Creativity and global service.

• Position: Views of Maurice Saatchi, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Company PLC - Special Section: Being a Global Leader

Creativity and Global Service

The secret of success for marketing communications companies, and in particular advertising agencies, is having close partnerships with their clients. This relationship is based on the agencies being able to help clients to creatively overcome marketing challenges. Research shows that branded products with advertising support can charge and maintain premium prices.

While clients consider creativity as their No. 1 criterion, the agencies that have put on most growth have been part of strong international networks. Why is this?

Corporations are driven to global integration to achieve efficiencies and remain competitive. As corporations develop new technology for their products, they look to establish their brands in as many places as possible, as firmly as possible. They seek proprietary "ownership" of a particular market positioning for their brand - one that preempts others occupying the same territory in consumers' minds.

But clients don't just charge blindly into "global marketing." They know that they need to be responsive to local differences and local opportunities - to strike the right balance between "global" or "regional" and "local," to adapt "global" technology and strategic learning carefully, market by market.

To help clients meet these challenges, agencies must have office networks covering the major, and not so major, markets. Agencies must understand the local differences and the local opportunities. They must be able to operate in a speedy and coordinated manner, without a stifling bureaucracy. They must be able to come up with creative solutions to marketing challenges that work across frontiers. This is a major challenge.

The offices need to offer local excellence to the transnational corporation. Today, the major transnational client can grow out of any local market. Within Saatchi, unlike some of its competitors, a significant part of the business in its international networks comes from national clients as well as international clients...