CAREERS: Holgate puts focus on CRM at Bates' 141

The new head of Bates' marketing agency 141 Communications in Hong Kong, Ben Holgate, says that his priority is to build up the agency's customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities. Holgate, who came on board a few weeks ago, spent the past year re-engineering Coca-Cola Australia's merchandising department. Prior to that assignment, he was responsible for setting up and directing the team which delivered all the Coca-Cola sponsorship promotions in Australia for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. "The challenge at the moment is to build up the CRM business. There's been a late demand in Hong Kong in this area. We're now looking at adding to our knowledge base in terms of solutions, and we are planning to hire four to five people in the course of the next six months, including database marketers and below-the-line creatives," he said. Holgate is an advertising industry veteran with more than a decade, specialising in the direct marketing and sales promotions business. Prior to Coca-Cola, he worked in a number of advertising agencies - mainly with Euro RSCG and Dentsu Young & Rubicam in the UK, the Middle East and Australia - leading promotional and integrated marketing activities for a variety of clients, including American Express, Nestle, and DHL. However, the Olympics was one of the high points of his career, according to Holgate. "Sydney 2000 set a new benchmark for Olympic activation, and Coca-Cola, as a major sponsor, played a major role in creating an air of celebration in the Olympic venues." The brand undertook a variety of activities aimed at boosting and then fulfilling consumer demand leading up to and during the games, as well as closely aligning the brand with the "once-in-a-life-time" Olympic experience. These activities included major events across Australia for the opening ceremony, special packaging promotions and heavy marketing activities in Sydney's city centre and stadia. Holgate originates from the UK, where he started his career as a graduate trainee with Rothmans. A large part of his tertiary education involved studying theatre and films, which he says shares a few intrinsic similarities with advertising and marketing. "One of the essences of advertising and marketing is that they make you change the way you think about some things. Theatre and films are the same. It's about taking a subject and making people look at it in a different way," he said.

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