Glattfelder:
By : Chris Rivituso
When Poland introduced a free-market economy 10 years ago, a mass of product advertising soon followed. But like the country itself, the advertising industry has had to adapt to myriad social trends and new technologies. Edwin Glattfelder arrived in Poland in September 1999 as managing director of Lowe GGK, now called Lowe Lintas GGK after the company officially merged with Ammirati Puris Lintas at the beginning of this year. With almost 30 years in the advertising business, Glattfelder's resume includes time with Ogilvy & Mather and LoweGGK in Switzerland as well as three years spent with Lowe in the Czech Republic. The WBJ's Chris Rivituso spoke with Glattfelder about Lowe's merger and how the industry is faring in what is still considered a new market. The following is an edited version of their conversation.
Q: When you first arrived in September 1999, what kind of shape was the advertising market in?
A: Compared to other Eastern European markets, Poland is a different playground. It's one of the most developed countries in Central and Eastern Europe and this is reflected in the advertising business. If you take the best of the television commercials I have seen here in Poland, they have a very good standard in terms of concept and production value. It's a mature market.
Q: In what areas would you say that Poland's ad industry is strong, or in what areas would you say that it needs improvement?
A: Well, I think if you look at TV advertising in this country I think that it is pretty good, pretty well developed. Because it is the major media, the biggest part of what the media spends goes into TV advertising. But I think that print advertising is not up to other countries' standards. This is due to the media market because most money goes into TV advertising so maybe creative advertising hasn't received this same kind of attention.
Q: What about radio?
A: I think radio is pretty well developed, so I think the most important areas (for improvement) are print advertising. And one area that is clearly becoming a major marketing instrument is direct marketing and the whole dotcom business.
Q: Do you see the internet developing into an important vehicle for advertising?
A: Yes, I do. I think it will follow the trend in Western Europe. It will play a much bigger role. I mean, it can never replace classical media such as TV, billboards or print, but it will become more important in this market.
Q: Some people might be suspicious of the internet, particularly e-commerce. How do you see the advertising industry overcoming that?
A: The young generation will use this media and will also use it when they're growing up and so that's why I think the internet and e-commerce business has a future in this country.
Q: Some advertisers are moving away from television as their primary means of advertising. Do you think this is wise?
A: Well, I think TV will still play an important role when building a brand and if you want to be a market lead with that brand. With the development of new media, and with the influence of the internet and with the development of direct-marketing skills, of course you have more choices in media. But I still believe that without any TV advertising, you cannot build a big brand. You cannot do that in a highly developed market like in the United States without television advertising.
Q: Which areas of advertising do you think need the most improvement?
A: I think there are a lot of very creative talents in Poland and again, this shows in TV advertising. I think the area that has to do with know-how and experience is also something that has to be improved. You need more time, education, training. Certainly in the strategic or planning part of our business because there was no advertising education 10 years ago, people have learned this business here in practice.
Q: What kind of education does there need to be?
A: As I said, the advertising industry is very new to the market. At the beginning I think everybody just wanted to have advertising and to be in the newspaper the next day or to be on television the next day. The market was growing very rapidly so there was not the time available to train and educate people.
Q: Do any universities teach advertising?
A: I think it started now and I'm not so familiar with all the courses and seminars at universities. But I think a very key role in this is that the advertising industry itself has to take care of that issue. We are the people who are most interested in having good, educated people around.
Q: So you think that it is partly the responsibility of the agencies themselves?
A: Absolutely. They have to take care of this. It is an ongoing process and I think training will never end in our business.
Q: What can you say about ethics in this business? For example, distiller Polmos Siedlce's campaign for Chopin vodka, which strongly resembles TBWA's Absolut vodka campaign.
A: You will find copying or plagiarizing all over the world. But I think the agency that is doing this is shooting itself in the foot. This is very shortsighted thinking and will not pay off.
Q: Do you think Poles have much to learn about ethical advertising?
A: I did not have any problems with these issues. And I think this also has to do with the fact that if you deal with intelligent and mature people and with people who are taking their profession seriously, then this is not a problem.
Q: Last year, advertising executives were speaking about consumer financial services as a developing trend. What trends do you see this year?
A: I support that financial services will play a more important role in the future. Another one is certainly telecommunications mobile phones, the internet. I think this is going to be a very important market in the future. You see the investment that the big companies are doing in the whole privatization process, which is going on now. So, the Eastern European market will certainly follow the Western market in this matter.
Q: Do you see telecom advertising becoming a substantial percentage of ad spending?
A: It is already. You see what the GSM providers are spending, you see what TPSA is spending, so they are already big players on the market.
Q: Others are talking about how the domestic advertising market has moved beyond brand awareness to brand loyalty. Is this happening?
A: The market is getting saturated. You cannot increase your market shares anymore or boost the product's integrity every year by 10%. I think the boom is over. So, you have to fight more than before for brand awareness. You have to fight to keep your clients loyal to your brand. Therefore, the focus will certainly be much more on not only creating brand awareness but keeping your customers buying your product and this means loyalty to your brand. This means better creative work but it also means more insight to your consumer's behavior.
Q: Can you tell me about the Ammirati Puris Lintas merger?
A: I think the two agencies went together because they both had strengths and weaknesses and came together so the two companies could have a strong company around the world.
Q: Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Why did they go so far as bringing the two agencies together?
A: I think (Lowe) have proven that they are a very creative agency around the world. The weakness or disadvantage was that it was not a network. So the strengths of dealing with multinational clients on a worldwide basis, which Lintas has, and the creative skills and creative quality from Lowe is a very good match. So, we have both things now under one roof.
Q: What is your primary role in the company?
A: I think what I can offer in this agency, our clients, and future clients is my experience. I think with the three years I worked in Prague I learned much more about the kind of market and situations we face in Poland.
Q: What sort of innovations do you see the agency bringing to the sector?
A: One of our objectives is for the agency to be seen as one of the best, creative agencies in this market. The second area is that we have to play an important role not only in the classical sense of advertising but also in other areas such as the internet and direct marketing.
Q: There also has to be a certain degree of fair play in the market.
A: As I said, I think there will be two parts of the advertising market. One (part) is the worldwide players, of which and in maybe five years from now there will be only five or six or seven left. And the other end of the spectrum will be the specialized agencies, the smaller, very flexible, very creative specialized agencies. So they absolutely have a future ahead of them. I think the problem will be for the mid-sized agencies.
Q: If the small agencies can do well, how will the mid-sized agencies have problems?
A: They will not have the resources that the big agencies have. But still, they will have to pay their people. And if you have 20-30 employees, then you have to have a lot of clients to run a profitable business. So it's not like a small agency that can reduce their overhead or their costs of running the company. Either you have access to worldwide resources or worldwide clients to be profitable in the end or you have smaller overhead, fewer costs and reduced access to bigger clients.
Q: Do you think that any of these little agencies will have a chance to get bigger clients?
A: Of course. I think it will be difficult for them to get multinational clients because of the concentration process worldwide and because of worldwide advertising plays a more important role in the future than it did in the past. It will be very difficult for them to get multinational clients. But clients on a national basis? There is absolutely a chance for them.
