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anywhere, regardless of what our con nes look like.”
services. Then he hopscotched back to Aisa as Founder and

He adds, “We want to change the way agencies are Creative Planning Director of Sunshine Hong Kong. where

perceived, while providing the highest quality of work for our in 18 months he and his team won and worked with clients

clients. And we’re only just getting started.”
ranging from Microsoft Asia, National Geographic, AIA and

Virgin Racing.
Rob Campbell, Regional Head Of Planning He credits his career, to date, to luck, the planning gods,
— Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai
and being pretty good at what he does.

Rob Campbell is Head of Strategy Heather Dawson, Director — Mindshare
at Wieden+Kennedy, Shanghai.
Canada
He’s also the personality behind

one of Adland Asia’s most in u- Heather has been stewarding

ential blogs The Musings of an brands through the shifting dig-

Opinionated Sod. Despite Rob’s ital landscape for over 15 years.
irreverence, clients and colleagues She has worked on integrated

consider him an “inspiration.” In teams in small start-ups and in

fact, Eaon Pritchard of Appliance media agencies; planning and

of Science has said, “Rob wouldn’t
buying, comms strategy, branded

mind me paraphrasing Brian Clough by saying, “’Rome content and sponsorships, as
wasn’t built in a day, but Rob wasn’t on that particular job’. well as acquisition media, social

He’s one of the top ad planners in the world today and an all- and search. Heather has been

round top chap.” (You just can’t get praise better than that!)
with Mindshare for almost eight years, and is passionate

about motivating brands and teams to adopt digital best prac- Rob’s job is to help clients like NIKE, Converse, Beats,

tices. She loves getting deep into the data that creates new P&G, Chrysler, Heineken, Arla, Tiffany’s, Momo and the soon-
opportunities for her clients.
to-be built, Disneyland Shanghai, with their commercial and

communication needs across Asia Paci c. Our goal is to con- When she started working with the Air Canada account,

tinually prove creative intelligence is the most powerful way to the airline had never advertised outside of its home market.

win hearts, minds & pro ts.
Within 6 months, she helped them launch in four countries,

and the results caused them to immediately plan Wave 2 He’s had an eclectic background. He started as a
while in the midst of the initial launches. “Travel decisions,” session guitarist for some of the worst—yes worst-- 80’s pop-

she acknowledges, “are not the same in every country, nor is stars in history. (He notes that he only played the songs; he

the media landscape. But in a transactional habitual category, didn’t write them.)

we pushed for a digital- rst mindset, using every possible His rst role in advertising was as Creative Planner at

screen in the right way to change behavior.”
HHCL in the UK. Rob admits that his rst job title should

She adds, “A great idea may motivate travelers in France have been “sponge,” and he left with an amazing experience,
but not in Quebec, or in California but not in Vancouver. In- great memories, awards. and written warnings.

ternational programs need to be consistent but not same-y. He then became Founder & Creative Planning Director of

Adapt means to repeat successes, but resist the cookie cutter. Cynic in both the UK and the US. where he spent more than

Keep learning and testing the tiny nuances. Global marketers seven years designing interiors for 747’s, developing mopeds

have to make decisions on the y but not skip to the tactic for Vietnam and creating award-winning (and effective) cam-
they know when it comes to local strategy deployment. For
paigns for brands like Virgin, IKEA and Coke.

a growing global brand, it is tempting to just want to repeat He then move to Singapore as Regional Head of Plan-

and get quicker in a world of adaptive retail. But no team ning for Y&R Asia, where he credits great people, hard work

should approach a new problem with old tricks - there is a and luck to enabling some top work for clients like SONY,

line somewhere between. And that is a hard (and emotionally MTV, Schweppes & Tiger Beer.
tiring!) conversation for many marketers and agencies. That Rob next became a planner at Google’s Cultural Engi-

no matter how much you know, you never know everything on neering Lab in the US and led an engineering/planning team

a world stage. At some point there is a bet to make.”
to identify and develop culturally-relevant products, tools and

28 the internationalist