TBWA-ISC beats 11 in KL telecom shootout

<p>KUALA LUMPUR: Government-owned Telekom Malaysia has appointed </p><p>TBWA-ISC to handle marketing for its cellular division, TM Touch, as </p><p>competition in the mobile telephone sector intensifies. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Twelve agencies made the long pitch list - including Grey Worldwide, </p><p>Bates, Spider D'Arcy, Spencer Azizul and the incumbent FCB - before </p><p>three were short-listed for a creative pitch. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Since Telekom Malaysia is the dominant fixed line player, most of its </p><p>advertising goes to promote TM Touch, which has three competitors </p><p>Celcom, DiGi and Maxis. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>TBWA-ISC has relevant experience having worked for Celcom many years </p><p>ago. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Austen Zecha, chief executive officer of TBWA-ISC, said: "I think we won </p><p>because of our totally integrated approach which involved advertising </p><p>creative, customer relationship management and public relations". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The agency pitched with its direct marketing agency Hype and PR firm </p><p>TQPR. "As far as I know we were the only ones that pitched that way," </p><p>said Zecha. "In the pitch we went big on branding and then showed how it </p><p>would then follow through with customer relationship management and </p><p>public relations." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Mohamed Khir bin Abdul Rahman, chief executive of Telekom Malaysia, said </p><p>CRM was an important consideration in the pitch because it wanted "to </p><p>put in place the essential tenets of CRM to manage our combined customer </p><p>base of 6.5 million in fixed, cellular and multimedia sectors". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"This will provide an opportunity to cross sell our group's products. We </p><p>will leverage on our large fixed line customer base to push mobile and </p><p>web-based multimedia products on a larger scale," said Mohamed. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>TM Touch had 1.27 million mobile customers and 18.1 per cent of </p><p>Malaysia's cellular market as of June, according to its annual </p><p>report. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The deal follows the agency's win of Malaysia National Insurance (MNI) </p><p>from Ismail & Associates in a pitch against FCB and Asatsu, said the </p><p>agency's spokesman. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>