Lowe Istanbul hosted Mike Teasdale, the Worldwide Chief Planning Officer of
Lowe and Partners for Unilever brands, at the beginning of March.
During these 2 days, other than having one-on-one sessions with Lowe
Istanbul’s Unilever teams giving tips on how to work more effectively with
Unilever, he had workshop with the strategic planners, strengthening the bonds
for them to feel and act as part of the global planning community.
Please enjoy the interview with Mike Teasdale:
Describe your role at Lowe and Partners
I am responsible for leading the Lowe and Partners planning community. I focus on Unilever.
The Unilever/Lowe relationship is the single biggest client/ad agency partnership in the
world, spanning 50 brands and 150 countries. I lead a Unilever team of 80 strategists in
building brands like Magnum, Cornetto, Knorr, Rexona, Axe, OMO, Domestos, Clear,
TRESemmé, Signal, Close Up, and Lifebuoy.
Why are you in Istanbul?
Istanbul is a very important part of our agency network and our Unilever team. It is our
regional hub for AMET. It’s vital that our people in Istanbul feel connected to their colleagues
from across Lowe and Partners and my visit is to help build that connection.
How important is the Lowe/Unilever relationship in Turkey?
Our relationship with Unilever runs very deep and Turkey is a great example of that. We
handle 19 of their brands for the AMET region out of this office in Istanbul. Famous brands
like Knorr, Sana, Algida, Magnum, Cornetto, OMO, Domestos, Clear all have their regional
homes in this office.
What are the key consumer trends you are seeing that impact your work?
The connectedness of consumers is getting ever stronger and with it their power is growing.
If consumers can now effectively topple governments they can certainly impact the fortunes
of a brand for good … and bad. It’s vital that we as advertisers stay very closely connected
to the exhaust trail people leave behind them from all their online activity. And it’s vital that
any advertising we create is an asset that can be deployed on any screen they are
connected to, from mobile to PC to TV to bus shelter.
What are the key client trends you are seeing that impact your work?
More for less! Clients increasingly want to know that the money they invest in advertising is
well spent and effective. That’s why we invest a lot of time at Lowe understanding the impact
of our work.
Overall, as an agency network, we won 78 country level Effie awards in 2011 across all our
clients which ranked us as the most effective network in the world relative to size. The
Global Effie Awards have just announced their 2012 finalists and 3 out of the 7 are for Lowe,
an unprecedented achievement for a single agency network.Biography info about Mike…
Prior to joining Lowe as Worldwide Chief Planning Officer in 2010 Mike was the Executive
Planning Director for BBDO North America where he lead the planning on AT&T. In this
capacity he was responsible for the thinking behind the rise of Cingular and then its merger
with AT&T Wireless.
Before BBDO North America, Mike worked for many years at AMV BBDO in London where
he was Head of Planning and also lead the planning on British Telecom.
In his time Mike has won IPA and Effie and APG Awards for his thinking. Mike is 45 and
married with a daughter.