Leo Burnett recaps phenomenal year in 2012

By Ranil de Silva

It barely seems like a fortnight since we last rang in a new year, and already it is time to ring in another.

In many ways, 2012 was our best year ever. Last week the region’s most respected publication Campaign Asia named us the Agency of the Year in the rest of South Asia and also conferred us the honour of being the joint winner as South Asia’s Agency of the Year. A recognition which places us ahead of some of the best agencies in India.

We also brought home Sri Lanka’s first Cannes Lion and numerous other international accolades, among them a listing in the Gunn Report of the hundred best ideas in the world. We topped a number of industry league tables and won accolades from international media and industry bodies. We broke new ground in understanding people and their behaviour through some innovative research. Our excursions into digital media have been richly instructive and broken new ground.

We also undertook several initiatives to attract more of Sri Lanka’s brightest young minds to our industry – and, as always, invested heavily in training and professional development. Our people showed their mettle in regional competition, represented our country on awards juries and led the way in raising the creative and professional bar for the entire Sri Lankan advertising industry.

Our innovative idea, the ‘Newspaper Flag,’ convinced the Cannes jury that Sri Lankan advertising has at last come of age. But this was only one of many awards we won: Leo Burnett also topped the ‘Rest of South Asia’ category with four ‘metals’ at Goafest, and proved that our work gets results by collecting five more metals at the Effies, the annual advertising effectiveness awards.

I am especially proud of the Asia Pacific awards we won – the bronze at Adfest and the golden Appie we won for ‘Pass it On’, an affecting plea on behalf of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society which makes this commercial undoubtedly Sri Lanka’s most-awarded TV commercial. ‘Pass it On’ was also featured in the Gunn Report’s annual list of the world’s 100 best advertising ideas – another first for Sri Lanka.

The Work, which is the industry’s most respected annual publication, has chosen two of our communications from over 5,000 submissions to be featured in the 2012 Annual. Yet another first for Sri Lanka.

Campaign Asia, in their annual creative rankings, identified us as Sri Lanka’s No. 1 creative agency and Subhash as the country’s No. 1 creative director. So now I can without hesitation state that Leo Burnett really is the best agency in Sri Lanka!

Our people too gained international recognition. At Spikes Asia, this year, Subhash, our Executive Creative Director, became the first Sri Lankan ever to serve on an international jury, while two youthful Burnetters were selected to represent Sri Lanka at the Olympics of youthful creativity, the Cannes Young Lions competition.

In 2012, we also led the way with our efforts to attract talented and capable young people to advertising. We offered no less than fifty internships to young people looking for industry exposure. In 2013 we will go even further, with an interdisciplinary six-week internship programme for 15 young professionals that will enable them to spend time, not just at our offices but also at a research agency, a media house and a marketing company.

I remain convinced of the vital importance of understanding people and their behaviour in order to do what we do. The best advertising people have always been keen students of human behaviour; a thorough understanding of how, why and what makes people tick helps us to better fulfil our role as a marketing communications partner. That’s why we engage our whole team to share and exchange their observations about people and their behaviour – insights we leverage to the benefit of the brands, products and services which are under our care.

Our people are also constantly ‘getting their feet dirty’ by engaging in market visits and market excursions. Programs like ‘I am a Camera’ and ‘Feet on the Street’, together with online studies and proprietary research, feed our fascination with humanity and provide us with the insights we need to create the communications that work best for our clients.

Our insightful thinking earned us a Leo Intel Award which is a prestigious accolade awarded by the global company to a select few works in thought leadership.

Starcom had an appropriately stellar 2012, with business gains that saw it end the year as one of the top five media agencies in the country. The reinforced Starcom team deployed new and exciting tools to improve their performance, particularly in media planning and by delivering greater value.

Arc’s progress has been equally gratifying. We strengthened the team with specialists who have the knowledge and skills to serve up a truly differentiated product and the results have been gratifying. Our PR team at Arc will begin functioning independently in 2013 with the competency to deliver the latest, most advanced communications solutions. A partnership with the world’s largest PR brand, MS&L, will add unprecedented verve and effectiveness to our work in this sphere.

With every year that passes, we get better at what we do because of our commitment to training. In 2012 we conducted a complete calendar of training activities which included workshops, seminars, lectures and full day programs.

We also conducted off-site residential workshops, some of them conducted by luminaries like Nitesh Tiwary, Executive Creative Director at Leo Burnett India, Neil Hudspeth, Regional Director of Digital Communications and creative celebrity Santosh Padhi, a founder of the legendary Taproot agency in India.

We also sent 36 Burnetters overseas to gain knowledge and exposure from regional and global programs, workshops and festivals such as the Cannes Lions, Adfest, Goafest, Spikes Asia, The AME, Appies and Starcom’s One Summit. Burnetters have also attended several Leo Burnett’s University programmes such as the Digital Boot Camp, Effectiveness in Communications, People Management and the Internal Product Committee sessions.

Other highlights of the training year included the successful completion of our two-year modular programs – Leo Fundamentals for young executives and the Burnett Management Programme for managers, as well as the launch of an exciting new initiative, Young Leos, which is designed to help groom our young professionals to equip them to face the challenges of the industry.

An agency is not an agency if the spirit of the team is not kindled. Advertising is a fun business, if we fail to have fun in this business we will not be doing things right. The Agency’s Annual Review brings the team together to collectively commit to the year ahead. Our Play Shop as opposed to a workshop is two days of absolute fun at an offsite location. This year the venue was Unawatuna. In addition we celebrate our anniversary in Sri Lanka and the global company’s anniversary and host TGIFs monthly to keep the spirits high.

We have also introduced a rewards program to recognise people for their contributions and participation at training and also with our pursuit of growth through new business initiatives.

At Leo Burnett we are also conscious about our responsibility to society. Our most important CSR initiative is Leo Art, the artists-in-residence programme. We also conducted for the 4th consecutive year the apple dansala to celebrate Vesak.  Another important step we took in 2012 was to decentralise management by creating a second tier in management termed the A Team, thus grooming tomorrow’s leaders of the agency.

Each and every one of these factors contributed to some impressive numbers such as 90% of the team taking pride in being a Burnetter, giving us a climate which places us amongst the 25 best offices in the world. We invest 17% of our revenue on training. We participated in 12 pitches and won eight of them. We’ve gained 22 new business assignments, amongst which are five new brands from existing clients. Importantly, 8 of our partnerships with clients have surpassed the 10 year mark. These factors have helped us to grow by 30% plus despite every challenge we had to face in the country, the market and the environment around us.

Now that 2012 is drawing to a close, I would like to thank you for being an invaluable partner and friend to my team, and to me personally, throughout the year. The support you extended to us and the partnership we forged helped make 2012 memorable despite the many challenges the country and agency had to face.

The writer is the Managing Director of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka