The move, designed to better integrate the mobile telco’s marketing, will see the independent shop work along side above-the-line incumbents Saatchi & Saatchi and McCann Erickson in Asia Pacific on sports marketing projects such as the Sony Ericsson Women's Tennis Association Tour. Iris already handles Sony Ericsson's retail and sales promotion work in a number of markets across the region, and will now devise and execute regional activation campaigns plus local market work in Singapore, Australia and India.
The account will be run in Asia by Richard Bleasdale, the newly hired regional CEO of Iris Asia Pacific.
Dee Dutta, corporate VP and head of marketing for Sony Ericsson Worldwide, said: “We’ve been working with iris for a number of years and on an increasingly global basis over the past twelve months. They have the necessary skills, talent and ambition to deliver truly integrated campaigns to help Sony Ericsson achieve our objective of becoming one of the top three players in our industry.”
Ian Millner, CEO and founder of Iris, commented: “This is a brilliant sign of the health in our partnership, and the ability of our two businesses to challenge one another and to always be pushing hard to stay sharp. It is also symbolic of our progress as a global network”.
