Fallon McElligott, the US-based creative hotshop, is planning to
establish a presence in Asia-Pacific.
The agency's managing partner, corporate growth, John Gerzema and group
director Rob Buchner both recently visited Hong Kong and Singapore to
investigate the possibility of setting up one or more offices in the
region.
"We are doing a very careful study of the Asia-Pacific market and how we
can exist, grow and thrive in it," Mr Gerzema told MEDIA.
He said that they had talked to potential joint venture partners,
examined opportunities, including ways to utilise the resources of its
agency network partners, Publicis and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Fallon, which became part of the Publicis group in February of this
year, is an ideas-driven agency, with the brand philosophy being
'simple, powerful ideas'.
Mr Gerzema said, "Asia-Pacific is of huge strategic importance to us not
only for our clients but also for us to be able to extend that creative
reputation worldwide as we create a global network devoted to our brand
philosophy."
Fallon - which has billings of about US$850 million with clients
such as BMW of North America, Time magazine and Starbucks - was founded
in Minneapolis almost 20 years ago.
However, its only other offices to date in London and New York were set
up just two and three years ago respectively.
Mr Gerzema said it was still early days to say where Fallon offices will
open in Asia, but he did say he would be making more trips to this
region before the end of this year and visit cities other than Hong Kong
or Singapore.
He added that Fallon is looking for entrepreneurial JV partners who also
shares the agency's culture and corporate values.
These partners, Mr Gerzema said, also have to be smart marketers and
tops in the field of strategic planning.
The agency is hoping to have a worldwide network of 10 offices within
the next few years, he added.
Mr Buchner said the goal of Fallon now was to build on its philosophy of
'simple, powerful ideas' on a global platform and be known as the agency
which "has the capability to produce the most creative and most admired
product".
