HONG KONG: M&C Saatchi has announced plans to open an office in Shanghai
before the end of the year.
The office will initially have a staff of about 10 people servicing a
number of clients wanting the agency to have a presence on the mainland,
including BMW, British Airways and Qantas.
M&C partner David Kershaw described the decision to establish an office
in China as timely and mainly client driven.
"We might be one of the last agencies to establish in China but we are
not setting up for the sake of setting up. A lot of agencies went that
way before and lost a great deal of money.
"Our move into China is in the interests of further developing the
business potential of an existing client base," said Kershaw.
M&C's Asia-Pacific executive chairman Tom Dery said the agency would
take a step by step approach in China.
"It's easy to lose money in China so our strategy is to put in key
people and let them grow the office by servicing existing accounts and
winning new business, which is exactly how we have done it in Hong Kong
and Singapore," said Dery.
He added the agency's next priority is to establish a presence in the
Indian subcontinent, including Sri Lanka.
