MANILA — You could say the path to shopper marketing as a field of expertise chose Ben, with many of his account assignments being highly retail in nature from the time he began his career 30 years ago at Aspac where he launched Pantene. He later headed up the San Miguel business unit in McCann and the Globe telco business in Harrison.
Like most of the management team at Aspac, Ben also spent a considerable number of years as client, heading up the marketing group of Zed and Nextel.
For the last 10 years, Ben has continued this chosen path at Burnett where, for the last 5 years he headed up their Shopper Marketing group, handling an impressive mix of clients–the Philip Morris portfolio, Coca-Cola, P&G, and Chevrolet. Ben has witnessed how “the lines between shopper marketing and digital, traditional, and CRM are blurring”. Ben warns, “To stay relevant, you need to adjust to these developments and transform, otherwise you suffer the way of Kodak”.
Ben joined Aspac because he sees the same kind of thinking in its leadership. “It’s one agency that has the freedom to chart its own destiny, and understands that clients are now ready for that big leap in shopper marketing. What’s exciting is that the technologies to support this leap are already here, and Aspac is poised to offer end-to-end shopper marketing solutions to clients.”
Ben is a visiting professor of shopper marketing at the University of Asia and the Pacific.
