MOMENTUM
After a decade of hugely impressive growth, from nowhere in Asia-Pacific (in 2001, the firm was basically a Singapore hub with no significant spokes) to one of the region’s three or four largest networks, Weber Shandwick experienced a tough year in 2009—like most of its multinational peers. Revenues were down about 9 percent across the region, largely due to a significant decline in pan-regional business in the first half of the year. The good news is that the firm managed to avoid major layoffs (except in Hong Kong, and a three-person workforce reduction in Japan); that there were numerous local wins in most major markets; and that the second half was considerably stronger than the first, so that Weber Shandwick ended 09 with 600 people in the region, up by almost 200 from December of 08. There was new business from McDonalds in China, Juniper Networks in Greater China, Vodafone in Australia, and Texas Tourism, HSBC, Kraft and Esso in multiple markets, expanding its roster of multimarket clients in the region to almost 70.
REGIONAL REACH
Perhaps the most significant development of 2009 saw Weber Shandwick move decisively to address is most obvious weakness, hiring Tyler Kim—one of the market’s most respected practitioners—to open an office in Korea, taking the number of owned offices in the region to 17. The China operation remains the strongest, with close to 150 people in three offices (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) working with multinationals such as P&G, Microsoft, GM and American Airlines and Chinese companies like Yili, China Mobile and Great Wall Wine. And the mainland presence is supplemented by a 30-person team in Taiwan and more than 40 in Hong Kong. In Australia, following good growth over the past couple of years, the firm’s 30-person operation was named PR Agency of the Year by AdNews. The firm also has 50-plus people in Tokyo (where it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009), making it one of the largest multinationals in a difficult market, and works with NTT, Microsoft, MasterCard, and new clients AstraZeneca, Merck, and Texas Tourism. The South-East Asia operations include 10 people in Indonesia, 20 or more in Malaysia (where Advertising + Marketing gave it another Agency of the Year award), about 15 in Thailand and 50-plus in Singapore. Meanwhile, in India the firm’s Corporate Voice operation (Weber Shandwick owns a 40 percent share) added a new office in Kolkata, alongside Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi (the firm also has an operation in Karachi, Pakistan) and picked up new business from Honeywell.
GLOBAL REACH
It seems almost certain that Weber Shandwick is now the world’s largest public relations brand and along with Fleishman-Hillard one of the two largest firms in North America. With 19 offices in the United States, Weber Shandwick can match any of its competitors when it comes to its regional footprint, and the firm’s largest offices—New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., are all among the strongest in their respective markets. In addition, Weber Shandwick now has 77 offices in 58 markets throughout the EMEA region, giving it a footprint that’s comparable to any of its major competitors, with about 1,000 employees. PR Week estimates that about 300 of those people are in the U.K., where Weber Shandwick is a top five player, but the story of the past few years has been the development of a much healthier balance between its British and continental European business.
EXPERTISE
Weber Shandwick has five broad practice areas in the Asia-Pacific region: corporate and public affairs, led by John Russell (a veteran of the firm’s Brussels operation); financial services and communications, led by Vanessa Ho-Nikolovski (clients include MasterCard, HSBC and Temasek); consumer marketing under Margaret Cunico (the largest and fastest-growing segment of the business); healthcare, led by Stephen Morgan; and technology under Mabel Phoon. One particularly impressive development in 2009: the Powell Tate public affairs operation, which opened in China in 2005, ended the year up 28 percent (believed to be around $3 million in fees) and now has capabilities across the region, making it arguably second only to APCO in the Asia-Pacific public affairs arena. The firm also continued to expand its specialist offerings in the region, including expertise in corporate responsibility, digital communications, social innovation, sports marketing, clean tech, and—under the Slam brand—youth marketing.
TALENT
The addition of Tyler Kim, who led Edelman to Agency of the Year recognition from the Korea Public Relations Association, was quite a coup and helped Weber Shandwick hit the ground running in the increasingly competitive Seoul market. He joins an impressive line-up of country managers that includes agency veterans such as David Liu and Darren Burns in China; Baxter Jolly in Singapore; E.J. Granleese in Australia; Stanley Liu in Taiwan; and Albert Shu in Hong Kong, and new addition Akihiko Kubo, who returned to Tokyo after working with sister agency McCann in London, all of them led by regional chairman Tim Sutton and executive vice president of strategic development Ian Rumsby. Other significant additions include Rozaini Jainudeen as GM in Malaysia; Lalana Santos as MD in Thailand; and Matthew Gain, formerly of JCPR in London, who was named head of digital for the region.
CULTURE
In a region where agency-hopping is the norm, Weber Shandwick made a strategic decision in 2009 that it would stop recruiting people with almost as many agencies on their resume as years in the business—on the very reasonable assumption that those people would be likely to move on again within a year or two—and focus on employee retention and culture-building, on the assumption that client service would benefit as a result. To be fair, it was a good year for such a decision—in a challenging environment, people were more inclined to stay put. The firm has also continued to expand its Advocacy Inside professional development initiative, which included 41 internal training sessions and numerous other initiatives, a significant investment in a difficult year.
INTELLECTUAL LEADERSHIP
There are 704 million Internet users in Asia—more than the U.S. and Europe combined—and so it’s not surprising that Weber Shandwick has dedicated a lot of energy to growing its digital capabilities, bringing in Microsoft and JCPR veteran Matthew Gain and investing in its “inline” approach, which seeks to integrate online and offline communications seamlessly. The approach is supported by a variety of proprietary tools, including SocialPulse (online monitoring), SocialStudio (video content and storytelling), and DigitalDefense (online reputation management). Other thought leadership initiatives included the launch of the “Risky Business” report highlighting online reputation challenges and the Rising CCO report, focusing on the changing role of chief communications officers.
CAMPAIGNS
One of the most impressive developments of the past few years has been Weber Shandwick’s ability to hub major multimarket clients from almost any office: a 24-market program for MasterCard is led from Singapore (as are the agency’s efforts for Temasek and Microsoft); work for the controversial forest products company APP is managed from Beijing; Pfizer and GSK are hubbed in Hong Kong. Similarly, there is good award-winning work being done in every market. Weber Shandwick won SABRE Awards for its work in India (promoting honey on behalf of Dabur India); China (collecting smiles on behalf of P&G’s Crest and creating brand advocates for GM); and regionally (handling financial communications for Temasek.) Other highlights included the launch of Windows 7 in Singapore; support for the Standard Chartered KL Marathon in Malaysia; brand work for Nespresso in Australia; a cervical cancer education initiative for GSK in Hong Kong.
BRAND
The firm’s leadership is growing more visible in the region, with Sutton speaking to INSEAD MBA students in Singapore (Weber Shandwick now has a strategic partnership with the business school), and global chairman Jack Leslie featured at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Kuala Lumpur. The firm also served as official PR partner for The Economist Conference in Singapore. The firm also sought to market its Asia-Pacific capabilities globally, with Sutton and Liu presenting at a major Marketing magazine conference on emerging markets in London. The result is that Weber Shandwick now has one of the strongest, most polished brands in the region.
THE FUTURE
While the past decade has seen Weber Shandwick establish itself solidly in the top tier of Asia-Pacific public relations firms, there’s no sign that Sutton and his team intend to rest on their laurels. There are plans to expand the firm’s digital capabilities across the region, to grow the consumer marketing practice (and particularly the Slam youth marketing operation), and to continue to develop regional public affairs capabilities. There’s also a concerted effort underway to pick up more local clients, in anticipation that ambitious Chinese, Indian and other Asian companies will be expanding globally, and that the region will one day export as much PR business as its imports. Weber Shandwick is not the only multinational PR firm pursuing that strategy, but it undoubtedly has the resources—in the region and beyond—to deliver on it.