The review leaves the Japanese camera-maker with two agencies in the region, LG Ad in Korea and Dentsu in other markets, ending local relationships with DDB in Southeast Asia and India; Lowe in Malaysia; and Crush and Starcom in Singapore. "For more effective brand-building, we decided we need to work with one partner," said Michael Sung, marketing manager for Olympus Asia/Middle East.
Dentsu has started to set up a team to service the account in the Hong Kong office of its creative boutique, Clipper Mother Asia, which supplied creative ideas for the pitch.
"The biggest part of the evaluation was the creative," Sung said. "We needed a creative idea that would work right away in all of the countries in the region and Clipper's idea clicked."
Clipper principals Jimmy Lam, Tony Hon and Thomas Low will work on the account, while Dentsu will handle media, strategic planning and account management.
The first regional campaign is due to break in April. LG Ad is also working on a regional campaign for later in the year for Olympus' first MP3 player, M:Robe.