Fascinated with Japan: Phil Rubel

When Phil Rubel departed Toronto’s Rubel & Schwab Communications in January 1997 to become a senior vice-president at McCann Erickson in Tokyo, he was doing more than indulging a fascination for Japanese culture and the Orient. “Fundamentally,” he says, “I was looking for a new challenge.”

But first came the culture shock, not so much in terms of language or food, but in the sheer intensity of Japanese urban life. “It was so different from what I had expected,” Rubel recalls, “the pace of life is much faster than in Toronto. The hours are long, and the stress levels are high. At the same time there is enough energy created to give you the charge you need. And it is exciting, Tokyo is a very exciting place to work.”

Much of the excitement comes from the many changes that are taking place in Japan as the country struggles to recover from a ten year recession. Japanese advertisers are taking a serious interest in many of the ideas that have helped transform the advertising industry in the West but which have hitherto been kept offshore.

These include approaches to brand development, media planning, relationship marketing. Fundamental questions about accountability and whether an agency primarily serves the media or advertisers, are now being discussed in Japanese advertising circles for the first time. As one example of the difference in mindsets East and West, Rubel cites the Japanese word used to describe account executives, “ Eigyo” which literally means salesman. “Rather than seeking to performing a service for their clients, many Japanese agencies are simply hawking media space and time,” he says.

Tenth ranked McCann, the most successful international agency in Japan, works for a large portfolio of Japanese clients as well as many internationally aligned McCann clients such as Coca Cola, General Motors. Part of McCann’s success comes from its track record of helping to build Japanese brands domestically, including Asahi Beer, and TTNet as well as nurturing the brands of its global clients.

In a little over 2 years at McCann, Rubel led a business unit that was able to grow business with maturere agency clients such as the Coca-Cola Company and Lancome. Perhaps one of his biggest accomplishments was helping win back Coke’s above-the-line Georgia coffee business, Georgia is not only the leading soft drink in Japan, but also Coke’s largest brand worldwide. He also led the team that won the MasterCard account in Japan, paradoxically from DMB&B, and two unaligned new clients: Pfizer OTC and Boots Pharmacies.

But this May Rubel parted from McCann to become president of DMB&B Japan. Rubel was wooed jointly by Arty Selkowitz, DMB&B’s CEO and Garry Titterton a former colleague at McCann who became DMB&B’s president for Asia/Pacific at the end of 1998.

But the reason he left McCann was that the urges to be in charge of his own shop again proved irresistible and awakened the entrepreneurship that had enabled him to help found and build Rubel & Schwab. DMB&B are one of Tokyo’s small international agencies. It was set up as a majority owned DMB&B subsidiary in 1997 in succession to an earlier joint venture between DMB&B and Japan’s Tokyu Group. As a sign of the times, the young agency has found little difficulty in recruiting talent working for an innovative foreign company in Japan today is viewed positively as a step into the future rather than negatively as a retreat from the traditions and values that bind Japanese society.

DMB&B’s business in Japan has grown rapidly in recent years with gains from Procter & Gamble (including the Pampers and Vicks brands), Mars/Masterfoods, General Motors, Australian Tourist Commission, and Roche Pharmaceuticals. Other major accounts include Philips, Credit Suisse Asset Management, Baskin Robbins.

Even so, it is a small agency by Japanese standards. With billings of Yen 6 Billion [ about CAN$ 70 million], the shop is a fraction the size of McCann Erickson in Japan. And McCann’s billings are a mere 6% those of Dentsu, the juggernaut Japanese agency that buys over 20% of Japanese media.

Rubel’s initial goals at DMB&B in Tokyo are to build up the agency’s infrastructure, improve profitability, and develop business from current clients. Then on, he plans to seek new business aggressively to build the agency’s critical mass as a modern integrated marketing communications shop.

by David Kilburn

Published in Marketing Magazine (Canada) August 1999