The practice, data@Ogilvy, will be led by Leon Bombotas with a team of more than 20 staff.
Bombotas, who joined Ogilvy in April, was previously Asia-Pacific director of insights and analytics at CBS Interactive. He has also worked for eBay, Telstra and Ernst & Young.
Andrew Baxter, CEO of Ogilvy Australia, said data@Ogilvy would build on the Ogilvy network's extensive analytics credentials.
“Competing on data is a business mindset,” Bombotas told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “The major challenge for business will be largely cultural in that they need to be organised in the right way—with the right people with bright ideas—in order to deliver data-driven marketing programmes. For businesses that consistently get it right, it will be a core competency and a source of competitive advantage.”
Bombotas said data@Ogilvy’s core proposition is to help businesses compete on data. “Data creates opportunity for personal relevancy, and it’s through personal relevancy that brand engagement and therefore business value is created and sustained,” he said. “The solutions we provide leverage data from digital, social, CRM and media sources.”
According to the agency, Data@Ogilvy will focus on four key disciplines—digital analytics, customer engagement, data planning and data sciences—in order to develop solutions to complex marketing challenges across all client industries, including retail, FMCG and telcos.