International coordinator for Young & Rubicam, Laurence Maas has +14 years experience exporting advertising spots between countries.
How does your job fit into the marketing process? As an international coordinator, I don’t work directly on marketing campaigns. Instead, I step in after the spot is live. Once the spot is live I negotiate advertising transfers from one country to another.
For example, an advertising agency creates an advertising campaign for Client X in Spain. Once launched, client X in England wants to use the campaign in their country. So client X in England contacts me and I act as a liaison between the client X and the advertising agency in Spain to negotiate the use the spot, request usage rights and material costs, and sometimes even negotiate the price.
If accepted, the advertising agency sends Client X in England an international version of the spot. It’s possible to only request permission to use part of a commercial from Spain, France, Poland, etc. and then mix everything and do their spot.
I facilitate this process to ensure everything goes correctly and without problem. Additionally, I maintain inventory of all the commercials for all of our clients. I gather all the ads from around the world into a single database so that clients and advertising agencies can browse them and choose if they want to use them in an advertising campaign.
What’s a misconception clients have about the industry? Time constraints. Local clients may urgently request rights to use a spot from a foreign country without realizing that it can take weeks to negotiate the transfer depending on usage rights.
For example, if it’s an old spot, then all of the acters must be contacted and paid usage rights. Models and actors may have originally only received usage rights for Spain only, but if the spot is used in a country other than Spain, then the models/actors are due further usage rights.
If model/acting agencies find spots that were used without the appropriate usage rights, then they contact the advertising agency who created the spot, who then contacts me, and I make sure the appropriate usage right are paid. However this usually doesn’t happen very often because advertising agencies know that failure to pay results in a bad reputation with the model/acting agencies.
What’s an important lesson you’ve learned from your experience in the industry? Consider priorities for your job in general. When I first started I did everything in list format, but you have to choose what you’ll do first depending on priority and urgency. This depends on who the request is for, when is it due, how much time will it take to complete the request, etc. It’s a question of organization.
Where do you go to for ideas/inspiration?
Advice for someone who wants to do your job? Be good at Powerpoint. Sending information via Powerpoint is better than word documents because powerpoints are more modern, professional-looking, and they read better than word documents. Powerpoints are also prettier than a word documents.
What’s one of your favorite advertising campaigns?
I have a small advertising budget, any advice?
- First determine your demographic (target audience), then adapt your strategy.
- Consider creating a powerpoint presentation that briefly overviews your business objective, goals, and website strategy that potential clients can see, print, and use. Also consider including a link to your presentation in your menu bar or on your press page for potential clients or jounalists who want to know more about you and your website. In the powerpint have links to pages on your website and relevant content.
