Philips brings agency staff in-house as it opens digital command centre in Singapore
Electronics giant Philips has opened a digital command centre in Singapore that the company says will enable it to communicate with consumers in real time across the region.
Called the ‘Conversation Engine, the unit will be staffed by 40 people – including staff from roster agencies – on Philips’ premises in Toa Payoh to handle search, social strategy, data analysis and media buying and planning.
The company aims to produce a mixture of long-form, short-form and “daily” content that supports its ‘Innovation and you’ proposition, and its brand purpose of “improving the lives of three billion people a year by 2025.”
Damien Cummings, who is eight months into his role as Philips’ VP and CMO for ASEAN and Pacific, told Mumbrella that Philips would not be using the command centre purely to react to trending topics, such as Nissan’s recent responses to the Royal Baby news and Apple’s #AppleLive launch event this week.
“While Oreo, Apple and Nissan are interesting case studies, I don’t believe they are necessarily great marketing,” Cummings said. “With Philips, we will not follow, we will lead. You won’t see us jumping on a hashtag trend,” he said.
Even so, while between 50-70 per cent of content produced by the command centre will be planned and scheduled, 30-50 per cent of content will be “reactive”, Cummings said.
Staff from Ogilvy & Mather will sit in the centre to aid production and creative, Carat will handle media, PR will be by OneVoice and Havas Media tasked with search.
“We want people to throw their business cards away at the door, as we create teams around five key themes – aging well, connected workspaces, smart home, ‘look good, feel good’ and clean air,” Cummings said.
The command centre will look to take lessons learned from in-house marketing models that have not worked, such as WPP and Dell, where Cummings worked as online director for Asia Pacific and Japan in 2010, before he moved to Samsung.
In-house agency models have failed partly because they did not attract strong talent who did not want to work full-time on one client. To remedy this, agency staff will be asked to work for no more than one to three days a week in the command centre, and then rotated, the CMO said.
Cummings said that the command centre would work out “net neutral” in terms of its impact on the company’s marketing spend, and would reduce cost over the long term.
The centre is currently in test phase, and may be rolled out to other parts of the region over the next year.
“This is the way marketing will be done in the future, and the way agencies will be set up in the future,” Cummings said.
As part of its content and engagement strategy, the company is partnering with LinkedIn to make use of the 11,000 Philips employees who use the business social network.
The company plans to, in partnership with its PR agency FleishmanHillard, re-write employees’ LinkedIn profiles to a “power profile” level, encourage them to connect with the influencers Philips wants to talk to, and then distribute content generated from the command centre through its staff on LinkedIn.
The approach, which works on an opt-in basis, will begin with senior executives, then thought leaders, sales staff and eventually the whole company, Cummings explained.
“It won’t become a social selling tool, but we want to use social as PR vehicle to communicate brand messages,” he said.
Watch a brief video showcasing the digital command centre.
“In-house agency models have failed partly because they did not attract strong talent who did not want to work full-time on one client. To remedy this, agency staff will be asked to work for no more than one to three days a week in the command centre, and then rotated, the CMO said.”
I don’t think this will work either….creative staff need a strong creative figurehead to motivate, reject, praise and inspire them…a client can inspire fear and blind obedience, nothing more. And the 3 days on 2 days off rotation ensures that they can never ever persevere to see anything through….just when theyre on the verge of achieving something theyre back to the agency, just when the agency gives them something to do theyre back to the command centre….lots of flaws. And yet another example of what big control freaks some clients are becoming.
Reply“While Oreo, Apple and Nissan are interesting case studies, I don’t believe they are necessarily great marketing,” Cummings said. “With Philips, we will not follow, we will lead. You won’t see us jumping on a hashtag trend,” he said.”
You kidding me? Apple aren’t great marketing? They almost killed your category, and still looking to do so.
ReplyHow an omnichannel strategy is brought to life in a complex organisation. I find it a visionary step that many will follow I predict.
ReplyDavid E, in-house agency models like Enfatico at Dell failed because they asked a smart team of creatives, media and comms professionals to work on one brand. This effectively meant they were stuck in limbo between two worlds – being outsourced Dell marketing team member, without the benefits of being an employee but also being an agency person without the creative friction or buzz of many diverse clients. We’re using an altogether different model. If we were doing “campaigns” I’d agree with you. But we’re not. We’re focusing on “always on” content marketing. There is no big idea in the traditional sense – it’s more like an editorial newsroom, free from briefs but with a long-term editorial plan mapped out over 12 months. Both the agencies and I believe this will encourage creativity, not stifle it. However, since you’re critical of the approach I’d love to hear your suggestions on a better way of doing this.
ReplyVeteran, you’re missing the context and the point. Re-read the quote and you’ll see that the point is about jumping onto a hashtag like #AppleLive by other brands. The other examples mentioned by Robin were Oreo and the blackout at the Super Bowl, and Nissan tweeting about the royal baby. This isn’t smart or effective marketing. It’s gimmicky. This is also something that we won’t be doing. As I mentioned in the article, we’ve defined conversations that we will lead, and engage our customers in. We will lead these conversations, not follow.
ReplyI’d like to add that the “Us vs. Them” adagium is something of the past anyway. In the new digital age we’re all free individuals entitled to an opinion. As long as you hire a group of people (and that is the key for me) that feels free, intelligent and responsible and that feels one with the brand they represent. I do strongly agree that the difference between succes or failure is defined by the strong creative figurehead to motivate, reject, praise and inspire them. That however is a personal strength of a leader and has little to do with the company that person resides in?
@Damien; what are your there top KPI’s that will define succes?
ReplyRens, thank you for the kind words and the question. I know the team here (and I) are delighted to see positive comments about what we’re doing at Philips. Some of our KPIs include improving brand preference and purchase intent, awareness of our brand portfolio, share-of-voice around each conversation and of course sales – driving retail traffic (offline & online) and generating B2B leads.
ReplyVery recognisable objectives, a thing we always struggle with is how to isolate the impact of (in your case) the Command Centre from the rest of the marketing mix. Any thoughts on that one?
Cheers,
Rens
ReplyRens, you don’t isolate the impact. This is not another media channel, it’s an entire change of the advertising/marketing model. Campaigns (such as the launch of the amazing Philips Noodle Maker) are integrated with content (recipes, cooking tips, reviews, how-to videos, infographics, etc.). At the same time, conversations (e.g. Clean Air) build category awareness, then link to and drive sales for products (such as Philips Air Purifiers). I see this integrated link between passion points and product as the future of marketing.
ReplyFully agree, still we often need to present a business case that justifies the investment in such a group and infrastructure which ultimately needs to be supported with a rational of some kind and not only the conceptual model (in which in itself I strongly believe). Or have you completely pulled the plug on traditional TV and print and was this the only viable alternative anyway?
ReplyWOW! I’m sure this will make a big impact to Philip’s sales figure. I am a big believer in content marketing and it sound like these guys know what they are doing. I am exciting to see if this is rolled out in Thailand, esp. on the part of B2B content marketing. My company has been trying to push B2B content market awareness to the market and if Philip is a success case story this helps generate awareness on the important of content marketing.
ReplyContent marketing?…….My bad…..I misunderstood this to be something of consequence…..yes damien is right……anyone can do this, anywhere. Although some might argue that it needs to be set up like the editorial department of a magazine with a highly experienced/credibe editor for every subsection of content. I still dont see how this will make a big difference….but i can see how it keeps all the data within the clients possession and prevents leaks….plus massive savings on taxi fares/travel between client and agancy offices.
Reply@David: Creative group process and mutual inspiration is what I think is the big advantage on top of what you just wrote
ReplyI have no comment on an in-house agency model as I have no clue about it. We should appreciate that Philips is trying to do something different and whether its going to work or not, its too early to judge. If it works for Philips it doesn’t mean that other can replicate the same model and expect same result and vice versa. I am exciting to see how the digital command centre is going to make an impact to an online advertising and social selling especially for the South East Asia market.
ReplyHow will you know if you don’t go?
ReplyKudos for trying.
I’d be keen to read the first-year report.
Damien: Congrats on getting the command centre live. For Sales, Traffic and B2B leads (KPIs), are you using any Attribution models? If so, what is your overall methodology? Is it focused on First-click or Last-click?
ReplyThis series of comments are so obvious that it came from the same person at Philips. Shame on you to think that the readers aren’t aware of that. So this is what you mean by controlling the conversation. It’s as good as sell-a-vision.
Reply@Toms; Never assume. Make sure you know. I am a former Philips employee, very critical about my former employer and often sceptical about their initiatives yet not this one. I have no relationship with Damien whatsoever nor is this discussion controlled by anyone in anyway. You can find me here: nl.linkedin.com/in/multichannelmarketing Where can I find you? Cheers, Rens
Reply@Toms: Did you get passed over by Damien, or were you once fired from Philips? (Howzat for an incendiary statement? Granted, it’s as baseless as the sentiments you expressed at 3:53pm.) There’s been enough negativity in the ether lately, what with dodgy Guinness ads and questions about the creds of industry veterans. Let’s give Philips and its CMO some time and space to prove their hypothesis. And if they succeed, we’re all better off for it. Peace. David, not Philips @ https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=36146735&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile
ReplyOh boy, I have to laugh when brands try to ‘engage’ and have ‘conversations’ with people. It’s about as unwelcome as hitting on someone who doesnt want the attention. A great example of this was seen on 9/11 memorial day in the USA….brands suddenly felt the need to be part of the conversation and start trading off the grief and memories of people. Despicable. Luckily people told them where they could shove their special memorial day gift certificates.
ReplyThis is very interesting, but to echo David E, my instinctive reaction is: if this in essence an always on editorial newsroom, why no room for editors. Having experienced agencies play at editorial, I would advise: hire an editor or two up front and give them the autonomy to really run this thing.
ReplyMost people don’t believe something can happen until it already has; http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/15-viral-marketing-examples-campaigns-past-5-years/
ReplyReading the article leads me to believe that this so called agency/command center being set up is mainly to churn out tweets and social media posts on Philips products….ie. the stuff consumers hate. Example: if theres haze in indonesia, someone will say…PSI 154!!!! Get a Philips Air Cleaner for $10 off today. Bla bla bla….this is pretty boring stuff and bringing this function inhouse does not take much ingenuity or foresight…it’s just convenience meets cost management.
Whereas all the examples in Ren’s link above are the result of an idea generated somewhere upstream….not by some social media response unit? Am I right in saying this?
ReplyHi Shane, very true. I assumed some Big Ideas and insights to be at the foundation of the messaging. If this was meant to be plain product communication that would kill the concept from the start,@Damien; what is your point of view here?
Reply@Michael, I’m not sure why you’re assuming there are no editors. Yes, there are.
@Shane, I can see why you’d assume that the content is only tactical product offers but that’s wrong. We are using 3 tiers of content (the 3 “e’s” – Engrossing, Engaging and Everyday) around both Conversations, as well as marketing campaigns/product marketing. This is online and offline, not just social. The focus is adding value to customer’s through relevant content (anything from a 2-hour documentary, to a major research report on the affect of Aging on the healthcare system in Asia Pacific, all the way down to a tweet about air quality). Without giving the game away, the content and marketing we produce here will be very different than the “buy one get one free” or “$10 off product x” you are expecting.
@Rens, thank you for the great examples. We hope to be one of them soon. 🙂
ReplyA 2 hour documentary….hmmm….okkkk……do you know what goes into making a documentary?…..good to see it’s not just agencies that overpromise.
As for what constitutes “engrossing, engaging or everyday”….its consumers who will decide if it is so.
This is a notable news…just not as mindblowing as its being made out to be.
ReplyLenovo has also created a digital centre of excellence based in Singapore where creative, technology and social media staff sit side by side.
The idea that clients can set up in-house capabilities suited to their needs is a wake up call to traditional ad agencies to stop offering generic one stop shop services where they excel in nothing…
Reply@damien because nowhere in the article does it say so. I would have thought an editorial operation would be run by an editor, with agencies in support/partners Is this the case, or are the editors lower down the production chain?
ReplyThanks
Thank you all very much for your feedback and constructive criticism. The team and I are particularly happy to hear from people in the industry wishing us well – thank you. For the disbelievers, I don’t feel there’s anything I can say to change your mind (or to encourage you to keep an open mind to new marketing innovations). However, I’ll be happy to take you through a tour of the Asia Digital Command Centre and explain the entire Conversation Engine program in-person if you are based in Singapore, or plan to visit here in the near future. Feel free to get in touch with me and I can show you how it works personally.
ReplyThe only half decent philips advertisng Ive ever seen is something for their 180 inch lcd tv done out of 180 or DDB amsterdam…i think it was called carousel. Rest of it, well you can talk it up as much as you like, it’s just a finely polished [edited by Mumbrella].
Reply@Stan take a look at the latest ad work for HUE. “Philips hue – How many years does it take to change a light bulb?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVUTEVZCqsg
Reply“Philips hue – How many years does it take to change a light bulb?”
Is this done inhouse by Philips?
Reply@Greg Nope, it was done by Iris London I believe.
ReplyBad move.
ReplyThis Philips hue work is not even good.
ReplyHave your say