OMD bags pharma brief

The appointment marks the first time Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group — a state-owned enterprise comprising 11 operating companies — has appointed a media agency on a group-level. The agreement, signed with Guangzhou National Pharmaceutical Haima Advertising, will see OMD service all the companies under the group and partner with creative shop, Seahorse.

"The Guangzhou Pharmaceutical mega group of companies in the mainland found that partnership with individual companies was too diversified, so it initially partnered with a single advertising agency and went on to acquire it last year," explained Elaine Ip, MD of OMD China. "Seahorse is a local China 4As agency, which was established a year ago and is now part of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, handling its creative. In the past, the different operating firms in the group worked with leading 4As agencies, including MindShare and Zenith. This is the first group appointment to achieve scale for negotiations."

Ip noted that the pharma group was seeking to accelerate its expansion in Southern and Western China, with an eye to building its business in Central and Northern China in the coming months.  China's pharmaceutical industry is worth around Rmb 198 billion (about US$25 billion) and is expected to grow 13.6 per cent annually through 2010.