Asia is in transition. Out of the back office, media is moving center stage—a strategic partner to creative. Yet much is still unresolved. Will Asia follow Europe where specialists now buy more than 70 percent of media? Or, after an initial surge, will the U.S., where traditional agencies still dominate media, be a better model. And what of the pioneering independents, Carat and CIA?

Can they repeat their European success, or will they be eclipsed by the new agency media specialists, such as Zenith, WPP’s MindShare and Omnicom’s Optimum Media Direct [OMD]

Most apparent is the rapid growth in billings through media specialists. This is fueled partly by the opening of new shops such as MindShare which WPP formed last October by fusing the media departments of JWT and Ogilvy into a new subsidiary, and OMD, formed likewise by Omnicom from the TBWA, BBDO, DDB media departments, initially in Hong Kong and StarCom (Leo Burnett) last month and partly by the expansion of more established networks such as Zenith, Mediacom, Carat, and CIA. DMB&B’s planned launch of MediaVest plus new initiatives expected from True North (Bozell, FCB), DY&R, Dentsu, and Euro RSCG will add momentum. Only one agency is bucking the trend—McCann-Erickson Asia-Pacific, AOR media provider to Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Nabisco, Levi’s, Coca-Cola across many Asia-Pacific markets. "We consider McCann's media—with all our systems, technology and people—to be a powerful brand, one that does not need to combine strengths to stand on its own," affirms Marcio Moriera, regional director.

Across Asia Pacific, but excluding Japan, media specialists could buy at least 12 percent of all media this year up from about 5 percent in January 1997. Kelly Clark, deputy CEO for MindShare A/P, reckons this will grow to 50 percent within five years as media specialists increasingly "take over" agency billings.

And if European experience repeats, "unbundling" will gather further steam as clients focus more on the media discipline. In cash-strapped Asia, it’s not hard to see the appeal of better planning and buying.

MindShare found that, on average, TV costs in China were reduced by 11 percent across more than 125 TV channels, including many of the top markets like Shanghai; in Singapore, costs across all media have been reduced on average by 15 percent.. Working for eight LVMH [Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy] luxury brands across 10 Asian countries, CIA found it could save about 12 percent of budgets by consolidating negotiation and buying for magazines like Elle. And in Tokyo, Strategic Planners International, Japan’s only independent media specialist, found it could improve the efficiency of media investments by 30 percent through better planning and buying strategies. Mike Cooper, OMD CEO, is one to emphasize the importance of better planning over the simpler appeal of volume buying: "Smarter planning may deliver greater and more sustainable benefits over the long run. Enhanced media planning is where we can make a difference of 15-30 percent," he claims.

Asia’s media market has shifted from a seller’s market offering limited choices to an increasingly fragmented, dynamic, buyers market. Economic problems have hastened changed already under way.

Media specialists arrived New Satellite, broadcast and cable channels were beginning to erode the large audiences of traditional terrestrial TV channels. New magazines and newspapers were adding to the clutter of print advertising. Better research, and the spread of peoplemeter TV audience measurement, improved understanding of how media fitted into people’s lives

Such figures are the same lure to the major Western advertisers who make up most of the specialists’ rosters as they are to major Asian advertisers such as Hong Kong Telecom and the Hong Kong Bank. Even Japanese advertisers, whose home market ranks low in media expertise are signing up; Toyota with Zenith for Singapore and Hong Kong, Sony with MindShare in Hong Kong, and Unicharm, a major Japanese maker of sanitary hygiene products is using MindShare throughout the region. Additionally, Japan Tobacco have awarded consultancy projects to Maximize.

A quantum leap in media planning is aided by a growing roster of specialized tools and techniques, some adapted from Europe, others piloted in Asia. Every agency now has its bundle of acronyms that will optimize schedules, evaluate frequency models, and so much more. At Zenith, proprietary tools and research approaches include: ZOOM - Zenith Optimization of Media tools : ZOOM Wizard, ZOOM Merlin, ZOOM Maps MediaMAP - proprietary TV reception study in China, and TEENBeat - teen consumer media habits report. MindShare’s repertoire includes ATLAS, a coverage and frequency evaluation tool to measure how mixed media campaigns weave together; ZEUS, a set of guidelines and software to help determine effective frequencies against different consumer segments; and SHAPE to help evaluate brand-specific scheduling models.

"The quality is so good, and pace of development so high, that it is becoming hard for anyone to stand out based purely on the quality of tools and techniques. The key point of difference lies now in the quality of people and the depth of insight and strategic thinking they can bring to bear in developing answers to media and marketing questions," says Mark Austin, regional managing director of CIA.

While there are generic tools available, specialists like MindShare and Zenith are increasingly tailoring their own proprietary tools to specific clients. "We are not using cookie cutters," says Clark, "what will differentiate the successful will be their ability to create bespoke solutions to individual clients." The bespoke approach creates a new kind of partnership with clients in that the tools will be tailored to specific brands or categories and wedded to the client’s own data streams.

And this helps explains one new trend, says Antony Young: "Most of Zenith’s new assignments have been for both media buying and planning—quite different from the normal market trend of awarding buying and retaining planning with creative agencies." These include Coca-Cola in China (where media moved from DMB&B and Leo Burnett ), Calvin Klein regionally and Gillette in Singapore.

Last year in Australia, P&G moved planning out of the creative agencies and into Zenith. MindShare’s Sony assignment in Hong Kong plucked media from BBDO, DY&R, Fusion - a local agency. Neither of Zenith’s two shareholders - Saatchi & Saatchi and the Cordiant Communications group had prior relationships with Coke. Similarly, neither JWT nor O&M had worked for Sony. In another switch, Unilever China moved strategic media planning for all toothpaste brands from Lintas to MindShare Shanghai -- first time Unilever had split media planning from the creative agency in the region.

A quantum leap in the quality and intellectual content of planning is under way. The tools and new brand names are symbols of transition to a new environment where agencies that do not become adept at moving planning to higher ground will inevitably see media assignments from sophisticated marketers walk out of the door.

The focus on planning has seeded a growing vein of consultancy business. For example, Advanced Technology Group, a MindShare subsidiary, has opened Singapore and Sydney offices to work with Asian clients such as Heineken, Unilever and RJ Reynolds Japan. Projects include cross-frontier media over-spill analysis, econometric modeling, international brand portfolio management and the development of systems to help clients attain the best media practice. The consultancy business creates incremental fee revenues and draws additional clients seeking specialist skills—about 40 percent of ATG’s business comes from clients that do not otherwise use WPP agencies. Zenith, too, is awarded consultancy projects: recently from ESPN, Star TV and Metro Broadcast Radio in Hong Kong. Last year, they were asked to evaluate media planning and competitive market activity for AT&T, a DY&R client.

And Maximize, a new WPP-owned consultancy, with offices in Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing is focussing more on strategic issues and will also provide auditing services. Inaugural clients include Japan Tobacco,

The growing complexity of media options as well as financial pressures are leading some multinationals to seek added checks. This has brought U.K. consultancy Media Audits to Asia, handling assignments both from London and a Sydney office. Many assignments "more or less these boil down to ascertaining whether clients are getting best value for money," says Media Audits consultant Jill Hunter

This might include checking whether best international media practices are applied right through the media process from strategic thinking to the implementation of individual plans for brands. "A key reason for bringing us in is that we can give an independent point of view," says Hunter.

Traditional ideas about what constitutes media are also being challenged. Drawing the JWT and Ogilvy media departments together is only the first step of MindShare’s march into Asia

Direct marketing, program sponsorship, digital media, events and outdoor are part of MindShare’s brief. Zenith, too, sees "media" in broad terms.

"Our focus is on accountability, simultaneously developing both delivery AND evaluation capabilities. Some through acquisition or strategic alliances, others in joint initiatives with our shareholding agencies," says Clark.

MindShare is already developing a direct response tracking and modeling software; it has installed a dedicated programming and syndication team in China, working with Kodak, Motorola and De Beers; created an Internet advertising tracking system in Hong Kong to better help clients manage on-line investment; and organized the current Aaron Kwok (Honk Kong’s Cantonese pop king) concert promotion tour in Hong Kong for Pepsi. Including the Advanced Techniques Group, Clark believes these new areas will contribute more than 50 percent of MindShare’s incremental revenue growth within the next five years.

These are essentially organic developments and are happening elsewhere, too. But one opportunity is unique to emerging markets such as India where high levels of illiteracy and large rural populations can limit the reach of traditional mass media. Especially in India, where JWT have been developing techniques that can used in villages that would otherwise be totally off the media map. "Since the reach of conventional media is rather limited in rural communities, the most effective form of communication is interpersonal communication," says Kunal Sinha a director of Thompson Social, where the techniques were pioneered. In many programs it proved important to involve villagers in how communication messages and their delivery were developed and to promote discussion and understanding within communities. This particular project was Grand Prix winner in WPP’s Atticus Awards contest to develop new knowledge and innovative approaches to communication by individuals in group companies.

Clark feels that these concepts can be developed to add greater values to media planning to China and Indonesia which also have large potential markets outside of the cities.

While media buying may become commoditized, approaches to planning and broad views about media will lead each of the specialists to define its own culture and personality. Ultimately the marriages of media departments will be distilled into cultures as unique and complex as those of purely creative agencies.

And, though many would hope for a different outcome, early signs are that account conflict may prove to be the same issue for media as for creative agencies. IBM has already indicated it would like to be the only IT brand handled by MindShare. And MindShare’s loss of Hong Kong Telecom in Hong Kong is attributed to perceived conflict with its rival Hutchinson

Asia’s largest market, Japan, is keeping aloof from many of the winds of change buffeting the industry elsewhere. A complex, often impenetrable market, media buying in Japan is dominated by Dentsu which takes a third of all television time, including 40-45 percent of prime time. For multinational advertisers, Japan poses problems of international best practice and transparency. "Japanese advertisers do not yet demand the same accountability as their western counterparts and are only just beginning to scrutinize the details of their spending," says Kim Walker, president of Strategic Planners International, Japan’s only independent media specialist.

But many feel change is on the way. "There’s no doubt Dentsu is far more outward bound and sees the need to expand regionally and globally, part of that must be recognition that there will be change in the market. Undoubtedly, they will try to manage that change rather than let it happen about them," says Austin.

But for the moment at least, Dentsu lags the Asian agency pack in advanced media planning technologies. "I think [Dentsu’s] unique position in the market has blinded them to some of the advances going on in media in a worldwide basis. It’s a tough market to enter without question, but I think there’s more opportunity there than people imagine," says Alec Gerster, Mediacom worldwide chairman. In Asia, Mediacom has now been established in all Grey markets though in some, like Japan, the enhanced services are only provided to existing clients, notably P&G.

Of all major agencies, the Japanese have been slowest to move up the media curve. But perhaps not for long. Dentsu, together with DY&R, are considering how best to respond to the new media forces. "They are potentially a very major competitor," says Clark, "but for the moment they remain a dark horse." Dentsu declined to be interviewed for this article.

Though the major agency networks are now forcing the pace of change, the independents are here to stay. "I don’t think they will be eclipsed, [Carat and CIA] have tremendous track records in Europe; we welcome strong competition." MindShare’s Clark.

Both Carat and CIA have very strong client relationships based on their performance in Europe, and were urged to Asia by clients elsewhere—a testament to the bonds that media skills can forge.

And so Gerster believes " . . it will be a balance; neither reflecting Europe, where independents caught the agencies asleep, nor the U.S., where independents have had a difficult time becoming a meaningful presence. Asia-Pacific could end up a balanced market, where media dependents and independents both thrive."