AgTalk | Market-wise disruptive & differentiated: TBWA's Laurie Coots

Laurie Coots, Chief Marketing Officer, TBWA Worldwide, believes that marketing can only happen if you have a key differentiator in place. Amidst talks about disruption methodology and Social Activism 2.0, in an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Coots talks about her plans for TBWA India. Excerpts:

Adgully (AG): Can you tell us about TBWA's study Social Activism 2.0?

Laurie Coots (LC): The research that we did was originally launched in the United States and it was inspired by the fact that when you heard the press talk about 20 somethings they depicted the generation as being very self-centered. So we wanted to understand if that was true and we undertook a research and we found out that it was not true at all. We found that 20 somethings have a very deep concern about causes and about social issues that are going on around the world. But they express it very differently than generations before them. A lot of that is because of all the technology and social media tools. So we found out that there were basically two kinds of audiences, one were Slacktivists and the others were Activists 2.0. Slacktivists were people who really cared about something and spent a lot of time getting information on it. They further shared this information with their friends and they were very involved in moving information around. Then we had a second set of people who did all of the above and also undertook volunteering and who we identified as Activists 2.0. They used all kinds of social media for social networking and they used it to facilitate something happening in the real world. We went ahead and found that if we could make it more social for Slacktivists then they would crossover the Activist 2.0 line. Now the reason that this is so important is because brands will see this and they will see that 4 out 5 will tell a friend about a company which is doing good things. Brands will also see that these consumers will also be very loyal with their purchases.

AG: What are some of the initiatives that you have undertaken to build TBWA as a brand globally and in India?

LC: We are a little different than many agencies because I am a big believer in marketing. Now most agencies do ot market themsleves, they may do little PR. At TBWA we think differently in the way we build our intellectual properties, so our disruption methodology, our disruption toolset, our articles about disruption and our storytelling all are very definetly put together with a single mind and purpose. As a worldwide network we are all completely aligned around disruption, that makes it easy for me to have a differentiator against other agency networks. It has taken us ten soild years to build a differentiated network, a differentiated methodology and a story which is very credible both in creative and effectiveness.

AG: Which are the important markets for TBWA at this point in time?

LC: Obviously at this point of time in the world any of the BRIC counties is important. I think we will, like in most companies, start to see dependence on the Western Europe and Unites States go down, as it goes up in China and other emerging nations. Right now I am spending a great deal of time in the emerging markets.

AG: What are your India related plans right now?

LC: The biggest thing we are doing right now in India is that we have got really a solid management team in place. We are introducing shopper marketing, which is a really important discipline as this market starts evolving and as the retail industry also starts penetrating potentially withing the country. We are also going to be launching an Indian version of Social Activism 2.0. After USA, we are looking at 15 markets for the research and India will be the first market we are starting off with. And as we undertake the resaerch in India I am going to be interested in a couple of things. I will be interested in knowing which are some of the brands that youngsters identify themselves with and are paying attention to, we will probably explore how young people are managing the old and new India and we are also going to look closely at the difference between men and women.

AG: If you could point out some of the potential categories of brands that you would like to focus on in India?

LC: I think we are wide open in many categories, we are already working for sauces and condiments, in certain aspects of retail banking, financial services, skin care etc. We will further strengthen our position within these categories. We also believe that digital is a way of doing things and that it is not really a separate thing. So what we want to do is make sure that all of our creative teams have a very good grasp of all the digital tools. So now when we develop an overall campaign we always have a digital presence.

AG: What are you doing to nurture talent in TBWA India?

LC: We are spending a lot of time in leading disruption workshops with our clients and with our own staff. We believe in having more and more conversations and training programmes around media planning which is beyond integration. Also I look at kind of spending time to understand some of the existing challenges on the client's side and agency side, so as to troubleshoot them. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]