McCann Worldgroup Taiwan scoops Taiwan High Speed Rail’s creative account from O&M

Gary Chi, MD of McCann Taiwan, confirmed the news. The agency will be responsible for full-service advertising, digital and media activities across Taiwan. As the incumbent, Ogilvy & Mather played an important role in the launch of THSR in 2007. McCann Taiwan is now in discussion with the client over the duration of the contract.

THSR has started to gain profits after successfully captured the long distance business travellers in Taiwan market. It now hopes to expand its market share by attracting domestic leisure travellers.

McCann attributed the win to its consumer insights. The premise of the new approach is to encourage people to turn their weekends into exciting getaways in different parts of the country rather than remaining at home.

"THSR is an innovative chapter in Taiwan’s transportation story and has become one of Taiwan’s favourite brands as well as a vital piece of infrastructure for over 120,000 passengers daily," said Chi. "We are honoured to have won this strategically important account and are excited to be working with THSR to drive continuing growth for the brand.”

A spokesperson for the agency told Campaign Asia-Pacific that traffic jams and long travelling time have prevented many city dwellers from travelling around Taiwan at weekends. With trains with a top speed of 300 km/h (186 mph), THSR offers journey times from Taipei to Kaohsiung in as little as 96 minutes, instead of taking four hours driving on the road.

THSR has been making efforts to offer a variety of domestic leisure travel packages in partnership with local tour operators and car rental companies.

Another 4As agency boss in Taiwan commented that THSR does not have any competitors as it "killed all domestic flights in Taiwan for business travellers.”

"They have been trying to expand to leisure travellers for years but it is still expensive," the source said. "The other issue is that most of their stations are a bit far from the cities, so you need another [form of] transportation from the station to the city."

The account will be McCann Taiwan's first in the transport sector. McCann Worldgroup is the long-term global agency for Cathay Pacific.