We spoke with Julian Porras, who started his new position as Chief Executive for Omnicom Media Group (OMG) Latin America on December 1. Porras provided interesting views on the new strategic direction of OMG in Latin America, the panregional advertisng and media business and his opinion about Miami´s role as a panregional center.
Porras had been working at Starcom MediaVest for 15 years before joining the Latin American leadership team at OMG. He has worked across Latin America with multi-national clients such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Kraft-Nabisco, Procter and Gamble, Samsung Electronics and Visa International.
As a member of OMG's global board of directors, Porras is responsible for all of OMG's operations, and its two main brands, OMD and PHD, in the Latin American region. He is based in Miami.
Portada: What strategic direction are you going to give to OmnicomMediaGroup in Latin America?
Julian Porras: “In general terms, the objectives of OmnicomMediaGroup Latin America for 2011 are focused in continue acting as a regionally and globally connected organization that leads in servicing our clients in the entire spectrum of marketing communications and media, whether this analog or digital. A key deliverable is to continue to consolidate our position in the client value scale, giving special importance to our Business Intelligence, Digital and Diversified Services capabilities.
We are working to become a grounded agency of the future, driving innovation for our clients and for our own organization, developing our talent and growing our client partnerships.
We will also continue to develop two separately distinct media specialist companies in OMD and PHD, which will leverage the assets and resources of OmnicomMediaGroup, while protecting client confidentialities. We intend to re-energize the network across all its disciplines and continue to exploit our approach which centers in driving client value through consumer insights, ideas and innovation and tangible business results.”
Portada: You come from a major agency, do you think that each agency group has its own specialties/expertise or that they mostly are pure competitors in a commodity business?
Julian Porras: “I think that every agency must offer to its client a complete service that recognizes the dynamic markets in which we operate for them. While new to OMG, I can already recognize strengths in our go to market strategy and global resources – whether in functional roles such as Trading and Accountability or Account management. I also see a strong collaborative approach not only within OMG, but within the Omnicom group of companies, that provide added scale, solutions and a truly integrated solution to clients who choose to be serviced through multiple agencies within the same holding company. Yes, every agency group has its key attributes and compete to provide client solutions from their respective strength.”
Portada: Is Miami going to gain importance as a center of pan-regional buying or lose it?
Julian Porras: “A marketplace is defined by supply and demand dynamics. As markets’ evolve, it is necessary for us as an agency to be ahead of the marketplace and counsel our clients, and lead them towards new opportunities that meet existing and future objectives. Beyond markets, defining what is the best approach for a client, whether it is recommending a pan-regional buy versus local buying, needs to be grounded on specific needs for each individual situation. There is a trend in the market today of going “glocal”, whereby global/regional framework is applied locally. At times, the framework is adapted to meet a local need and that is the end of the process. However, at times, if there is enough scale and similarities in multiple local markets, there may be a need to roll-up of the regional framework and implement regionally, in order to drive economies of scale and synergies across multiple geographies. In summary, there will always be both markets – a pan-regional and a local one – but it is up to each individual client situation and need that defines the balance of both.”