Dentsu Young & Rubicam's 2000 was a bright one across the region,
with double-digit growth in revenues.
Happily, we are seeing consumer and client confidence returning, with
the new twist of interactive communications between brands and customers
emerging as a real aspect of business, mostly at a regional level.
New strength in the network was experienced by most of our
companies.
There were some significant wins, including a broadening of our major
client relationships.
We won new assignments from Ericsson in China, Taiwan and Indonesia; our
work for Star Alliance expanded when Singapore Airlines joined the
alliance; we picked up new assignments for Honda in Indonesia and India;
and we won additional assignments for Sony in Malaysia and Hong
Kong.
In addition to expansion with major network clients, Dentsu Young &
Rubicam was also awarded a regional assignment for Calloway Golf out of
our Tokyo office.
We also won a global campaign for Seoul's Inchon Airport, which is an
integrated campaign with Burson-Marsteller.
In addition, Dentsu Young & Rubicam was awarded assignments from San
Miguel in the Philippines.
New work also came from the Telecom Authority in Thailand and the Sepang
Formula One Grand Prix and Star Cruises in Malaysia.
There were also additional media assignments for Philip Morris in
India.
With this additional business into the network, Dentsu Young & Rubicam
has continued to place talented local executives into key roles.
They include Dolchai Boonyaratavej, who was appointed chairman of our
agency in Thailand, as well as retaining his role as executive creative
director.
Meanwhile Tanuj Philip was appointed deputy managing director of Dentsu
Young & Rubicam Singapore and Fletcher Lim was appointed managing
director of Dentsu Young & Rubicam in Jakarta.
In Hong Kong and China Bernard Yiu, who was appointed as managing
director at the end of 1999, has worked hard to bring talented local
people into key roles, strengthen our client relationships and winning
some important new ones.
At a regional level, Dentsu Young & Rubicam has appointed Noel Pearse as
vice president for human resources across Asia-Pacific.
Brian Harrison, our managing director in Singapore, has also taken new
responsibilities for training and strategic development.
Our agencies have also been successful in creative awards.
Some of these included, for the second year, Campaign of the Year from
the Singapore Institute of Advertising, gold at the Ad Pac Adfest in
Thailand.
Dentsu Young & Rubicam Malaysia, one of our most successful agencies on
the creative front, also won many awards.
Our focus on clients, developing our best people and creativity have all
paid dividends in 2000 and will remain the pillars of our efforts in
2001, where we expect our growth to continue at double-digit levels.
During the past year, the groundwork for a new round of BrandAsset
Valuator, the world's largest study into consumers' relationships with
brands, was laid by our Asia BAV team.
We are targeting a number of countries for the new research, which will
bring our clients strong competitive information on which to make more
efficient brand-positioning plans in 2001 and beyond.
