Mumbai: BBDO, the global marketing and communications agency synonymous for its work on many of the world’s most famous brands, hosted an exclusive client event at the Glocal Junction in Worli on 26 September 2023.

The event marked the unveiling of key insights from the latest study on brand purpose in Asia, which was carried out under the agency’s BBDO Voices insights program by BBDO Asia. The study explores the relevance and impact of using brand purpose as an approach to brand positioning and uncovers important by-country nuances that marketers in the region need to navigate to build their brands successfully across markets in the region.

BBDO Voices, now celebrating its 13th year, has provided valuable insights and thought leadership to brand marketers, planners, and creatives in China. This latest study marks the expansion of the program’s coverage to also include other key Asian markets such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and India.

Indiantelevision.com on the sidelines of the launch of BBDO Voices, caught up with BBDO Asia COO Hans Lopez Vito, where he gave some vital information about the survey, the need to conduct it and more…

Edited excerpts

On giving an overall brief of the survey and the reason to conduct

The research that we conducted is really all about brand purpose and trying to explore purpose from a purely Asian standpoint, because a lot of the research that's been done on the topic of brand purpose has been carried out mostly in the context of Europe, UK, North America. Not a lot has been done talking to consumers across Asia about what their attitudes are towards purpose. What we've seen here, number one purpose is quite compelling in Asia, more compelling in other markets than in some, especially in the developing parts of Asia where consumers feel they can only look to brands to help on many issues in life, where governments at times are falling short. The only source of allyship that they have, whether it's about women empowerment, or democratising access to products or environmental sustainability, they look to brands.

On the roadmap of conducting surveys like this

We've decided, as an agency early on, that we need to understand consumers and we need to provide a new perspective of understanding our clients. So we decided early on to invest a significant amount of our own resources to research consumers and to get data. A lot of it is wonderful quantitative research, going out there with research partners, suppliers, to survey consumers on online studies, which would supplement of course with a lot of in depth interviews in the different markets.

On expecting any changes of the issues mentioned in the survey

I expect more national brand nationalism in certain countries in Asia. I expect that to grow because we're living in interesting times where the world order is being revisited. There are emerging economies and emerging countries and cultures that are vying for influence and brands are also therefore an instrument of writing that's expressed. People become more proud of their national identity and their culture.