its separate divisions.

Mangham said the plan and strategy for the agency going into 2007 would be to "focus on delivering great work that works".

"This will require a ‘one team one dream mentality', delivering bigger brand ideas which transcend individual communication disciplines and creating a strong planning
culture," he said. It is admittedly though a challenging task when you have an agency as big as O&M, with so many divisions, and with each division able to pitch for businesses separately and function pretty much independently.

While on the whole it has been a good year for the agency, it has not been all smooth - bumps include the streamlining of the agency's sports marketing arm Premiere Sponsorship Marketing (PSM) into sister WPP agency 141 Worldwide one year after it was established - the unit is now known as 141 Sports & Entertainment. Also, the realignment of O&M's sister agency David with Bates Asia in India sparked off talk that the merger may extend to David's regional offices in Asia, creating some uncertainty for David's office in Singapore. When contacted however, Richard Thomas, MD of David Communications Group confirmed the local office would not be merging with BatesAsia now or in the future.

There is no reason to doubt though that O&M is well-positioned for a strong start to 2007 - evident by the agency's strong endorsement by client decision-making marketers in Singapore and the strength of its creative capabilities as shown in its award pickings. It sure looks like O&M will remain a heavyweight for other agencies to contend with for some time yet.