Carlson signs up ex-Rapp affiliate

SINGAPORE: Relationship marketing firm Carlson Marketing Group (CMG) will be opening an office in Jakarta next month under a joint venture deal with a local direct marketing company, Interact. The agency was previously an affiliate of Rapp Collins and will be folded into the Interact Carlson Marketing Group joint-venture. The company will have a head count of 65 and clients such as Standard Chartered Bank. Interact managing director Shalini Gopalan will manage the business, while Geoffrey Maclean, CMG's Singapore-based executive vice-president, will oversee the office. Vincent Tan, CMG business development director, will be based in Jakarta for a few months to drum up business from Carlson's global clients, with operations in the country. Gerry Pereira, CMG's Asia-Pacific chief executive officer, said the company teamed up with Interact because it had a sizeable operation and it was the only Indonesian firm which came close to doing the type of relationship marketing work CMG was known for. "There's no true relationship marketing companies out there which are independent so we usually end up with direct marketing and sales promotion companies," said Pereira. "We look to see that the local management are genuinely interested in relationship marketing and then we bring in people with relationship marketing expertise." He said having an Asia-Pacific network was important as CMG needed to meet the needs of key clients such as Cisco Systems, Citibank and Motorola. CMG said it would also be acquiring agencies in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Shanghai, and it expects to have these deals finalised in the next three months.

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