Lee replaces outgoing MD Janice Chan, who is leaving her post next month for personal reasons. Lee spent three years as Burnett's MD before embarking on a year-long religious retreat in early 2005. Prior to that, she was at BBDO for about four years as the agency's CEO in Hong Kong.
"M&C is a great agency, but people don't know the company and its profile has been undermined, although it has been winning new business recently," said Lee. Lee's appointment comes on the heels of the agency landing the SHK Financial Group's advertising business. According to SHK Financial director for strategy and corporate marketing, Rebecca Neufeld, M&C took the account after a three-way shootout against BBDO and Publicis Asia. The media business was handed to Zenith without a pitch.
"We haven't done much in the last four to five years to build up the corporate brand," said Neufeld. "There are different companies under the SHK Financial umbrella and we felt it was needed to strengthen the corporate brand to benefit all these companies. We will be looking to M&C as a long-term partner to work with us on branding, and to measure the brand through proper metrics."
Neufeld noted that this was the company's first appointment of an agency of record. "This is a very competitive, highly cluttered market with HK$2.3 billion (US$296 million) in adspend in the last 12 months for financial services," she added. "We have to consider carefully our choice of media, how it is managed and executed."