Business

Saturday January 31, 2009

De Kretser the GO-getter

By SHANNEN WONG


Veteran sees his new PR outfit as a vehicle to doing things his way.

WHEN public relations veteran Michael de Kretser left MDK Consultants (M) Sdn Bhd, a PR outfit he founded 25 years ago, everyone thought he was ready to throw in the towel. But two years ago, he surprised industry watchers by setting up another firm called GO Communications Sdn Bhd, this time with his son Peter.

Armed with some three decades of experience in the industry, he is very much aware of the changes that have swept through the field of public relations. “We have to do PR slightly differently in a changing world,” he tells StarBizWeek.

Michael de Kretser

GO Communications, de Kretser says, is supported by a young and dynamic team of more than 20 people who have open views on how communication should be practised, which is not based on established methods that are rather difficult to change.

“The combination of experience and youth with a big dash of passion is chili padi,” he says.

De Kretser says GO Communications has attracted the best and brightest talent in the country.

“I’m privileged to be part of it; as I tell my younger colleagues, ‘If you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere’,” he adds.

Being the ambitious man that he is, de Kretser says he hopes to expand GO Communications to other Asian countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand, not too long from now.

“We want to be known in Malaysia and Asia as one of the most respected creative agencies that produce bottom-line results for clients and produce PR campaigns that are memorable and believable – campaigns that will become Malaysian classics.

“I could, with the support of my team, bring the experience we have to these growing economies where PR and communications is still a new industry,” he says.

De Kretser, who began his career as a journalist with the Melbourne Age in Australia, moved into public relations when he was offered the PR manager’s position for the Liberal Party’s Secretariat Headquarters during his secondment to Canberra to cover politics in 1975.

“I thought at the time, it’s a wonderful opportunity to handle PR and media relations at the highest level where I will be working closely with the ministers,” says de Kretser, adding that he was only 24 at the time of the appointment and was the youngest PR practitioner in the party.

De Kretser later spent about four years as a PR practitioner in London before deciding to set up MDK in 1982.

“I saw great opportunity for PR in Asia and believed the industry was young and growing,” he says.

He sold an equity interest in the company to Batey Ads, which in turn sold the block to London-based WPP Group. In 2006, WPP Group, one of the world’s largest communications groups, closed down the MDK network following the departure of de Kretser from the company.

But what prompted him to sell part of the stake in MDK to Batey? “At the time, Batey was a big advertising agency in Asia and I thought together with Batey, we can become the powerhouse communication agency in Asia.”

De Kretser also says that WPP wanted to buy the remaining shares in MDK which he held but he wasn’t willing to let go.

“I didn’t want MDK to be wholly owned by a major international company,” he explains, adding that it was indeed, unfortunate, that after 25 years of being in the business, MDK was shut down.

“My choice of selling MDK shares was to Batey Ads, never WPP,” says de Kretser.

Late last year, de Kretser lost the appeal in MDK’s suit against him and his former chief executive Michael Rose on the allegation of poaching MDK’s staff and clients to set up another agency.

Has the suit tarnished his reputation?

“No, it hasn’t. In fact, it has enhanced my reputation as all the publicity and support given by the media and business communities have been extremely favourable,” says de Kretser.

“They have been very sympathetic and that is proven by the growth of GO Communications in a short time, in terms of the number of clients and revenue,” he says.

De Kretser believes that clients will only select agencies that can guarantee delivery and good results. And he has clearly moved on from that episode.

“I’ve moved on. I wouldn’t be able to do what I am doing today if not for MDK. This gave me a new opportunity. Now I have the chance again to build a new PR network with my son and to do things our way, instead of other people’s way,” he says.

“Every dark cloud has its silver lining, in that it presented me with the opportunity to start GO Communications and prove to the world that I can do it twice!”

De Kretser says: “In many ways it was the best thing that ever happened. It enabled me to work with my son, Peter, and start an incredible journey of building a dynamic PR agency.

“The MDK debacle was sad, but I look upon it with great pride and achievement, having built a regional network that people still talk about today. I built a brand almost without knowing it,” he adds.

Peter is clearly a chip off the old block, given his penchant for communication. He says he will always remember his father’s words during the early days of GO Communications: “There is more than a touch of Disneyland about PR and it is populated by even odder characters, including kings and queens, black and white knights, princesses who do not need rescuing and princes who do, and magicians and clowns. He said, ‘If you understand that you’ll be just great’.’’

On competition with international PR agencies, de Kretser says: “The thing with international PR agencies is that they are more interested in their performance in their home countries; CEOs are sent to Malaysia for short periods of two to three years. There is a lack of understanding of the local culture and how things are done. Our market (in Malaysia) may not be their number one market.”

De Kretser, who was inducted into the International Who’s Who 2009, says campaigns must educate, innovate and differentiate from their competitors’. Campaigns need to be persuasive and result in a change in people’s behaviour and attitude, he says, adding that good campaigns stick in people’s minds.

How can we measure the effectiveness of a campaign? Simple, he says. “Through sales. What else?” Effective campaigns would have a direct positive impact on a company’s bottom line, he says.

At a recent talk entitled, How to Get to the Top In PR, in Kuala Lumpur, de Kretser pointed out that effective campaigns can be measured through outputs, outgrowths and outcomes.

Outputs are the least important among the three. It is the amount of coverage generated from a campaign, while outgrowths are the ability to catch the targeted readers’ attention.

However, outcomes play the most significant role in a campaign as it measures people’s behavioural changes and attitudes, leading to an increase in sales and a positive impact on bottom lines.

One of MDK’s most memorable campaigns was for Singapore Airlines, which involved the placing of a life-sized figure of a SIA flight attendant at Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks in London.

Interestingly, De Kretser is now half way through finishing his book, Long Legs and Lemonade, due to be launched in March or April. The book, which covers wide ranging issues on communications in Asia, promises to be a tell-all about PR and is expected to be explosive.

“I hope the book would interest people in and outside the communications industry, including CEOs, communications practitioners and university students, as it will demonstrate the practical way on how to communicate in Asia. It’s a real-life story about the PR industry,” he adds.

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