How active are agency bosses on Twitter? Does it matter if they are not?
Why aren’t more agency bosses on Twitter? Mumbrella has ranked the region’s most powerful ad and media agency leaders by how active they are on the microblogging service. Robin Hicks wonders if it matters that they don’t seem too keen.
Agency bosses spend a lot of their time preaching the virtues of social media at conferences, to their staff and to their clients. But do they practice what they preach?
Most are on LinkedIn and Facebook, but what about the most open, public and in-the-moment social network that is Twitter, where all the fashionable marketing seems to take place these days?
Only just over half of Asia’s top advertising and media agency bosses have a Twitter account. The CEOs of Asia’s most powerful ad agency, Paul Heath of Ogilvy, and the region’s heftiest media agency, GroupM’s Mark Patterson, do not.
Does that matter?
Yes, the risk of a slip of the tongue on Twitter is off-putting. Not everyone likes the alarming immediacy of Twitter and, in the business context, agency leaders probably prefer the buttoned-down sanctity of the LinkedIn news feed to express themselves and interact.
But doesn’t it make sense that the boss of a communications company, who advises clients on where to spend their ever-bigger digital budgets, is personally familiar with one of the most popular?
Not tweeting does not make a bad boss. But some think a bigger Twitter presence among the people who lead the industry would good for it.
We took a look at the Twitter accounts of the guys who run Asia’s biggest agencies to see how active they are.
On average, Asia’s top creative agency bosses have been on the platform since July 2010 – four years after Twitter came into being. Eight out of 15 regional creative heads are on Twitter, and tweet three times a week on average.
The most prolific is the Rupen Desai, the APAC president of Lowe, who tweets eight times a week. The most Twitter-shy is the regional boss of Grey Nirvik Singh, who has tweeted once since he opened an account in February 2009.
The region’s media agency bigwigs have been on the medium slightly longer than their ad agency peers – nine months longer, on average. But exactly the same proportion have an account (eight of the 15 featured), who tweet with exactly the same frequency as their ad agency peers – thrice a week.
No one uses the medium as often as PHD APAC CEO Susuna Tsui, who by the way is the only executive among all 16 of our bosses on Twitter who has a digital background, and also the only woman. She tweets on average 15 times a week, although the content is not usually work related.
We’ve ranked Asia’s agency bosses by how many tweets they’ve sent (see below). Not a perfect analysis, since many Twitter users (this writer is one of them) like to read rather than tweet. Nor does it show how active these people are in other social media. But, at least on the surface, it does suggest that the industry’s leaders do not seem too bothered by a platform that a lot of people are using to communicate in real-time.
Pete Mitchell, formerly of the media agency world and now client-side as director of global media innovations at Mondelēz International, sympathises with time-poor agency heads who might not like be comfortable with the edginess of Twitter. Personally, he only uses it to post stuff from other platforms, mostly Four Square and Facebook, and has tweeted a few thousands times.
“It’s difficult to be on multiple platforms, particularly for people with time-consuming jobs. It’s also difficult for a business leader to post their life on a very open, in-the-moment platform,” he says.
But at the very least they should be “dabbling”, says Mitchell, who was formerly regional MD of digital media agency Neo@Ogilvy.
So who is and who isn’t?
Asia’s top-tweeting regional ad agency bosses
Profile description: I think Don Quixote got it right…
Followers: 299
Following: 344
Tweets: 2,234
Favorites: 4
Tweets/month: 33
Joined Twitter: September 2010
Profile description: Innovation in Asia and the occasional amazing car. President of Y&R in Asia
Followers: 787
Following: 636
Tweets: 1,478
Favorites: 71
Tweets/month: 26
David Mayo, Bates CHI & Partners
Joined Twitter: September 2009
Profile description: Grave-digger, traveller, runner, cycler, ad man, francophile, writer, photographer, recorder, father, husband, son.
Followers: 742
Following: 1,194
Tweets: 802
Favorites: 12
Tweets/month: 12
Profile description: What’s coming next and why. From the Regional CEO of M&C Saatchi across Asia. chrisjaques.wordpress.com
Followers: 1,231
Following: 42
Tweets: 690
Favorites: 9
Tweets/month: 20
Joined Twitter: September 2011
Profile description: CEO APAC @JWTAsiaPacific. China Pioneer, Corporate Leader, Brand Marketer and Bestselling Author.
Followers: 251
Following: 47
Tweets: 147
Favorites: 74
Tweets/month: 4
Profile description: Born in Oz. Lived in NYC, Dallas, Singapore and Melbourne. Passion for Porsches. Early integrator. Client passionator. Inventive marketer. Ad impersonator.
Followers: 148
Following: 156
Tweets: 66
Favorites: 1
Tweets/month: 0.5
Dick van Motman, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network
Profile description: dickvanmotman@dentsuaegis.com
Followers: 111
Following: 14
Tweets: 64
Favorites: 12
Tweets/month: 1
Profile description: Runs Grey Group in Asia Pacific. Avid Chelsea FC fan and sports fanatic. Loves reading.
Followers: 29
Following: 8
Tweets: 1
Tweets/month: 0.01
These agency bosses don’t have a Twitter account:
- Charles Cadell, Asia president, McCann
- Keith Smith, international president, TBWA
- Chris Thomas, chairman and CEO of BBDO Asia, Middle East & Africa and chairman, Proximity Worldwide
- Paul Heath, Asia Pacific CEO, Ogilvy
- Loris Nold, Asia Pacific CEO, Publicis Worldwide
- Jarek Ziebinski, Asia Pacific chairman and CEO, Leo Burnett
- Charles Wigley, Asia chairman, BBH
How do media agency bosses compare?
Asia’s top-tweeting media agency bosses
Profile description: Dive Diva, CCR, save the sharks, marine conservation, girl-power in advertising, digital at the core, champagne yes pls! #lovebubbles. Opinions are my own.
Followers: 473
Following: 1,076
Tweets: 4,045
Favorites: 6
Tweets/month: 61
Ashutosh Srivastava, Mindshare Asia
Profile description: Follower and commentator on Media and Marketing, technology and consumer behaviour
Followers: 741
Following: 414
Tweets: 766
Favorites: 25
Tweets/month: 11
Prashant Kumar, IPG Mediabrands
Profile description: pilot, father, ceo, strategist, daydreamer
Followers: 180
Following: 42
Tweets: 234
Favorites: 55
Tweets/month: 3.4
Profile description: Leads @HavasMedia in Asia Pacific, Social Storyteller, Meaningful Disruptor. Passion for educating the underprivileged. http://www.meaningfuldisruptions.com
Followers: 308
Following: 118
Tweets: 185
Favorites: 12
Tweets/month: 2.6
Profile description: [Blank]
Followers: 52
Following: 49
Tweets: 131
Favorites: 1
Tweets/month: 4.4
Profile description: [Blank]
Followers: 575
Following: 93
Tweets: 88
Favorites: 9
Tweets/month: 1.4
Cheuk Chiang, Omnicom Media Group
Profile description: Cheuk is CEO, Asia Pacific for Omnicom Media Group a global communications company with innovative media brands like OMD, PHD and M2M#HowCoolIsThat
Followers: 116
Following: 13
Tweets: 19
Favourites: 2
Tweets/month: 0.3
Jeff Seah, Starcom Southeast Asia
Profile description: Think, or be extinct.
Followers: 58
Following: 39
Tweets: 8
Media agency CEOs not on Twitter:
- Nick Waters, Asia Pacific CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network
- Sean O’Brien, Asia Pacific CEO, Carat
- Kristian Barnes, Asia Pacific CEO, Vizeum
- Stephen Li, Asia Pacific CEO, MEC
- Bertilla Teo, Greater China CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group
- Gerry Boyle, Asia Pacific CEO, ZenithOptimedia
- Mark Heap, Asia Pacific CEO, MediaCom
But so what if they’re not on Twitter? Are they really missing out?
The regional head of social agency We Are Social, Simon Kemp, who has 40,000 tweets to his name and not far off 100,000 followers, thinks that they are. It was Kemp who gave us the idea for this piece with the tweet: “Doing some research into APAC’s top marketers and agency people. Stunned how few of them have any kind of social/digital presence.”
Kemp proposes four reasons why Twitter matters for agency bosses.
First “for themselves,” reckons Kemp, who has worked at ad agency BBH and media agencies Starcom and UM in his career. “They’ll understand what these channels are all about, and how people use them. They’ll be in a better place to talk about them with clients, their own teams, and – perhaps most importantly – be able to learn new things and derive new kinds of value of their own.”
Second: “For clients, they see that the agency leads take digital and social seriously. They’re not just paying lip service or jumping on a bandwagon. They’re actually in there, exploring how things work, and because of that, they’ll be best placed to provide the optimal advice on those clients’ brands.
Third: “For internal teams, seeing their leaders actively involved in these channels ensures these channels are taken seriously. It’s also encouraging to know that the agency’s leaders are in touch with the way their junior teams communicate.”
And forth: “For the industry, it helps to ensure that we don’t get stuck in a repetitive, out-of-date paradigm (à la “this is the way we’ve always done things” mentality).
But it’s not like the leaders of Asia’s most influential agencies are showed up by their clients on Twitter, reckons Kemp.
“It baffles me that senior clients are willing to spend thousands of dollars attending conferences on digital, or pay management consultants astronomical sums to tell them what’s going on, when all they really need to do is allocate three to five minutes a day of their own time to get involved themselves,” which they can grab anywhere, anytime on their smartphones, Kemp says.
If clients and agencies are not putting in the time to understand what matters to very big audiences – whether that’s understanding the channels they’re using, or at least checking in on the kinds of content they’re consuming – then the industry can’t hope to be relevant to them, he argues.
It’s not too late to start, but probably better to get involved sooner rather than later, Kemp suggests. No one likes the feeling that they’re being left behind.
Robin Hicks is the editor of Mumbrella Asia
I would argue that is doesn’t make any difference – and given the painfully low follower numbers most of these folk have, I would suggest the world doesn’t care either.
In my opinion, understanding social channels is more important than using social channels (although both would be nice). Having a Twitter account is no guarantee of knowing how to use it as a business tool.
Everybody has his or her own reasons for the social channels they use and just as it is not a strategy to tell every client they should be on Twitter, agency CEOs – and everyone for that matter – need to weigh up which (if any) platform is most important to themselves, from both a personal and professional perspective.
ReplyFor marketing transformation to happen you need to lead, and be the change. Brands rely heavily on agencies to provide digital insight and advice, so it seems ridiculous that agency leaders aren’t embracing platforms like Twitter, and then cascading this through all levels of their organization. Brands are paying agencies big bucks for digital and want to see this advice comes from real experience. Having a basic social media presence, including Twitter and LinkedIn, is the basic foundation for this. I’d like to see less talk and more action – show you understand these platforms, demonstrate you can empathise with consumers and prove you can “eat your own dog food”.
ReplyYou missed out Asia’s best Specialist Agency (as announced by Campaign yesterday). Modesty forbids me to say who they are, but their CEO tweets from @honzad888 – mostly personal stuff and about 3* a week.
ReplyHow much “power” do regional agency bosses have? Regional markets have all but been wiped out.
ReplyOnly 5th most prolific media tweeter hey ? Clearly I need to up my game ! I’ve made a start by tweeting this article…
It’s an interesting POV. I agree with my old colleague Simon, you need to be using these channels to understand them better and in turn have a more meaningful dialogue with clients etc.
And I think I may redeem myself with my usage of other social platforms like Facebook & Linkedin… am guessing I might even be top 3 for them…
ReplyAn interesting thought piece.
I have often held that colleagues in the industry still lack the understanding to view social networks as anything other than broadcast vehicles rather than the chat and engagement zones they represent. It takes patience to cultivate a following that is engagement oriented. With this in mind some feel stumped when it comes to content.
Those who provide content for brands often feel too information overloaded to put much into personal Twitter accounts, and the most prolific there usually have others tweeting on their behalf.
Twitter however is just one piece of the massive jigsaw puzzle that is social media – formerly web 2.0 – or as we refer to it today, content marketing. For all we know these guys may be humming along socially on LinkedIn, in review sites like Yelp, car/wine/sport forums, on Tripadvisor, within dating sites or perhaps are prolific contributors to their private Facebook community.
ReplyIt is not just agencies.
Agency pitch consultants (the ones often engaged to assist marketers choose the right agencies to provide digital, social and technology advice) are also very poor at using social media themselves. When we did an audit of the pitch consultants in 2012 it was generally very poor and very little has changed. http://www.trinityp3.com/2012/08/does-your-consultant-know-enough-about-digital-marketing-to-add-tangible-value/
I agree with Damien, the change comes through leadership on both the agency, marketer and dare I say the consulting side too.
ReplyHow an individual approaches twitter is very different form how a business does, can we at least agree on that. So what benefit does an agency CEO using twitter have for a client?
Individuals (and especially those who use it attached to their career) do it mainly to show off how smart, clued on etc they are by association, by drawing your attention to smart articles and reports online….bloody boring and annoying if you ask me…yes ms. kwek Im looking at you. Anyone can do that.
Busineses that understand twitter use it to alert their followers about new products in stock, sales, special offers etc….and consumers like that because they feel like theyre getting breaking news before anyone else. The ones who misunderstand twitter use it to do what used to be called ‘topical advertising’…where they get on to anything thats trending and try to say something smart about their product with reference to that event…another extremely annoying behavious that consumers dont care for. They like to call this real time marketing….what a bloody joke.
So what is it that Damien wants to know now…whatever it is, I dont think an agency head using twitter is going to provide it.
ReplyDarren, I wholeheartedly agree. I believe it’s important that agencies/partners that offer advice use these platforms. It’s great to see you leading the charge…
Twatter, from your comment you seem quite cranky (perhaps jealous?) about your personal lack of effort on Twitter. Perhaps you’re just an anonymous troll but frankly, you seem mean-spirited when dismissing people who take the time and effort to actually create some value by sharing advice, insights and relevant articles via Twitter. You’re also wrong – if “anyone can do that” more people would. I’d love to see how you’re personally giving back and sharing your agency/marketing insights?
As for what I “want to know now”, I’d simply like to see agencies become better at digital. I’ve personally struggled in the past with creative agencies not understanding how to engage customers via social (beyond competitions and giveaways), and most media agencies have limited experience buying and trafficking Twitter ad buys. Having personal experience in the platform helps.
Agencies heads are not accountants, teachers or stockbrokers – they are marketers. They sell marketing services to brands. The best also inspire and lead by example, as is seen when great creatives becoming agency leaders. It’s the same with digital – I’d like to have robust conversations with agency leaders who understand the time and people commitment social media and digital marketing takes. A simple demonstration of this is by at least having a personal Twitter account. You’d expect an agency head to understand and comment on top notch creative, or a media agency leader to understand the change in the media landscape. Agency leaders should at least have a Twitter account, otherwise it raises a needless question mark about their digital credibility.
ReplyIs Twitter a personal platform or a business platform? This question must be answered first. Combining personal and business life on one twitter account is like taking work calls when you’re having dinner with friends and family. Some people just dont like mixing the two and even CMOs need to show some respect for that.
As a case in point, Dan Wieden doesn’t have a twitter account (there is one but it’s been hijacked by some idiot). But Wieden & Kennedy certainly have a Twitter account where they share all the wonderful things you are looking for. This makes sense to me.
I am bloody sick of people on linked in and twitter trying to appear switched on and brilliant just by throwing around links to articles. When everyone starts doing that it becomes a cliche. I’d be impressed if they had written these articles themselves, but that is almost never the case.
ReplyI have to agree with Twatter.
ReplyPumping out tweets in a vain glorious attempt to either gain digital cred and/or drum up business by attaching articles not authored by them is desperate and irritating.
No matter how polished it is, nobody launches into an elevator speech inside a lift up to happy hour at MBS. Worse yet, quoting what someone else said.
Twitter feeds into the ego-fueled broadcast delusion of brand-ME.
Just because you are tweeting doesn’t me anyone is listening.
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