AOY Insights: How Publicis Groupe arrived at a dominant position across disciplines in Taiwan

AOY Insights is a series celebrating some of the top wins from Campaign Asia-Pacific's Agency of the Year awards. Join us as we take a closer look at the entries that struck gold this year.

Key Wins (Gold):
Leo Burnett Taiwan: Taiwan Creative Agency of the Year; Greater China Customer Engagement Agency of the Year; Greater China CSR Achievement of the Year; Greater China Integrated Marketing Agency of the Year
Starcom Taiwan: Taiwan Digital Innovation Agency of the Year; Greater China Brand Experience Agency of the Year; Greater China E-commerce Agency of the Year
Performics Taiwan: Greater China Programmatic Agency of the Year
Zenith Taiwan: Greater China Talent Development Programme of the Year
MSL: Taiwan PR Agency of the Year

Other Wins (Silver):
Leo Burnett Taiwan: Greater China Content Marketing Agency of the Year
Starcom Taiwan: Taiwan Media Agency of the Year
Zenith Taiwan: Taiwan Digital Innovation Agency of the Year

Other Wins (Bronze):
Zenith Taiwan: Taiwan Media Agency of the Year; Greater China Performance Agency of the Year

Looking at the list of winners reveals the absolute dominance of Publicis Groupe Taiwan over both the creative and media categories at Campaign Asia-Pacific 2024 Agency of the Year Greater China.

Creative approaches powered by technology and data

To dive a little deeper, we start with Publicis Communications — the creative communications hub that includes PR agency MSL Taiwan, and Leo Burnett Taiwan which has secured the maximum number of wins this year. Besides winning four gold, Leo Burnett Taiwan has consistently outpaced Taiwan’s GDP, with strong double-digit growth over the last three years.

A contributing factor to Leo Burnett Taiwan’s success is the agency’s inhouse AI Eco System, which integrates data analytics and AI throughout the planning and execution processes.

Integrated marketing solutions are a key offering from Leo Burnett Taiwan. The agency developed new units dedicated to CRM, customer experience design, and dynamic content production. The suite of inhouse offerings encompasses studio production from Prodigious Taiwan, and Publicis Collective Taiwan, a media planning and activation service. The agency is thus able to offer a full spectrum of services under its Power of One value proposition to its customers.

The approach has hit the right notes with existing clients — Leo Burnett Taiwan has a 96% retention rate, with several of its top 10 clients having been with the agency for over a decade. New clients too are drawn to the agency which has registered an impressive 75% success rate at pitches.

Clients current and new are also attracted to Leo Burnett Taiwan’s impressive creative clout. In 2024, the agency won four Cannes Lions, including its first gold in the Health and Wellness sector, besides experiencing success at several global and regional award shows.

Leo Burnett Taiwan’s creativity is evident in campaigns like the CSR driven ‘Paper Organs’ for the Taiwan Organ Sharing Registry and Patient Autonomy Promotion Center. The campaign addressed the reluctance among Taiwanese to register as organ donors, which was rooted in the cultural belief that a complete body is necessary to enter heaven. Inspired by Taiwan’s paper cut art and the cultural practice of burning paper replicas of objects that the family would like the deceased to receive in the afterlife, Paper Organs allowed the families of the deceased to symbolically send back the missing parts to the departed. Several hospitals have agreed to be part of the program which has seen a 120% increase in the number of signed consent forms for organ donation.

The creative approach suffuses the agency’s work for a diverse set of clients. For instance, Leo Burnett Taiwan has demonstrated its ability to understand and engage audiences by developing, localising and personalising creative concepts to capture the attention of different consumer segments.

Another key winner from Publicis Communications was MSL Taiwan. The agency has oriented itself around three core themes: across the border, into the heart, and beyond the next. They represent MSL’s appetite for cross-border opportunities, its ability to create emotional connections with the audience, and using technology-driven approaches to move past the core audience to target a more extensive consumer base.  

Winning media solutions driven by AI

Publicis Media agencies have also been firing on all cylinders. This is particularly true of Starcom Taiwan which won gold across multiple categories. The agency has embraced the STAR framework which stands for strategy shaped by human intelligence; technology empowering AI-driven transformation, agility in response to society; and revolution with cross industry collaboration. The agency launched StarCommerce in 2024 embodying its belief that the future of commerce lies in fusing technology and human insight. With technology often being pursued as an end, Starcom’s pivot to commerce is a deliberate move to shift the industry towards a more meaningful and purpose-driven future. The answer lies in expanding the purpose of commerce, making it something that could inspire, engage, and add value that extends beyond the transaction, thus transforming commerce into a catalyst for deeper, more sustainable relationships. Aided by the embrace of this framework, the agency has secured an 89% success rate at new business pitches and retained No 1 RECMA position for three years.

The work coming out from the agency clearly demonstrates why it won top honours in a category like Greater China Brand Experience Agency of the Year.  For a diabetes supplement brand, Starcom leveraged the insight tool 6 Degrees and identified meal planning as a key problem area. In response, a diabetes friendly lunchbox was created with labels empowering patients to control their diet and improve their well-being.

Work created for an automotive client demonstrates the StarCommerce framework in action while also being a sterling example of technology powered innovation, and the integration of digital intelligence into physical spaces. Starcom turns in-store consumer behaviour into actionable data using technologies like Computer Vision, edge computing, and IoT. This gives brands and their retail outlets insights to deliver personalised experiences while adhering to norms surrounding privacy. Starcom partnered with Digitas and NexRetail to deploy cutting-edge computer vision, mapping consumer movements and behaviour in the showroom. These insights unlocked a deeper understanding of visitor interactions, allowing retail brands to engage customers at every step.

Rounding out the impressive run from Publicis Media is Performics Taiwan — having won Greater China Programmatic Agency of the Year for four consecutive years starting in 2021. The agency’s focus has been on AI powered solutions in areas such as personalisation, experience design, performance, and commerce, unified under Performics Programmatic One.

Finally, Zenith Taiwan, besides still earning its spurs as the ROI agency, is building its talent pool around the cornerstones of agility, trust, and autonomy — key elements of its talent development programme. The agency aims to create a happy working atmosphere with every employee embracing and advancing their individual attributes, even as they contribute to the company’s objective and prowess. The agency has over 230 diverse talent programs covering holistic aspects such as mental and emotional health, professional skills, physical strength, and talent cultivation. Training at the agency encompasses both hard and soft skills.

With these building blocks in place, Publicis Taiwan has grown to be a renowned force to reckon with in the Asia Pacific region.