COVID-19: Agency Communications

Read the transcript here:

Derek Klimkwoski:

All right. Well, welcome everybody. This is Derek Klimkowski with Eyeota. I lead the sales team for our audience technology company. Lucky enough for us today, we have Ye Wang, who's joining us from TBWA, an Omnicom company, and she's here to talk to us a little bit about, you know, the dynamics of communication during COVID-19 for the, her internal teams, but then also you know, some of the communication channels and topics that are happening across clients and some of the changes that are necessary with the market. So welcome, Ye. Thanks so much for joining us. I'll give you a chance to say hello and tell us a little bit about what you do on a day to day basis. And then we gotta to jump into the interview questions.

Ye Wang:

Great. Hi, Derek. Happy to be here. I am a Global Data Strategy Director at TBWA\Worldwide for one of their global clients. So we're looking forward to hearing what questions you may have for me, and have a lively discussion based on, based on it.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Definitely. Well, thanks again, Ye. I think today, we really, you know, as mentioned, want to talk a little bit about the internal communications across the team and the client communications, you know, first off, we'll start with internally. You know, maybe you could tell us a little bit, you know, we talked earlier in the week, you know, things are changing, obviously communication channels need to change within organizations. You know, how is TBWA kind of handling it across your, your, your peers and, and what is leadership kind of pushing down to the group in terms of like communication expectations internally?

Ye Wang:

So leadership has been great with communication at the TBWA agency level. We have been having regular town halls. The issue was keeping us abreast of what are, what are the internal development in terms of the various clients we are working with and with the particular client account that I am on, we also have a internal regroup with the more senior level people on the global scale to talk about how COVID-19 has been impacting how we are approaching our media buying across all markets around the world.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Great, thank you for sharing. And do you feel like, you know, with, with those statements you know, do you feel like, you know, things have drastically changed in, in your communication levels internally? Like, do you find yourself, you know, pushing and reaching out to more teams to like set up, you know, webinars and kind of the conference calls to keep this level of communication? Like, I guess my question is how has it changed from maybe a month ago to maybe let's call it the last two weeks?

Ye Wang:

There definitely has been a shift in communication and the communication surrounding what is going on with the pandemic is less driven by me , it is more at the very senior level, it will be the president or the C-Suite. They're super proactive within a TBWA and setting up these weekly touch bases. As I mentioned before, with my particular client team on a global scale to understand how this is impacting all the markets across the globe and that internally at the agency C-suite, they are also keeping the employees abreast of the developments. We also have our sister agencies that we work very closely with within Omnicom, and they too have created a newsletter communication and developed a kind of knowledge base training for the, the rest of us, for us to have a better understanding of how we can move forward and tackling our work with our clients within our industry considering everything that going on. Yeah.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Excellent. And, and, and like, obviously there's the fair balance of like, you know, being sensitive towards, you know, what's happening in the market. You know, people have personal things that, you know, everybody's not aware of, there's business things that are going on, you know, I guess trying to understand you know, the, the client, you know, communication, like, are there certain topics in terms of education that you guys have shifted to, to meet the needs of the client? You know, what is the client asking of you these days?

Ye Wang:

Right. from what I can gather in speaking on the global scale, the client really is just shifting the media budget in a way that it makes sense for them to spend considering everything that's happening in terms of how consumers are you know, the consumption of media over by the consumers, right. And on top of that clients that we work with within our agency, and you would know this as well, too, they're always very budget conscious in the way of how things are allocated and how that would translate to you know, success or making their goals. So those conversations are happening, working on the client that is on a global scale. We work very closely with our regional in-market teams. They do have their, the local clients there that they work with as well.

Ye Wang:

So each of the, of course the requirements for each of the various markets will be different. As the, this pandemic is occurring, it's affecting different regions in different ways, right? Asia saw COVID-19 have an impact on their economy first and then Europe and then US. So we're all doing it at different stages of time, in different ways, but really, I think what I've seen across the board and I really love too, is how companies are really quickly adjusting and developing a a plan to address what is going on. So it's no longer about, Hey, come consumers come and buy or purchase our product or service, but it's more like this is how we're looking to help, or, Hey, we know this is going on, the best thing you can do is stay at home because seeing a home is the, the biggest message that government officials across the board is recommending.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Yeah. I think that's all great stuff. And you know, having, having an understanding of like, you know, your role as a, as a global contributor and leader, you know, I think you're seeing, as you had mentioned some of the shifts and timing, you know, obviously, you know, the peaks have not hit in the U S we're trying to figure out if that's happening, but each market has, you know, has a different level of a, I guess, rebound. So to say, so it's great to see that, you know, you guys are having these conversations and each conversation is, is relatively different to each market. I think, you know, one of the things I did want to ask is, you know, I know that the planning and the strategy part of the business, you know, usually takes, you know, anywhere from three to six months, you know, with creative involved to really put out these messages you know, in, in a fashion that you have historically, you know, how are you guys going about like turning around messages faster and making these shifts, we across channels. Like, is it just like, you know, the, the level of you know, approvals are happening faster, or people are thinking faster and moving faster, maybe you can comment a little bit to the timing changes that are necessary with, with COVID-19.

Ye Wang:

I would say all of the above answers. Answers D, right? All But, you know, that is always the nature of our industry working in advertising. We do, like you mentioned sometimes have that longer planning seizures, especially if we're planning for the new calendar or fiscal year. But the, you know, the team that I worked with and the team that I've worked with before, within the ad industry. They're all really, really great at turning round things in a short period of time. Right? So when this happened across the board, the feedback we got was how to, we make sure that, you know, the commercials that we're running, the commercial side we developed has been updated to address what's going on, right? Because if you're working for a client where you're encouraging them to go out and buy your product or service, right, this is no longer the recommended action across the board that we, as citizens should be taking the messages, we should stay at home. So when that happened, our internal team, our creative team, our media team, we quickly went to work and we update our creative and, you know, really work on, fight back plans to address this. One of the strengths of the, the, the current clients, the team that I work on is that the creative team and the media team sits in the same building. So it makes the communication much easier. And it's, it actually shortens the turnaround time that we would have you know, to work with to make that a possibility.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Yup. I think that's a great point. And obviously, you know, in this, in this situation and time where time is essential and, you know, decisions need to be made a lot quicker. It sounds like, you know, the setup that you have in place with creative and media, you know, sitting on those same roof allows for that fluidity and, and kind of quickness and, and changing a messaging. So great to hear that, you know, you guys are, you know, looking at you know, the business from a global sense. It sounds like, you know, what you've shared today is, is very encouraging in terms of communication internally, you know, externally with your advertisers. And what we'd like to do is really thank you for joining us today. I think there were some great points that, you know, the market can, can grab onto and really utilize in terms of their discussions moving forward. And you know, what we'd like to do is potentially highlight this somewhere down the road, because I, you know, things will be changing. And what we know as true today may not be true in two or three weeks from now. So we're all adjusting and, and want to thank Ye for taking some time out of her day to sit down with Eyeota and give her an opportunity for any last thoughts here. But once again, thanks.

Ye Wang:

Well, it's been a pleasure, always a pleasure to chat with you. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Derek Klimkwoski:

Great. Thank you very much, Ye. You have a wonderful day.

Ye Wang:

You too.