Passionately creative

Advertisers are generally creative, while French are typically passionate. Richard Pinder is combination of the two.

As Chief Operation Officer (COO) of the Paris-based Publicis Worldwide, Pinder is a passionate, experienced advertising executive with quite a few creative ideas. He calls Publicis' latest brainstorm, "Contagious Ideas" and expects it to change Publicis, the world's fourth largest ad agency, from an old school advertising firm to a total "communications house"; from a print, billboard and television ad creator to a online and offline "conversation navigator".

During his recent trip to Beijing, the 43-year-old Pinder couldn't suppress his excitement, when telling China Business Weekly the difference between traditional advertising and Publicis' new vision.

"The idea behind Contagious Ideas is the craft of advertising relies on the sense that there are ideas that make people talk about products," says Pinder. "What we do in a very short time is craft ideas where people are inspired to tell their friends, families and nationhood. When you see it, when you experience it you cannot help but share it, pass it on, it is contagion or a word-of-mouth notion."

He cites a study of the London School of Economics and Political Science as scientific proof for the contagion theory. According to the study, when there are nicer things said about a brand, more people will buy it, and if you influence positive word-of-mouth by 1 percent, growth goes up 4 percent.

"Our point of view is you need a really interesting contagious idea that people want to pass around and share, which will steer the conversation the way you want it. It doesn't control the conversation, but it at least tries to influence it," Pinder says.

Publicis helped Hewlett-Packard design a contagious campaign in China at the beginning of this year called 'Reward Yourself This New Year'. It wasn't just an online ad activity; it also had a viral component.

The ads for China Mobile (Beijing), Tsingtao beer and the Haier had interactive online components that drew approximately 100,000 visitors, during the New Year period.

Another example is Cadbury Chocolate Cream Eggs. They created a website www.cremeegg.com for an Easter campaign that showed a series of humorous 10 to 15-second films that featured a chocolate egg trying to kill itself because the candy is only available for a limited time during the year.

The campaign inspired people to make their own videos to upload on the website or to participate in discussions about the videos It attracted great interest, especially from younger people and Cadbury's sales saw remarkable growth as a result.

According to Pinder, advertising was previously mostly all about songs, slogans and jingles. When commercials were played on television, people would often discuss the jingle more than the television program. The difference is back then you could tell five of your friends and they would tell five or so of their friends. Now, thanks to the Internet you can tell 500,000 people.

"Word of mouth is much easier to transmit," the COO stresses, adding that the industry needs to react faster.

Pinder has made a digital future a top priority for the agency and has increased the company's digital capacity via mergers, requisitions and internal restructuring.

Shortly after Pinder took the COO position Publicis acquired a specialist agency, Digitas for $1.3 billion. Modem Media, an agency under the Digitas umbrella, was merged with Publicis worldwide operations to form Publicis Modem.

In China Publicis acquired Communication Central Group, the nation's largest digital and interactive communications company, last July.

According to a report conducted by German Federation of Advertising Economics, China has become the world's second largest ad market after the US.

In 2006, the overall revenue of the US's advertising sector amounted to $163 billion, an increase of 53 percent from $106.7 billion from 1997. While, China's ad industry revenue hit $48.5 billion in 2006, up 1,218 percent by $3.68 billion from 1997.

Meanwhile, a survey of China Internet Network Information Centre (CINNIC) says China had 210 million Internet users at the end of last year, 5-million fewer than the US. But China may overtake the US this year, it says.

Pinder, whose advertising career spans two decades and a wide range of experience in different sectors of the advertising and communications sectors, says he feels confident about the success of the Contagious Ideas philosophy here.

Publicis Worldwide has three offices in China (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou) with around 300 employees. After acquiring Better Way, a 500-staffer Chinese ad firm, the French agency says it will buy more when it makes sense and meanwhile is busy launching Publicis Modem China.

With constant travel to the Chinese mainland and years of working experience in Hong Kong, Pinder says one reason he comes to China is to "keep very fresh", given the dizzying changes.

"It's a place for creative people, for people with passion," he adds.

(China Daily 05/03/2008 page6)