Since when did EMEA consist of just six markets...?
I've got this little acronym in my job title. It's on my rather nice little business cards, it's on my little email signature for everyone to see and it's rather embarrassingly on a little grey plastic plaque outside my little grey office. But it's a big job covering a big area. Marketing Communications Director, EMEA it says.
At the latest count, 128 countries technically from Albania to Zimbabwe via Monaco and the Vatican however I'm only(!) active in 38 of them. And that's thirty eight pretty diverse markets in terms of economic power, culture, technology and media. Marketing in this region is an amazing challenge, especially with fewer resources to play with than my fortunate USA counterparts who have one country and a $100m budget to manage. I find this region fascinating, clearly my agencies less so.
My (unnamed) agency boasted in a winning pitch to us last year that they have 100+ offices spread across an equally impressive number of markets around the world (I don't think Monaco or Vatican were amongst these but pretty comprehensive nonetheless - as a small aside I will right now, publicly volunteer to run the office of any agency network looking to expand their footprint into Monaco). We certainly did due diligence in hiring them, making sure that their joint ventures and affiliates in the further reaches of this diverse region were up to scratch, which they appeared to be. I was happy that on paper they were the right supplier with the right capabilities, insights and influence into the deeper corners of my marketing remit.
Today, though, I sat in a presentation with the agency in their London offices, reviewing first draft regional strategies for the second half of the year. The meeting was staffed with a collection of very affable middle-class, well-educated white faces, speaking mostly with a British lilt or occasionally peppered with exotic and seductive female accents from Italy or France. They have a Swedish bloke too who's a clever chap, or sounds it at least. The work was good, I felt goose-pimply at one point and the energy was great. What a relief, some great insights, a bang-on strategy and a collection of some very workable and exciting media ideas...for Western Europe.
There was no mention of how scalable these ideas would be to reach my consumers in Egypt or Russia or Israel or Nigeria (these four markets incidentally account for over 20% of my regional sales, more than Germany and France combined). There were no cultural insights beyond the big 6 (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands) and certainly no sensitivity to the fact that media consumption and digital sophistication means that most of the ideas they presented would travel no further than the fringes of Western Europe before 5MB+ broadband runs out.
Put simply, my double digit growth for EMEA region will come from outside the big Western European markets in the coming years, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. It was a clear component of our pitch and remains my focus today. The agency doesn't remember this. It is not my team that are the problem and in truth it is not really their fault. I expect that despite their promises to us, it just isn't an immediate priority of the agency management to focus their attention or investment into these emerging markets, especially during recession times. For years I have heard the agency CEOs talk about over-investment into the BRIC markets, but I don't see it. They may have acquired the right capabilities locally but they casually forgot to link them up with the rest of their networks. It became clear to me today that the lovely chaps in the head office in London have no clue as to their real capabilities locally, making the idea of regional planning an impossibility. Today we went back to the drawing board.
As a brand we are disproportionally over-investing our resources into markets that will show real growth in these tough times. I assume that we are not alone in this approach and that my agency has many other clients with the same strategy, so why are the agencies not doing the same? Why are European agencies assuming that the knowledge learned in London is enough to plan a product launch in Dubai or Lagos or Joburg or Istanbul?
I am asking agencies to please make some effort to bring these markets into your regional focus. They need joining up with your networks and need to be a legitimate part of your planning approach. I think you'll learn as much from them as they do from you.