China and Southeast Asian markets are major opportunities for growth, but the speed of change is a challenge to marketers whose current ways of working may not be optimized for the complex future that is unfolding; R3’s Greg Paull offers some advice in The WARC Guide to structuring for marketing effectiveness.
The rising standard of living in countries across China and Southeast Asia has created significant demand for products and experiences, which in turn provide companies with a myriad of opportunities to extend their reach and nurture loyalty with new customers.
The chance to “break new ground” with creativity and innovation is an exciting proposition, Paull acknowledges, while cautioning that “there is also a degree of complexity that any organization that operates in developing high-growth markets needs to pay heed to”.
For example, he notes that the average agency relationship in China is two years and 10 months – 1.5 years shorter than the global average – partly because of the aforementioned speed of change: “the faster the changes in the market, the more important having the right skillset becomes.
“When the focus of engagement changes from PR to experiential or social, finding an agency with the right insights, the right tools and best practice becomes all important.”
