Consumers are moving to conscious consumption, says Dick van Motman
Recently Singapore-based pop culture marketing agency Culture Group, on-boarded veteran ad-man Dick van Motman, as chairman of its Advisory Board. Motman, the former Dentsu global CEO of content & creative, has previously worked at agency brands like DDB and Leo Burnett in a career spanning over 30 years. The Drum speaks to Motman about the complex Asian market, his new mandate and his views on the future of the agency business.
The new age consumer
Having worked in network agency setups for many years, what excited you about taking up this role at a ‘younger’ and ‘independent’ The Culture Group?
SE Asian market is digitally first and has a very young demographic, known as the ‘creator generation‘, that connects differently with brands than ever before. Culture Group, founded by Michael Patent in 2016, belongs to the new breed of agency that serves as a creative and commercial bridge between brands and pop culture, to create business outcomes in Asia’s most dynamic markets.
Rather than concentrating on the advertising industry, I am now consciously active across multiple sectors focusing on working with founders and leaders who have perspective and conviction. My task is to put to use my extensive transformation experience of the past decades in scaling the business by identifying and growing talent and helping the agency work out a detailed roadmap to make that a reality.
What is your take on the always-on debate around the relevance of advertising agencies versus consultancies?
I believe ‘agencies’ (not consultancies) have always been meaningful and relevant extensions of clients to build brands and business in an ever-changing world, where connections and commerce happen simultaneously. In today’s world, brand connections are made differently, and people are plugged in and always-on, everything is media, and the connection is a dialogue.
In this ‘pandemic-shaped world’, consumers are moving from conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption, making a distinction between utility and passion spending, with little in between. As a result, consumers expect brands to demonstrate (not just say) that they understand their changed circumstance. And that is where agencies like Culture Group that understand the real-time and dynamic nature of the consumer engagement, through their intimate knowledge of K-Culture and the growing importance of avatars and social influencers, can step in and do the job well.
In this changing world, do the independent agency setups have an edge?
Well, in essence, being independent shouldn’t matter because big or small it’s about being that meaningful extension of the client to create connections and commerce at every moment, every point. That is why I have always said, “How can you be an elephant that can dance?” Arguably, being independent and not beholden by big holding structures does help with agility and shifting quicker to skate where the puck is going, to act on the now and next with relevant solutions.
What is the face of the future agency model going to look like, especially as APAC markets get on the recovery mode, post-Covid-19?
Covid-19 has forced us to understand the consumer more than just on a superficial data level. We have seen this in our region with the closing of countries’ borders, where it forced markets to focus on a domestic level creating their own ecosystem. Countries had to be more self-sufficient and Indonesia is a great example of how it has created a successful local market. In order to be meaningful, more than ever, it will be critical to help the clients to build connections and commerce with scale and speed through real engagement, where ‘insightful ideas’ are still the key currency.
How far has the business changed from a client perspective?
Every sector’s business environment has changed due to the pandemic. But it also has provided the opportunity to embrace this crisis as a way to change faster and better. Clients in this environment, have become more aware of the necessity to have the right partnerships, the ones that are working alongside to ensure agility, speed and scale, to ensure that the brand is relevant in the current circumstances.
The right client-agency partnership looks at the capabilities that are required now, what will be required in the future, and how we can get to that point effectively.
If you were to demystify the complex Asian market….
I don’t think there really was ever a homogeneous Asian market other than for organizational reasons, especially now that there are other sizable countries besides China that harbour real spending power. Having said that, you can see trends across these markets that more often than not, are global in nature with a real local flavour. Interestingly on the back of the closed borders due to the pandemic, a lot of countries have had to rely on change and reinvention from within and that produces self-sufficiency, versus being reliant on regional or global centres.
Some key trends we see are the rise of K-Pop (Indonesia is the 2nd biggest K-pop country in the world), the global streetwear economy that is increasingly stretching beyond sneakers, the emergence of Asian hip-hop, the rise of the Fem-Z demographic.