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Enemy of the
Ordinary
By Priya Tuli
Brian Estes came to
Indonesia when the world of advertising was just starting up,
and has grown 'swimmingly' along with it.
 If
you’re going to open an agency, you’ve got to decide whether you
want to be a small creative hot-shop, or try to swim with the
big fish. We decided on the second option,” says American Brian
Estes.
Brian arrived in Indonesia 11 years ago, after having done a
Masters in International Journalism. To complete the degree, he
had to do an internship overseas for a year That internship
actually became a position with the marketing department of
cigarette giant Sampoerna.
“I was fresh off the boat, heading straight into Surabaya. It
was my first ‘real’ job. I was lucky they were having their IPO
at the time, so I assisted them in pulling all the videos and
materials together I also assisted on a lot of other projects.
A-Mild had just been launched, the big Bromo commercial was
being shot then—one of the milestones in modern Indonesian
advertising. It was a one-minute video, the talk of the town! I
provided some support, those were exciting times for Sampoerna,”
says Brian
A year later, he moved to Jakarta and joined Fortune
Advertising. That same week, Fortune hooked up with Doyle Dane
Bernbach (DDB). Together, they pitched for the Garuda domestic
and worldwide account and won it. DDB then offered Brian a job
based in Indonesia, working exclusively on Garuda, which Brian
handled from 1993 to 1997. “It was a significant account, US$20
million a year,” said Brian.
According to Brian, the
objective was to get across the diverse cultures, and move it
away from being just a ‘tourist’ destination. At that time,
during the early 1990s, Indonesia was undergoing boom-time.
Garuda was competing with Malaysian Airlines, “to prove who was
bigger and better.” Around 1997, Garuda found difficulty in
maintaining their volume of advertising, and practically stopped
advertising for a year or two. “They were a very honorable
client. Sometimes advertisers get a bad rap for not paying, but
they never defaulted, they might have paid late sometimes, but
they always paid,” says Brian.
Since DDB’s multinational business in Indonesia began picking up
around this time, they retained Brian to set up a special
division to handle it. Some of the accounts included Clorox,
Compaq computers, Henkel, Mobil Oil. The agency took the
opportunity to develop local clients, and picked up Bank
Universal and a large part of Sony Indonesia around 1998-99. “We
launched their VCD, DVD, car audio, projection television, and
Vega products,” says Brian. But within a few weeks the riots
began, and Sony lost a large part of their distribution network.
So they cut back on advertising, impacting on DDB’s profit
margins.
In late 1999, Brian and Greg Warner, a colleague from Fortune
Advertising, decided to setup their own advertising agency,
Brainstorm. “It was something we always wanted to
do, have our own company,” says Brian. They started out with one
client in the year 2000: Bank Universal. “We really appreciated
that client, particularly as they had gone through difficult
times over the past 18 months. We’ve tried to stay loyal to them
and support them as much as possible, because they really
supported us when we first started. I think I’ll always have a
soft spot for them in my heart!” says Brian.
They knew they couldn’t survive on one client, however, so they
started identifying potential prospects. One that had been
Brian’s target for many years was ProXL. Brian feels that of all
the GSM providers, ProXL are the most professional. He’s tried
them all, and ProXL is the only one who actually calls back when
you phone the helpline. “As soon as that happened, I decided
that was the kind of client we’d like to work with, because
those are the kind of ideals we like to live up to ourselves,
being a service industry” They’ve been a good client to
Brainstorm, which handles 50 percent of their business.
Mid-2000, a local agency acquisition brought a number of people
from Adventure into Brainstorm. “The acquisition was good, in
terms of absolute business—we acquired Ceres, DHL, and part of
Ericson—and it gave us a good name in the industry as well.
Earlier, we were seen as a boutique agency, but this doubled our
size in terms of people and billings, and gained us a lot of
momentum,” Brian says. Then late in 2000, Brainstorm assembled
an entire team of below-the-line and events management
personnel, and pitched for several Unilever brands and won them.
They handled a new product launch for Sari Wangi: tea leaves for
the rural market. This included event management over a
three-month period, using a push-pull strategy, in 80 markets
across Java. “It was an incredible experience, working at the
wet-wet-wet-market level!” exclaims Brian.
The way we’re looking at our business now, is not just doing
beautiful commercials, great looking print ads, but really
getting fo the consumers wherever they are. In event management
and below-the-line, the most important things are: one, you must
have a strategy; and two, your activities must be measurable.
It’s not just a show,” he says.
The following year Brian and Greg began discussions with Advis,
another ad agency formerly affiliated with FCB, about a possible
merger. This was completed last December. Simultaneously, they
started a relationship last September with DDB International, as
their Indonesian affiliates. They now handle three accounts for
DDB here: Philips Electronics, Johnson & Johnson, and the
Malaysian Tourism Board.
So it’s all official. They are now DDB Indonesia, a full service
agency, comprising DDB Advis and DDB Brainstorm, which share
several centralized services, including finances, media and
operations, consumer insights and their below-the-line unit,
which is called Beyond DDB. Their credo, ‘Enemies of the
Ordinary’, defines the DDB Indonesia work ethic and the caliber
of service provided to their clients.
What has been the best thing about working here? For Brian, it
was the challenge of doing so much, so fast. In the US, he says,
he might not have been running his own agency this soon. “Back
home, people my age are still account managers, account
directors,” he says. The crisis did one good thing, according to
Brian. It shook out most of the expatriates, and gave local
advertising professionals a chance to shine.
“Indonesians are thinking strategically, doing great work. The
other thing that’s happening is that local advertisers realize
that advertising really works! “exclaims Brian. These are
exciting times for advertising in Indonesia, and Brian hopes to
play a part as it grows and develops even further.
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