Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide (Thailand) CEO On-usa Lamliengpol yesterday said many enterprises were being more careful about selecting agencies to handle their advertising.

"Thanks to winning five new projects, we posted 8-per-cent growth in revenues in the first quarter," she said, but added that revenue growth was expected to be flat for the entire year.

The advertising industry as a whole saw only 3-per-cent revenue growth in the first quarter, and it is expected to be no more than 4 per cent for the whole year.

On-usa said advertisers were currently concerned much more about their return-on-investment rate than they would be in what she called a normal situation. The main criteria they are likely to use for selecting an agency are communication tools and strategies, creativity and measurement tools.

Large agencies are therefore likely to have an advantage over small- to medium-sized ones, because they can offer more tools to meet these criteria.

She said private-sector organisations were continuing to call agencies to pitch for advertising and marketing jobs at a high frequency. At the same time, government agencies have significantly increased the frequency of their calls to pitch for jobs, because they are keen to ensure that their budgets are spent correctly for the highest return.

Rangsan Rattananit, consumer contact director of Starcom under Leo Burnett, said six government agencies had already invited ad agencies to pitch for jobs, with another eight expected to call. Although there will be fewer government projects than in recent years, each project is expected to be larger.

Leo Burnett has already pitched for and won an Energy Policy and Planning Office project to celebrate His Majesty the King's 80th birthday, a national Public Health Ministry campaign to counteract the spread of Aids and a Tourism Council of Thailand project.

It has also won two private-sector projects: True Convergence and Bank of Ayudhya's Cardless ATM project.

In the second half of the year, the agency will pitch for an advertising campaign for the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

On-usa said Leo Burnett had adjusted its working system to win over other agencies in the current difficult environment by applying what it called a working strategy of "engaging holistically".

Officers from all departments in the agency are expected to identify a client's exact needs jointly, unlike the past practice in which only one department was briefed by clients and the work gradually distributed to each related department. Under the new strategy, each department offers resources to support the clients' work, such as information on consumer behaviour.

On-usa said Leo Burnett had an advantage over other agencies in that it had many departments to offer holistic marketing solutions.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation