Tom Bernardin Chairman & CEO, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Jarek Ziebinski President - APAC, Leo Burnett

Creativity is the connective tissue in the world of communication and ideas. We are a creative agency and are focusing all our efforts behind the people and their behaviour, as we all know that creativity has the power to transform human behaviour. So, that’s our focus going forward… We need to be and are being very aggressive in hiring the best talent and study the need of acquisition that makes sense and thus, behave in the way of making the company stronger and be in a better position to grow faster when the recession ends. This would be the future post the recession.

As Chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide, comprising the Leo Burnett brand agency and marketing partner Arc Worldwide, Tom Bernardin is responsible for the global operations of one of the largest communications companies in the world. Bernardin guides a global team that is renowned for building relationships between leadership brands and people.

During his tenure at Burnett, Bernardin has led the most significant restructuring the company has ever undergone. Chief among those changes was officially aligning Burnett and Arc together under the global Leo Burnett Worldwide umbrella at the end of 2006. In so doing, Bernardin brought key geographical operations closer to the heart of the business through a new, global structure. Overseeing the evolution of leadership brands has been a trademark of Bernardin’s. During his 30+ years in the industry, he has worked in several countries directing the development of brands, including Verizon Wireless, the Bank of America and Jeep, among others.

Bernardin serves on the Executive Committee for the Advertising Hall of Fame and is a trustee for The Foundation Fighting Blindness. He is also a board member of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, a member of the Ad Council, and involved with numerous other charitable organisations.

Jarek Ziebinski very recently has been appointed to the role of President - Asia Pacific. Prior to that he was Chairman, Leo Burnett Central and Eastern Europe. Under his leadership, LeoBurnett/Warsaw has seen rapid growth and development, including a 500 per cent revenue increase, growth from 40 to 200 employees, and an increase to $100 million in gross billings. Earlier in his career, as Marketing Director at Alima-Gerber S.A. from 1993 through 1995, Ziebinski created a concept for a new product category, the “new age beverage” Frugo, the first of its kind in Poland.

exchange4media's Tasneem Limbdiwala met up with the two top Leo Burnett honchos during their recent visit to India, where both shared their optimism about the Indian agency and shared their India plans at length.

Q. How much do global affiliations help in the progress of a company's network agencies?

Bernardin: Global breadth, reach and efficiency are definitely beneficial because some of the things that we are involved in with the clients are very much influenced by the global reach. For instance, one of the businesses that we are pitching in Eastern Europe love our work, but they want to make sure that they have access to some of our creative assets outside the particular area. So, there is a direct benefit having the kind of resources that we have. And it all comes into play and thus contributes to help building the business further.

Ziebinski: If you are truly a network and not just a collection of offices across countries or continents, that will bring benefits to your offices and to your clients, because you can learn, assure and connect at any given point of time. One can gain experience from other’s experience. That is fantastic and we are a network that wants to work across borders. We have creativity that travels globally, and that is absolutely one of the biggest values for many of our clients.

Q. How are you looking at your role as President – APAC?

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Ziebinski: I am extremely excited about my new role. I am moving to this region with a lot of hopes and ideas on how to take the advantage of all the opportunities that arise across the APAC region. Obviously, we are together with Tom today in India and strongly believe that the market is one of the potential growing markets in the region. We are very proud of the operations and have the reasons to believe that the agency and operations within India and the Sub-continent will be growing dynamically. We have plans that make us believe that we will be able to double the size of our business within next 3-4 years. We think that our talent pool and creative achievements are excellent. We are the most creative agency in India, second most creative agency in Asia and one of the top 20 most creative agencies in the world. That is phenomenal. So, the basic business is terrific and we will closely work with the Indian management to grow further, including some potential acquisitions in the future.

Q. Any specific company acquisition in the pipeline?

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Bernardin: Nothing specific at the moment.

Q. Given the current economic situation, quite a few key clients have cut down their spends. What is the impact that you foresee in 2009?

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Bernardin: Yes, it is true that we have seen a cut in spends. And this has obviously affected our growth rate. As I had mentioned before, the company has seen a 15-20 per cent growth, but we are not expecting the same kind of growth in 2009 with the prevailing economic situation. But if we are lucky, we will still see double digit growth in the market. However, it depends on some of the rights things that can happen, which I am confident will happen with the business plan that we have discussed. I have seen that there is a slower growth, but growth has not stopped completely. So, if we have the right plans in place, there is a way to grow in double digits in India.

Q. You have mentioned about the target growth, opportunities and plans of acquisitions. Besides these, are there any other plans in the market that you would like to share with us?

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Ziebinski: We think that India has tremendous talent, and some of this talent sits in this office. We think that there are great ideas that we could use across our other networks and so shall take the opportunity to use these ideas and export them to other markets across the region. Thus, we see such opportunities in digital and TV production areas.

Q. What is your take on where the economic environment is leading us? To elaborate my question, the industry – clients and agencies – are undertaking some steps to brave the recession and in light of the cash crunch. When we get out of this and things are back to normal, how would have some of these steps that the industry is taking today shape the business, say in 2010 or 2011?

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Bernardin: First of all, when you say back to normal, I actually think that we are on the pathway to whatever normal is going to become. So, who knows what that is? But, one of the things that we are finding success in, which our clients also give importance to, is ‘Shopper Marketing’. Hence, we are investing in this on a global basis because we understand that it’s a non-traditional way for a creative agency like Leo Burnett to win as we are very creative in the shopper marketing area. So, we are putting in a lot of effort behind that. I think that’s a clear indication of what’s going to be important in the future. From a creative agency standpoint, one cannot be creative in shopper marketing, but the fact is that you can, because connecting to the customer at the shop level is quite exciting. So we can leverage that.

The other thing is the term ‘digital’. I would like to go out of our vocabulary completely, because today everything is digital. It’s like when colour TV was introduced and at that time everybody was talking about it, but today it is nothing new. The same thing would happen in digital. Digital communication is the norm today, and in its various points of entry with the human being, it links all of this together with creativity. Creativity is the connective tissue in the world of communication and ideas. We are a creative agency and are focusing all our efforts behind the people and their behaviour, as we all know that creativity has the power to transform human behaviour. So, that’s our focus going forward.

Thus, our collective objective is that the senior management of the company would not duck down in this time of global recession, because when people, brands or companies do that, hoping that the cloud would pass and then they stand up thinking, ‘it’s over’, they will lose. Because when they wake up, they will realise that the world has changed and there is a new future. So, instead we need to be and are being very aggressive in hiring the best talent and study the need of acquisition that makes sense and thus, behave in the way of making the company stronger and be in a better position to grow faster when the recession ends. This would be the future post the recession.

Q. There are many other international outfits like BBH and BBDO that have forayed into India. Taking this point further, many clients are moving their businesses due to global affiliation benefits. So, is there any impact from the India point of view given the fact that there is international competition? And also there are a lot of creative entrepreneurs that are coming up. What is the kind of competition that you are seeing here?

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Bernardin: I agree it is getting more competitive, but that is the nature of our business. So, it’s not something that should keep anyone up at night, wishing it wouldn’t happen. Of course, it’s going to happen as India becomes more important in the global market place, more competition will come in. That just means we have to be better than the best in the service that we offer our clients, which is creativity. In that sense, competition is good as it keeps us on top of our game.

Q. How happy are you with the progress seen in India in the last so many years – in terms of global achievements of the agency, in terms of creativity, business wins and other developments?

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Tom Bernardin: I am very happy with the agency in India; it was not for nothing that it had been declared Agency of the Year for 2008. The Indian agency has performed well and grown in double digit rates in the region of 20 per cent year-on-year for the past number of years. As for 2009, I will not say that the growth will be at the same high rate, but we will see a very respectable growth in India for 2009. So, more than happy, I am excited about the number of opportunities that we have here in terms of what we can to do more. When we talk about growing in double the size, we need to continue to support our people here in the management team in terms of acquisitions that they may want to do, in terms of acquiring talent, and also companies. So yes, I am happy with the progress and am excited about what is yet to come in this market as I believe it has a much bigger role in the global market.

Q. What are some of the other markets apart from India that are keeping you busy?

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Ziebinski: My role is for the Asia Pacific regions, excluding China. We treat China separately because of its scale. So, the biggest market is Japan. But, we also have markets like India and Australia, which are big for us. But after talking to several of our clients, some of them are focusing for the nearest future on markets like India, Indonesia and Vietnam. So, we believe that the growth will come from theses areas, probably more dynamically than the other markets.

Q. Is the slowdown deterring your plans?

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Bernardin: No. I strongly believe that the slowdown is an opportunity, both for getting great talent and acquiring assets of other companies that may be having a tough time now or who just want to be acquired.

Jarek Ziebinski: Traditionally, Leo Burnett is a company that has been growing organically. We are interested in acquisitions, but believe in doing it strategically. We will have acquisitions that will meet Leo Burnett’s strategy and which complement our business, and not just add another unit or another company or agency to the collection of our company. We do not collect companies. We want to have complementary strategic acquisitions, and working towards this aim, we are interested in certain areas like digital, design and retail.