Advertising agency folk are known to be a fun bunch of people, who often complain about unreasonable clients and work hard, long, unearthly hours. Either the client is hard to please, the account team didn’t get the brief right, the creatives are burnt out or the deadlines were simply due yesterday.

How do marketing directors get the best out of their agency account teams? We decided to listen to the views of an industry “top dog”. We asked David Tang, president and CEO of DDB Group Singapore, for his opinions. David was named “Marketing Agency Professional of the Year 2009” by Marketing magazine in recognition of his leadership, management and achievements in the industry.

How do you get people to think strategically - and out of the box?

“We’re learning from Pixar that great ideas are built upon many rounds of collaboration. It’s seldom just about a lone ranger. “We” is the new “I”, so they say. Iron sharpens iron, so we like to put together a bunch of very talented and yet nice people to sharpen the ideas – and in fact, the final impact.

Of course, we do need people who are intellectually curious and driven to seek out what is cutting-edge and effective.

You’re most likely to find the most strategic people are the sort who read a lot and think a lot.”

What are 8 tips on creating effective marketing campaigns for B2C brands?

“I’m not Stephen Covey, so I’m not sure if I get can to 8 highly effective habits.

But I’ll say these: Be clear, be human, be straight-talking (stop talking B2C language, we’re all sick of the inhuman language), be interesting, be competitive, be creative, be differentiated.

And dare to be yourself, find the voice that is your brand.”

How do you constantly innovate? How do you keep your own creative mojo alive?

“Reading helps, and that includes reading the stuff that may only be remotely related to your work. After all, an innovative idea is about two unseemingly unrelated ideas coming together in a new, meaningful way. Apple + phone = iPhone; Jobs’ a genius.

I think we have to make time to nurture the parts of you that is distinctly you. Read all that is cutting-edge in your field, but make time to read deeply into the stuff that defines you – and I don’t care if it’s Wired, Zen or Hemingway.”

What has been some of your most recent favourite advertising campaigns, and why?

“The long-tail syndrome means we’re seeing more and more ideas that are brilliant for only certain groups of people. And they are not ads, they are content ideas, product ideas and online stuff.

Of course there’s still the iconic Apple ads and I personally like the Johnny Walker “Made for Chinese Asia” series (below) because they created the most significant change for a brand.

You have to judge it on the degree of difficulty, and those ads almost had me on Johnny Walker – almost.”

Any tips on working with advertising agencies?

“First be clear, then we can be competitive. Honesty is a very key climate to challenge agencies to do great work. Tell them your difficulties and your challenge, confess even to your ambiguity – don’t write a brief you don’t believe in - and see if they can respond with sharp, creative solutions.

The really grown up agencies will welcome a client as co-creators, but there has to be a healthy respect that the client knows everything about the business, and the agency knows everything about consumers and creativity.”

Any other comments or thoughts?

“We’re into an exciting age of innovation and changes, maybe far too much changes. Maybe that’s why we need to get into the soulful stuff as well.”

Read our other blog entry on Creative brainstorming tips.

For more information, please contact Manifesto