Wills will focus on the new sub-regional cluster of China, India, Australia and New Zealand and will lead the network's expansion in these markets. Wills said that a priority would be understanding consumers in China, Hong Kong and India. "We will put a huge investment in understanding consumers and ensuring that is reflected in the communications, so there will be lots of appointments made in those kinds of areas."
Publicis regional co-chairman Guillaume Levy-Lambert said Wills' promotion showed the group's seriousness in developing its Asia-Pacific operation. "Our am- bition is to grow Asia-Pacific to 15 per cent of global revenues within three years and, obviously, India and China will be a great part of that."
Wills' appointment accompanies a restructuring of Publicis Worldwide's global exco around four regions -- North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific -- and means that Asia-Pacific now has two exco members, Wills and Levy-Lambert.
Levy-Lambert also added that Publicis was looking to grow its marketing services offer in China and India, primarily through CRM player Publicis Dialog and Leo Burnett's new Arc group.