For the entire day, I did nothing but read transcripts for Friends (Season 4). This is because Julian Yap (Creative Director), Puven Chandran (Copywriter), Lee Yin Loon (Art Director) and the new girl, Sue Ann (Art Director; dunno her surname... =P) went to a TVC shoot for the CNY ad for the Ministry Of Transport (MOT).
When Rees Ho (Account Executive) came up today, he gave me a shock: he cut his hair!!! He looked so innocent!!! Hahaha!!! Like a lil' boy... aww... no wonder Julian still calls him Ah Boy... hehehe... ;P
James Tai (FA Artist) came over and chatted with me for a while just before lunchtime. We talked about what I was gonna do after my internship and then he started telling me about the advertising industry in general. He enlightened me a lot by telling me that the trend of advertising has changed so much in the past coupla years. He mentioned that certain agencies have one big client and that's sufficient. Like the agency who usta handle the MAS account... that one account alone, that agency (I forgot the name) earned RM 70 million a year!!! But when that agency lost the MAS account, it went bankrupt... =P
When Rees Ho (Account Executive) came up today, he gave me a shock: he cut his hair!!! He looked so innocent!!! Hahaha!!! Like a lil' boy... aww... no wonder Julian still calls him Ah Boy... hehehe... ;P
James Tai (FA Artist) came over and chatted with me for a while just before lunchtime. We talked about what I was gonna do after my internship and then he started telling me about the advertising industry in general. He enlightened me a lot by telling me that the trend of advertising has changed so much in the past coupla years. He mentioned that certain agencies have one big client and that's sufficient. Like the agency who usta handle the MAS account... that one account alone, that agency (I forgot the name) earned RM 70 million a year!!! But when that agency lost the MAS account, it went bankrupt... =P
Batey Ads had been one of the top ad agencies in Malaysia until 1998... during the recession period. Batey Ads lost a few major accounts during that time... including DiGi and Shangri-La Hotel. But things got slightly better when WPP (Wire & Plastic Products) bought over Batey Red Cell. According to James, some agency (I dun remember the name) had to retrench 80 staff that year... phwoar... man... that was horrible!
Then he said that because the Account Management ppl are the liaisons between the client and the agency, they play a crucial role in controlling the client's demands. For instance, if the client is too demanding, the Account Executive (AE) or the Account Manager (AM) should firmly assure the client to leave it to the agency to do the job for them (in other words, let the agency take control!). If the AE/AM is inexperienced (as in, never went thru proper training in Account Management), then the client would lose trust in the agency and thus have a lotta demands.
James also said that the 3 leading product categories that advertise the most are: Travel, Liquor & Cigarettes. At the moment, Batey Ads is handling 1 of the 3... which is SIA. =) It's not a big account but at least, SIA still pays the agency every year regardless of how many ads the agency has to do in a year. Hopefully things would be better for Batey Ads in 2006! ;D
No comments:
Post a Comment