The Strengths of the Global Planners Network I Discovered in Singapore

Working at a small creative agency right on the equator

Singapore, located in the tropics, is about a 7-hour flight from Japan. Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Singapore has its office right in the heart of the business district, surrounded by skyscrapers. Multiple agencies within the overseas Dentsu Group collaborate here, with nearly 500 staff members working diligently every day.

I have been assigned to one of these agencies, "Dentsu Singapore," as a Strategic Planner through the EIBA Program(※) since March 2019. It's a small organization specializing in creative solutions, a young and energetic agency where employees in their 20s and 30s make up the majority.

My planning team includes members from the UK, Sri Lanka, India, and Sweden. I find my days incredibly stimulating working alongside teammates from such diverse backgrounds.

The way the planning team works feels largely similar to Japan. However, one unique aspect is the frequent holding of brainstorming meetings called "100BOX," which gather all employees. This is because the available databases and resources are limited, making it necessary to efficiently gather ideas. We share ideas beyond our assigned clients and explore strong creative concepts.

An open and bright office atmosphere

100BOX: A brainstorming meeting where all employees come together to generate ideas under the single rule: "No idea is rejected."

DAN Singapore has two functions: driving local projects targeting the Singapore market alone and driving regional projects targeting countries across APAC (Asia-Pacific).

Nowadays, with the increasing localization of advertising work, fewer companies place their APAC headquarters in Singapore to oversee branding and sales promotion campaigns for the entire region. Even so, after taking up my position, I was able to work on several regional projects, including assignments for automotive companies and other manufacturers.

This time, drawing from my experience with regional projects—a unique function of DAN Singapore—I want to share the actual challenges I encountered in the work and my impressions of Dentsu Inc.'s solution capabilities.

A Major Barrier I Felt in Regional Projects

After taking up my position, I encountered a barrier as significant as the language barrier. It was the lack of insight – not knowing the client, not knowing the product, not knowing the people.

Naturally, when taking on a project, I invested time gathering information about the client and product, market conditions, and consumer needs. However, the necessary information wasn't always readily available.

For the regional project I handled for an automotive company, I needed to gather insights on the attitudes and values of people across Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Malaysia, and other countries to develop a brand strategy for their expansion.

Even though I was just beginning to understand Singapore, considering the insights of people in surrounding Asian countries was extremely difficult. However, I strongly felt that this was a challenge the client also constantly faced, and that this was precisely one of the values Dentsu Inc. was expected to deliver.

"We want to include market information on changes in consumer purchasing behavior across Asian countries over the past decade in this proposal."
"We want to conduct a quick negative check with people across Asian countries regarding this concept."
Based on Dentsu Inc. experience across Asia, analyze the differences between successful and unsuccessful campaigns.
Receiving such requests from clients is an everyday occurrence.

The crucial part is driving the PDCA cycle through sense checks.

For such requests, it is possible to provide a certain level of "answer" through analyzing research data, conducting consumer interviews, and consulting stakeholders. However, I believe the crucial final step is to verify whether that answer truly aligns with the "sense" of the people in those countries and to run the PDCA cycle for refinement.

In fact, for the aforementioned automotive company project, we held regular project update meetings with strategic planners from Dentsu Inc. offices in each country, jointly reviewing research findings and consumer interview results.

Particularly when extracting insights, the ideas behind hypotheses and the perspective of the approach are crucial. Therefore, collaborating with planners in each country significantly enhances the quality of the output. It is precisely because there is a network of strategic planners in each country that it becomes possible to conduct a broad and detailed exploration of insights globally.

That said, while this might sound like a perfect, invincible network, the reality was often far from straightforward.

For instance, a contact we'd been communicating with until yesterday suddenly resigns, or they send something that's clearly not what we requested, far past the deadline and with all sorts of excuses, or they send interview footage conducted in a local language (non-English)...

Maintaining continuity in human resources and ensuring consistent quality are themes that must always be kept in mind when leveraging this network.

What's needed to generate great ideas

Nevertheless, as mentioned in the client's request, expectations for the network of planners across countries remain high.

By leveraging open data, we can now access consumer information from various countries more easily than ever before. Using tools like Skype, we can even directly ask consumers questions. In other words, sitting at a desk anywhere in the world, we might be able to come up with some ideas.

However, to generate truly outstanding ideas, a keen sense for interpreting the underlying context is essential. This sense is honed through collaboration with planners who possess a deep understanding of a country's history and culture, coupled with extensive planning experience.

At the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (ADFEST 2019), the Dentsu Group was honored as "Network of the Year" for the third consecutive year. I believe the strength of these human networks contributes significantly to the excellence of a creative network.

The Dentsu Group can collaborate with numerous agencies across specialized fields. This human network connecting across domains is expected to generate various synergies in the future.

(※)EIBA (Emerging International Business Assignment)
A practical training program where young employees are dispatched for one year to Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network locations as part of developing next-generation talent. Participants gain work experience in a cross-cultural environment, aiming to acquire the perspective, skills, and professional connections necessary to lead projects both domestically and internationally.