CO promises integration through collaboration
THE PHILIPPINES, AUGUST 1, 2012: Five independent shops offering specialist skills have banded together in a collaborative venture called The Communications Collective; CO for short.
CO brings together fiercely independent agencies, young and nimble shops and a global media name in one cohesive structure. Members include 4As 2011 Independent Agency of the Year Aspac Advertising, PerkComm, a PR company with roots in creative advertising through chief creative officer Divine Reyes and COO Aprille Ragaza, creative hot shop IdeasXMachina (IXM), industry icon Susan Dimacali’s newly-launched DimSu Consulting and Aegis Media, which unveiled a beefed-up leadership team for its five agency brands last year-end.
Aspac’s two new digital divisions – Republika Worldwide for digital marketing and Pepper for marketing services BPO operations – will also lend support to the group.
CO is the brainchild of Miguel Ramos, newly-installed as chairman of Aspac and Aegis Media. He was appointed to the new role at Aegis along with Angelito ‘BoyP’ Pangilinan, who was named CEO of Carat Philippines, one of Aegis’ five brands in CO’s line-up.
Ramos pointed to changing client demands and the fact that “not all the best talent is ever available in one place” as factors behind the launch. “Clients are open to an alternative approach in providing solutions to their increasingly complex business needs,” he said.
“We are always looking for partners to meet clients’ needs but it’s difficult to know the quality of an agency unless you have an established relationship with them and share the same business values.”
Most of CO’s partners have had established professional relationships with each other for years, either from working at the same agencies or having served on industry boards.
With ambitions to become a larger player, Aspac has signed a strategic partnership with IXM prior to CO’s launch. With it, IXM’s founder and CEO, the multi-awarded creative Third Domingo, has taken on additional duties as ECD of Aspac and chief creative officer of the Aspac/IXM partnership, while Angel Antonio has also been named president and general manager.
Dimacali, who came out of retirement after leaving DDB to launch DimSu, said it helped CO’s cause that Ramos struck at the right time in engineering the collaboration. “Most of the partners are relatively young agencies so there is limited client conflict issues in CO,” said Dimacali, who has both agency and client experience and now consults with marketing and advertising agencies through DimSu.
“What drives any alliance for me is mutual respect and desire to grow client business,” Dimacali said. “We are part of CO because the idea of supporting start-ups – the ‘underdog’ – has always appealed to me. This, as well as the respect, trust, and long friendships I have had with the CO team, are the primary drivers for me.”
Added Ramos: “We sought out passionate, like-minded people who can provide synergy with (Aegis’) core expertise of creating connections with audiences. With our clients in mind, we want to complement our media and digital brands with content creation teams that can help provide fully integrated brand experiences.”
Still, with individual companies retaining their identities, bottom-lines and clients, CO’s founders were acutely aware of the need to pre-empt relationship roadblocks derailing the partnership.
A respected professional business consultant Vic Eduave worked with the partners on a collaboration model to deal with thorny issues such as who should pitch, execute work after it has been won, when to collaborate and a litany of other challenges that have tripped up partnerships in the past.
Photo: (From Left) Ramos, Dimacali and Pangilinan…tapped business consultant Vic Eduave to pre-empt relationship roadblocks
