The previous frontrunner for the account, Ogilvy & Mather, will work with the internet company on a project-by-project basis.
According to managing director of TBWA China Ruth Ang, the agency was awarded the QQ.com brand’s business, which includes the promotion of its homepage and main news domain. “TBWA will officially begin work on Tencent’s account on 1 December and the first campaigns will launch in 2009,” she added.
According to managing director of TBWA China Ruth Ang, the agency was awarded the QQ.com brand’s business, which includes the promotion of its homepage and main news domain. “TBWA will officially begin work on Tencent’s account on 1 December and the first campaigns will launch in 2009,” she added.
Ang said TBWA’s goal is to “bring QQ.com to the next level”, which includes helping to transform the brand from a strictly Chinese company to a globally recognised name.
“I think at the moment we’ve only talked about campaigns being focused on China, but very often in the digital world there are really no boundaries,” Ang said. “Everyone in digital has goals for a global platform that impacts people from other parts of the world outside companies and domestic markets. At the moment, Tencent’s focus is on the Chinese market but in the future we’ll look more at bigger business objectives.”
“Tencent is a great corporation and it has the kind of vision to be as big as CNN.com combined with Google and Yahoo. That’s the kind of vision it has for itself and now is the time to look forward to create this,” she continued.
Ogilvy, meanwhile, was selected to manage Tencent’s Shanghai Expo advertising and will be “handling this project and others on a project-by-project basis,” said Scott Patterson, Ogilvy & Mather Beijing’s head of international clients.
Tencent is the official online sponsor of the 2010 World Exposition to be held in Shanghai and is looking to create a virtual replica of the Exposition hall linked to its home page.
Tencent first confirmed that it was holding a pitch in September after its contract with Publicis expired. At the time, executive vice president SY Lau said Tencent was “just moving a little too quickly for [Publicis’] creative team."
Tencent invests more than Rmb 100 million (US$14.6 million) every year in brand-building and marketing-related programmes.
Sources close to the pitch said Tencent had shortlisted two agencies for its business last month, which were believed to be Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi. According to sources close to the pitch, Tencent executives had planned choose its final agency following their presentations in October, but the process was not finalised until the winning agencies were notified last week.
