Dilki Wijesuriya
J Walter Thompson (JWT), Colombo, has been awarded the ‘Asian Agency of the Year’ title for the second year running in 1994. The Colombo office though the smallest member of a large international family which has been in business for over 130 years, has albeit become a very important cog in its giant wheel. So much so that JWT has named its Colombo branch the ‘Asia/Pacific Office of the year’.
The agency which is amongst the top 5 in Sri Lanka makes another first amongst many, with the introduction of a brand new concept in advertising. With today’s advancing world needing more intrusive and innovative advertising. JWT has decided to re-engineer their agency in order to provide their clients better and smarter methods of advertising as well as to build for each of them an exclusive identity, through their new concept ‘Brand Vision.’ This new theory will capture all the vital aspects of advertising in relation to a particular brand such as public relations, using new media, promotions, direct and relationship marketing, recruitment advertising etc, and then branch on to advertising ideas, all of which, after the re-engineering, will be handled by a single unit instead of several different arms of the agency.
Under the new scheme, the agency will be split into 4 different units which will all come under the main umbrella of J Walter Thompson. These units will be manned by specialized personnel and centrally serviced by the main stream staff. Ranil de Silva, managing director of JWT, Colombo, says that this method of innovative advertising is certain to improve the quality of the commercial environment and reduce the clutter of advertisements in the electronic and print media.
