2000 had been a good year for TBWA agencies around the region.
Across the region as a whole, we have experienced a 12 per cent income
growth with all of our offices showing significant improvement over 1999
- even beleaguered Indonesia has grown ahead of the targets that were
set for the year.
Of particular note has been our performance in Australia where we have
dominated the new business league table through the year.
From Melbourne, we launched the GST campaign and managed to convince a
skeptical Australia that a sales tax was not such a bad thing while in
Sydney we finished the year with the win of the St George Bank.
In Korea and Singapore, we had significant new business wins from
Samsung and DBS Bank respectively.
In Thailand, our retail capability was considerably enhanced by the 7
Eleven win and across the region as a whole, we started working with
fantastic drinks brand such as Chivas Regal and Martell.
The great relief about these wins was that they came from 'traditional'
advertising sectors rather than placing too great a reliance on dotcom
categories to fund short-term growth.
Of particular importance to the TBWA Group in the region as a whole has
been the development of our through-the-line company, Tequila.
From our key office in Singapore, Tequila has now managed to develop a
regional network that enables us to work with clients in all of our key
markets, including Tokyo and Seoul.
On the back of this we have also continued to make significant progress
in the development of our digital/interactive companies and now work for
a number of large companies across the region including major
telecommunication groups.
So, our key achievement this year has really been our ability to offer
our clients a truly integrated communications service, for the first
time, in the Asia-Pacific region.
Even in China, we have had notable success in the development of this
aspect of our business offering, which has greatly enhanced our
traditional, above-the-line advertising capability.
There are still two or three key markets where we do not have TBWA
offices.
One of these, the Philippines, will however be up and running by early
this year.
