Saatchis dropped in shuffle at Pen

Bates is rumoured to be interested in the Asia-Pacific Peninsula Hotel account, after the hotel group dropped Saatchi & Saatchi as its AOR of 14 years. The rumours were given credence after Bates resigned the Mandarin Oriental below-the-line account. However, Bates Asia president Jeffrey Yu denied his agency was actively trying to obtain the business although he did say, "we would pitch if asked to." He added he resigned the Mandarin account because he wanted to "marshall the agency's strengths to focus on what it does best, which is advertising". Saatchis blamed the Peninsula loss on what it called "the classic, new marketing director's syndrome". Saatchis regional CEO Patrick Pitcher said that over the past three years, the hotel changed marketing directors three times and reduced its spend because of the economic downturn. "The Peninsula has been a fantastic client and the parting of ways has been amicable, but the new marketing director feels they need a change and need to build a new team," he said. The Peninsula Group's brand manager Rolf Heidrich responded by saying: "Given that the business and consumer environments - particularly within the luxury services sector - is changing and evolving more rapidly, we were keen to support our own internal marketing strategy development efforts with fresh perspectives from external business competencies". He added that in light of this, "we feel a smaller agency may be appropriate to our company needs at this time". Meanwhile, Mandarin's above-the-line agency M&C Saatchi is believed to have picked up where Bates left off. It recently hired Bates account director Alice Wu. Ms Wu, who joins M&C this month, spent a significant amount of time on the Mandarin account during her seven years with Bates. TOP TEN TV RECALL</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">HONG KONG</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">1) McDONALD'S: client: McDonald's; agency: DDB.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">2) VITASOY (Hot Vitasoy): client: Vitasoy; agency: Saatchi & Saatchi.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">3) WELLCOME: client: Wellcome Supermarket; agency: McCann Erickson.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">4) SAN MIGUEL (LMF): client: San Miguel Brewery; agency: JWT.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">5) PARK N' SHOP: client: Park N' Shop; agency: DDB.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">6) KFC: client: KFC; agency: O&M.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">7) CTI IDD: client: CTI; agency: Grey</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">8) ORANGE: client: Hutchison Telecom; agency: O&M.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">8) SIEMENS MP3 MOBILE PHONE: client: Siemens; agency: JWT.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">10) CARLSBERG BEER: client: Carlsberg HK; agency: BBDO.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">10) COCA COLA: client: Coca-Cola; agency: D'Arcy.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear">10) YAKULT: client: Yakult; agency: DY&R.</Paragraph> <Paragraph formatting="linear"> Data on TV ads scoring the highest recall among consumers polled was collected by NFO WORLDGROUP - Hong Kong www.nfow.com.hk on behalf of MEDIA. (February 5-16, 2001).

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