Adweek senior writer Joan Voight spoke with Tom Bedecarré, CEO of AKQA in San Francisco.
Mostly the interview is about advertising in China, but here’s some of what Bedecarré, 51, says about the need for a digital champion on the client side who can marshall the funds needed to run a vigorous interactive program:
If you are a consumer product company and your digital budget is less than 15 percent of the total marketing budget, you are missing the boat. Compare your spending with how much time your customers are spending online via PCs, interactive kiosks, mobile phones and other devices. Smart marketers such as Nike decide from the top that digital is going to receive significant funding and tell their marketing managers to work out the spending allocations. On average, companies are spending half of what they should be spending. At smart marketers I find that there is a catalyst or evangelist with a digital point of view that keeps them ahead of the curve. For example, Unilever and Diageo bring digital best practices to all their marketing groups.
