SEOUL: Richard Genardini has taken over the reins as president and
chief operating officer of Adventure Worldwide, Korea's 11th largest
agency, which WP acquired.
This is Genardini's second stint Korea. He lived in the country between
1993 and 1998 when he was president of J. Walter Thompson in Seoul.
There are no plans to merge Adventure into JWT or any of WPP's other
agencies in Korea, he said. "We are not merging, Adventure is a wholly
separate brand. WPP has strong multinational agencies in Korea and now
it has a strong Korean agency. If we tried to mix them, we'd lose those
strengths and probably the clients as well. We will be building
Adventure. For example, there will also be a PR company and a design
group under the Adventure brand."
For WPP, Korea is a key market. "We see South Korea as one of the four
most important markets in Asia-Pacific," Genardini said, pointing to
China, Japan and India as the other major markets. WPP's objective is to
increase Asia-Pacific's proportion of its business, from 14 per cent
currently, to well over 20 per cent in the next five to 10 years.
