Advertising, Offshoring, Outsourcing
Offshoring creative work - Is anything sacred?
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Conventional wisdom used to say that emerging economies would make the "cheap" stuff, while advanced nations would do the complicated creative work.
But that notion has never really been true. Japan and South Korea have proved nations can quickly move up the economic pecking order; now the likes of Brazil, China and India are making their mark in aviation, electronics and computer programming respectively.
Now, more creative endeavors are being outsourced overseas, including ad design for major clients. As advertising is a major industy in the United Kingdom, leaders there are taking notice there. In a BBC Newsnight report, the question asked was, "(Doesn't) the United Kingdom have a few advantages over other nations, especially in the creative industries, from advertising to design? It's just under a tenth of our economy, and has a fearsome worldwide reputation."
Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, thinks UK creatives aren't as good as they think. Nothing is fancy about WPP's offices, apart from its Mayfair address in London. This group, which didn't really exist 30 years ago, is now one of the world's largest media services companies. And when its bespectacled boss says we're creative here in the UK, but not half as good as we think we are, people pay attention.
Sir Martin's view is simple: collectively there are more than two billion people in both India and China - by the law of averages there must be some extremely creative people there. His firm is already outsourcing graphic design and animation work to 24 hour studios in Mumbai, and moving Indian executives around his global empire.
Both India and China are presently growing at breakneck speed, and that means chances for British companies to aggressively sell their products over there. So far though, the UK has been very poor at doing it!
WPP's solution is the traditional British one: buy up local firms (it now owns a half of India's advertising industry for instance).
Cobra Beer, a UK company, and its boss, Karan Bilimoria, says the UK has a distinct advantage over other nations pouring into India: namely its one million plus British Asians who have a better cultural understanding of the country, in theory at least, than its neighbors.
Source: BBC Newsnight
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