MANILA – Touch BPN Philippines, a rebrand of former Touch DDB, was made official this Thursday in a launch party held at Rave Manila attended by the who’s-who in Philippine advertising.
News about the media agency first came out in February, when Gil Chua, CEO and founder of DDB Philippines, announced that Touch Media will pull out from its seven-year partnership with DDB, an agency network owned by Omincom, to make way for BPN, a full-service media agency owned by IPG Mediabrands of the Interpublic Group.
At the helm is Roy Santiago (pictured above), who retains his role as managing director at Touch BPN Philippines. He shared with adobo that they were looking for a partner with fresh technologies for the last two years to help the agency be as nimble as the audiences it serves.
“I think its time for us to look for a global partner that could provide us the tools, the learnings, the research that could make us move forward. So that was the intent,” he says, clarifying that friction between DDB and Touch didn’t prompt the exit.
“Its a new brand, a three-year old agency and its tools are very young. They had to develop their tools to address the needs of the changing consumer landscape. The tools were very much driven by digital, social media and what the clients need. So we looked at a network that we felt has a lot of flexibility and can evolve who we are to serve our clients,” he adds.
What sets Touch BPN apart, according to Santiago, is collaboration, partnering with a couple of suppliers to provide services other media agencies lack or slow to deploy. Among them is Field Outsource Asia (FOSA) for field marketing and Acumen for marketing consultancy.
Santiago said that Touch BPN will still serve DDB as a client, supporting its agencies like DM9 JaymeSyfu and Tribal DDB. It will retain its biggest clients PLDT and Smart Communication and is expecting to serve some of BPN’s multinational clients.
BPN enters the Philippines
The partnership also marks the entrance of BPN in the Philippines, joining nine sister IPG agencies – FCB, Initiative, McCann, McCann Health, Momentum, MRM, Mullen Lowe Philippines, UM and Weber Shandwick.
Santiago said that Touch BPN will still serve DDB as a client, supporting its agencies like DM9 JaymeSyfu and Tribal DDB. It will retain its biggest clients PLDT and Smart Communication and is expecting to serve some of BPN’s multinational clients.
IPG built BPN from scratch in 2012 as a media agency “to help clients realize their growth agenda through progressive, data-led content and audience activation.”It currently has 36 offices in 28 countries, with Touch BPN as its fifth shop in Asia.
Leading BPN is global CEO is Rob Kabus (pictured above), who flew from New York to attend and meet the Touch BPN team during the launch party and meet CEOs to discuss what the agency can offer in a separate roundtable earlier that day.
Among the products he shared is Shopper Panel, which allows brands to see and be present in different points along a customer’s shopping journey, covering mobile, online and brick-and-mortar stores. This is under BPN’s Growth Sciences, one of three founding pillars of the agency focusing on big data and analytics. The other pillars include Cultural Insights and Innovation Management.
Even with the best technologies, Kabus told adobo that big idea can’t take off without genuine relationships between clients and agencies.
“I think there are a lot of good agencies and clients but there’s not a lot of good marketers because you need to have chemistry, a shared sensibility and shared values,” he said, adding that only around 25% to 30% of marketers global see marketing as a cost center rather than a growth engine.
