Rapp Collins beefs up presence in Asia

<p>SINGAPORE: Rapp Collins is putting a regional management structure </p><p>in place and opening new offices in a drive to win regional </p><p>accounts. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The agency will promote Paul Gotham, managing director of its Singapore </p><p>office, to a newly-created regional position, covering Southeast </p><p>Asia. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>He will continue to manage the Singapore office but will now spend time </p><p>in the customer relationship marketing agency's other offices. Gotham </p><p>said having regional managers ensures Rapp Collins can better </p><p>co-ordinate its offices when pitching for regional accounts, while the </p><p>planned offices will enable the agency to better service regional </p><p>clients across Asia. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>New offices will include Manila, a start-up that becomes operational in </p><p>the coming weeks. A managing director has yet to be appointed but the </p><p>Manila office does have a founding client - local telecommunications </p><p>company Smart. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Rapp Collins is also looking to either acquire a local agency in Jakarta </p><p>or establish itself in that market early next year as a fully-owned </p><p>subsidiary of Fortune Indonesia DDB. "Finding such an agency is hard </p><p>because Indonesia is quite an immature market," said Gotham. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Rapp Collins is relatively new to the region, having only opened its </p><p>Singapore office in early 2000. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In February this year, it bought a minority stake in Bangkok agency DM </p><p>Vision and moved into Kuala Lumpur in August by taking over Naga DDB's </p><p>interactive agency Guava, which was rebranded Rapp Collins. Asia-Pacific </p><p>has been earmarked as the region offering the best opportunity for </p><p>revenue growth for Rapp Collins. It now provides less than five per cent </p><p>of global revenue. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>