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Q&A: Keith Smith

Keith Smith: Ad man

Keith Smith --- not to be confused with a Hot Springs Arkansas-based egg marketer by the same name - lives in Hong Kong, as the boss of an idea-hatchery. More specifically, as the regional chairman of the Asia pacific operations of TBWA, an ad agency. His "most significant business coup"? Swinging the Wonderbra account. Here, Smith speaks to BT Online's Aresh Shirali on globalization, disruption, Asia's brand-savviness, Apple Computer and Madonna's influence on fashion.

Q. Does advertising have a huge role in globalization?

A. Yes, it has. When we talk about advertising, we talk about communication, and the communication of brand values is obviously key to the globalization of brands. And increasingly I suspect there is a consistency in the way brand owners want their brands to be perceived, market by market.

But I would stress that we believe that it's beyond straightforward advertising. The whole point about TBWA"s 'disruption' and whole lot other strategic disciplines such as 'connections'. The theory is that you disrupt to create the new market space for the brand. And connections is all about reaching your consumers, wherever your consumer happens to be. As we know that the conventional wisdom of running a 30-second TV commercial is no longer sufficient.

When we talk about globalization, when we think about globalization of a brand, we're trying to find a big communication idea that works globally, rather than a 30-second commercial that works globally. That's one of the traps people fell into in the early days of globalization - saying that we're going to shoot one commercial in London or Paris or New York, and run it across the world. Now as we know, is not necessarily the way forward.

Q. Martin Sorrell says that 'globalization' is turning out to be de facto 'Americanization'...do you go with that?

A. No, I don't. I think globalization can come from wherever the brand comes from. Maybe 75 or 80 per cent of the global brands come from the US. Globalization to Apple might mean something completely different from globalization to Absolut vodka. With Apple, it's not America... we're talking about California. While the kind of globalization that we espouse for Nivea, is completely different... it's the globalization of skin issues.

Q. Shouldn't 'disruption' be must effective when ideas when non-US markets are transposed into the US market that typifies convention?

A. That's a good point. Take disruption days. It's very important that we get people from different cultural background involved in that process. When we have disruption days for Mars, for example, we have Americans in the room, Japanese in the room, Europeans in the room, Australians in the room... people from the Middle East in the room... people from different cultural mixes. Globalization can also bring with it the perception of global insensitivity.

But the point is, globalization doesn't have to be a one-way street. Japan has created global brands. Korea has the capacity to create global brands. It's not outside of reason that China should be able to create global brands. And obviously sometime in the future, India should do the same.

Q. Are Asian markets really brand-savvy, with people buying into the intrinsic values that these brands represent, or are they just buying brands for superficial status symbolism?

A: A lot of it starts as status symbolism. That's how it starts, but if the brands has substance, then as you learn more and understand more, then it becomes a more intrinsically valuable part of your life. Once you learn to love a brand, learn to value a brand, it's very hard to give it up.

I'm a failed professional footballer. When I was 15-16 year old, the boots that I had to wear were Adidas boots. My heroes wore Adidas boots, and I felt I played better in Adidas boots. Even today when I go to the gym, I wear Adidas. I believe in Adidas.

Q. What about Apple? Is it just '1984' and 'Here's to the crazy ones...' or is something else happening on that brand?

A. In the US, we had this campaign about people being interviewed on why they switched from PC to Apple. There's this one particular spot that has this Californian college student, she's about 18 or 19 - and she's become a cult figure in America, getting proposals over the Internet. You see the ad you'll see why, she's so amazingly vaguely Californian, and she talks in this Californian kind of English. There's a lot of evolution in the Apple world. It depends on the state of development of the market.

Q. And WonderBra - what was the market disruption caused by WonderBra?

A. At the time that we did it, the key disruption was that lingerie in the West was something that was worn under clothing, and was something women were very discreet about. We built on the fact that Madonna came along, and wore her underwear on the outside. She said sort of 'Eff You guys, I'll do what I want'.

So we took it out and tested it. Now, the WonderBra target audience was slightly older, the brand had been around for 25 years. We ignored that audience, the 40-year-old woman who still had WonderBras she'd bought many years ago, and sold it to 18-19-20-21 year-old women who'd buy into the Madonna view of how a woman presented herself to the world. We changed the brand completely, from a saggy brand for saggy women, to a brand for partying young women. And you know, breasts became a fashion item.

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