CAREERS MEDIA: Ex-JWT CEO Pereira joins Carlson as A-P president

Former J. Walter Thompson CEO and chairman for Southeast Asia Gerry

Pereira has joined relationship marketing company Carlson Marketing

Group as president for Asia-Pacific.

Mr Pereira, an 18-year veteran of JWT, is based in Singapore where

Carlson has a staff of 60, but will be spearheading a regional

acquisition and recruitment campaign over the next 18 months aimed at

planting the Carlson flag in most frontline Asian countries.

Carlson will be targeting existing loyalty companies and Internet-driven

loyalty companies, but in some cases will be looking at strategic

hirings who can provide creative planning and account service which can

be backed up by the Singapore HQ as the regional resource and excellence

centre, according to Mr Pereira.

Among the biggest accounts are the British Airways executive class

loyalty programme worldwide, the Internet-driven loyalty programmes for

Cisco Systems in 11 countries and relationship marketing for Citibank in

Australia.

Carlson is rated as the biggest relationship marketing company in the

world in terms of revenue.

Mr Pereira sees the biggest competitor in the region as Y&R's Impiric,

but said the understanding of relationship marketing in Asia still has a

long way to go and many clients tended to equate it with direct

marketing.

He said Carlson offered highly sophisticated database management on

behalf of clients, or could interface with a client's database, offering

the type of relationship programmes that brought loyalty and

results.

"In the early days, people wanted to be treated equally and that's what

advertising is all about," said Mr Pereira.

"Now people want to be treated as individuals."

He said it was no longer about share of market, or share of wallet, but

about share of loyalty.