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.
