Zenith takes over the US$2 million regional account from next
month, and will have a 12-month contract. Seven Sony executives were
involved in the selection, including Mathew Madhi, Sony Marketing Asia
Pacific (SMAP) senior manager marketing communications; and Sheena Yu,
SMAP manager marketing communications. Yu said Zenith was selected
because "its network is very strong and some of our local Sony offices
(China and Malaysia) which already work with Zenith are happy with
them".
"In the pitch Zenith was able to present some good consumer intelligence
and we were happy with their (proprietary planning) tools and the (ad)
spending levels they were proposing
to ensure our ad spend is comparable to that of our competitors. Zenith will work with newly-appointed regional creative agency TBWA. The first project is likely to be a regional brand effort, although Yu was quick to point out it has yet to be finalised.
The regional media brief is separate to the work done by Sony's local offices, which will continue to work with their respective agencies such as CIA in Singapore.
