SINCE the early 1990s, Campaign Agency of the Year Awards have existed to recognise inspiring leadership, management excellence, outstanding business performance, and overall achievements in advertising and brand communications.
It recognises and honours agency and individual excellence across local and regional levels, and is open to all media, advertising, creative, digital, PR, independent and specialist agencies from across the Asia-Pacific region.
In 2021, Bala Pomaleh, the CEO of Mediabrands Malaysia, picked up the South-East Asia Agency Head of the Year accolade at the Campaign Agency of the Year Awards. He shares his success journey, the challenges and what’s next on the cards. Below are excerpts of the interview.
StarBiz: What is your formula of success in clinching the award?Bala: Winning the award was incidental. It wasn’t something I set as a goal. For me, the guiding principle has always been setting the right direction for our people and clients to achieve better business outcomes.
With those measures in mind, it is my firm belief that everything else will fall in place. Thankfully, in this case, it allowed me to clinch the award.
The Agency Head entry recognises the heads of agencies who have done the most to advance their agency/network in the industry.
Judges score against the criteria which includes achievement against objectives, scope of operation, business growth, client profile and disciplines, new business wins, client retention and relationships, awards and recognition, staff retention and development initiatives, and how the nominee has played a positive role in the advancement and reputation of the industry during the review period.
This includes special emphasis on clear evidence of commercial success and return on investment, as well as examples of work, tools and initiatives that led the industry.The important thing to remember is not just to strategise, but also craft and implement meaningful activities that can produce results. We believe these efforts must also go beyond business to show a positive impact on people and our society as a whole.
For us as an organisation, it means sustainability, diversity and inclusion. When we start thinking about these measures and understand how it affects us, our people and our clients, we can then add purpose into our intent and actions.
What does the win mean to you and the agency as a whole?For me, this is a delightful personal achievement, considering my tenure in the industry, starting off as a junior media research assistant 30 years ago. It feels like a tick off the bucket list.
However, this win is not just mine. It is a win for our agency. It truly shows the kind of organisation we are – not one based solely on business and profits, but one that nurtures our people and the society at large.
This is a win for everyone in Mediabrands because none of this would be possible without our teamwork and collaboration.
I also hope it is a win for our industry in Malaysia as it competes on a regional level, and the last time we had this honour was almost a decade ago.
Was it tough to compete with other veterans in the industry?As a rule, I don’t compete with anyone else except myself. I do set very high standards for myself and keep that as my personal benchmark.
So, I do get extremely annoyed when I fall short, but that’s my own internal determination is to always be the best I can.
We know that the competition is always tough as there are so many bright talents and leaders. In a sense, every leader has their own “superpower”, so to speak. I think it’s important to play to your strengths, and for me, I always surround myself with a team that complements me. That helps us build an all-rounder team – one that has diverse skills and thoughts to challenge each other and connect the puzzle in different ways. It is always about the team and not any one individual.
When I assumed the CEO’s role, I had very high benchmarks to deliver due to Mediabrands’ past successes.
Fortunately, with a solid team in place, we have maintained that high performance, leading to us being recognised as one of the key markets regionally and globally within Mediabrands.
What’s your next goal after winning the award?As mentioned previously, winning the award wasn’t a goal, more a wish, or an aspiration.
However, what keeps being important is for us as an agency to continue delivering amazing work that will build our client’s businesses. To do that, we will continue to focus on building the strength of our talent bench.
You mentioned this was a tick on the bucket list, what else would you like to conquer moving forward? Future aspirations?Yes, this is certainly a prestigious award to receive, so, I am very proud to win it after 30 long years in the industry.
Across my career, I have won other awards too, and especially in Mediabrands, we are proud to be one of the most awarded agencies in the market, winning numerous prestigious local, regional and global awards.
Moving forward, my aspirations don’t really change much. I want us to continue thinking, being and staying relevant to our clients. And I want us to be their best marketing solutions business partner.
To do that, I will continue to spend a lot of time honing our talent and leadership capabilities, so we continually keep pushing boundaries.
Each one of us play a part in this industry. Each creating small ripples. And it is this collective movement and contribution from each one of us that helps create the waves.
At the end of the day, it is our people, who ultimately create success for the business and the space we work in.
No matter how advanced our technology becomes, or how much we continue to fine tune our strategy, it is our people who are our greatest resource. Our greatest asset.
And my aim is to continue to build an organisation that can attract and retain the best people. This is what forms our continued success.
Any challenges you foresee in the ad and media industry this year? And how about the outlook of the industry in 2022 as well?Assuming the tapering of the Covid-19 Omicron variant in the near future, we are on a nice track to recovery.
The debilitating phases of lockdowns are hopefully over, and we truly see a sense of buoyancy economically with all sectors opening, traffic building up and more people returning to the office.
Overall, there is optimism. Our Magna forecast predicts advertising revenues to grow in 2022 with consumer behaviour largely returning to normal, with Malaysian digital spends at its highest since 2014.
Magna is the centralised IPG Mediabrands resource for intelligence, investment and innovation strategies.
Contributing factors to this are the growth in digital media consumption and the explosion in the scale and depth of eCommerce, which has prompted big brands, and most especially, small businesses, to increase digital marketing activity and ramp up their use of social and search formats.