I can’t say I’m a fan of procurement. I recognize that every company wants value in its purchases. Yet, procurement’s behavior often reflects a singular mission: secure the cheapest price point possible. I also find that procurement often takes the same approach to selecting PR services as pitting Walmart against Costco in buying soda pop. …more
The Agency opened its doors in Asia on October 20, 1996. It has been an amazing, fun, torturous, weird, satisfying, frustrating and enlightening adventure. I made my first trip to Asia in 1994 as part of a press tour for Hyundai Electronics (now known as Hynix). After researching PR resources in that part of the …more
The grab bag post makes its 2018 debut. For new readers, this is where I take three shards of content that by themselves can’t carry a story and bundle them together in one post. Here goes. Can a HK Daily Become an International Read? When Jack Ma and Alibaba plucked down $266M at the …more
The idea of pulling from multiple marketing services agencies to create a single team to serve a large client isn’t a new idea. This is one of the more effective ways that the large holding companies throw around their weight. Omnicom used this model to win the McDonald’s ad business last year. WPP won the …more
By Shingo Nomura, Vice President, North Asia for The Hoffman Agency I joined The Hoffman Agency to lead its Japan office in 2002. After roughly four years at a traditional local PR company in Japan, I found the idea of blending a Silicon Valley mentality with the Japanese way quite appealing. While I didn’t understand …more
I consider myself more of a writer than a talker (though my mom might disagree). Still, I appreciate organizations periodically hoisting me up to a speaking pulpit to scrutinize and evangelize the wonders of storytelling in business. Such will be the case on April 18 when I’ll take on the topic of “Life, Liberty and …more
The four-word stacked headline appeared in the print version of The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday: WPP’s Sorrell Faces Probe The online headline went for the jugular, “WPP Is Looking at CEO Martin Sorrell’s Possible Misuse of Assets and Allegations of Improper Behavior.” Before digging in, let’s get the disclosure out of the way. I …more
Conducting our storytelling workshops never gets old. It’s energizing to help the workshop participants connect the dots to a simple premise: Given a choice between “interesting” and “dull,” human beings pick “interesting” virtually every time. I have to use the adverb “virtually” allowing for the individual who sports a “math is fun” button. Similar to …more
By Jason Cao, Hoffman China General Manager Running out of office space is a good problem to have since it reflects a growing enterprise. Such was the case with our China team where 2017 saw our staff grow from 19 to 33 employees as our “Big Tech” positioning gained traction. In the case of our …more
