Burnett puts Shanghai on fast track

On April 2, its Hong Kongbased director of brand management, Donald Chan, will take over from Doug Pearce, who recommended that a Mandarin-speaking team take over. Pearce, the agency's first managing director in Shanghai, will move to a yet unconfirmed position within the Bcom3 fold. Completing the management triumvirate are executive creative director Ruth Lee and national planning director Baiping Shen; both are already in their positions.

Burnett has also submitted proposals to acquire three businesses specialising in design/POS, interactive and events. Burnett's regional managing director, Richard Pinder, said the acquisitions were "crucial in developing our service offering for Shanghai clients if we are to make our big leap forward".

Pinder added: "Shanghai is going to be the biggest advertising market in Asia-Pacific; China already is for us."

He pointed to the growth of local firms and the steady influx of regional and global companies to the city, and said Starcom's estimates that Shanghai's adspend of Rmb 6 billion would more than double to around Rmb 15 billion in the next five years supported Burnett's planned investments.

"There is a lot of push and pressure from Bcom to do something about Shanghai."

However, Pinder said a different model would be needed to speed up its development in Beijing and Guangzhou. In both markets, Burnett has Chinese-speaking teams in place, and Pinder believed the way forward in Beijing would lie in partnerships rather than acquisitions.