Thai shop signals regional ambition

<P>MANILA: Creative Juice\G1 has signalled its regional designs, unveiling a new Manila operation -- the first outside the agency's Bangkok home base. </P> <P><BR>The highly-awarded Thai agency has lured ex-ABS-CBN senior Lawrence Tan as managing director of the new office, with Tanke Taneko joining from sister agency TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno (SMP) to head up creative. Tan retired from the Philippines broadcaster last year, after overseeing its marketing, public relations and corporate affairs divisions, and also counts experience at several agencies.</P> <P><BR>The rollout is expected to allow Creative Juice's parent TBWA to better handle client conflicts in the Philippines. </P> <P><BR>Tan confirmed that the new shop's anchor business would include the Maxi Peel and Skin White brands from Splash Corporation, whose direct competitor Nivea is handled by TBWA\SMP. He also added that the agency's key objective going forward would be to, "squeeze out the old and serve in the new".</P> <P><BR>Creative Juice\G1 chief executive officer Witawat Jayapani explained that the expansion into the Philippines is the first step in plans to roll Creative Juice\G1 out in other Asian markets this year. </P> <P><BR>"TBWA opened up the G1 network to handle conflict accounts. After the success in Thailand, Creative Juice\G1 has become famous in terms of creative reputation, and therefore we have been talking about expanding the network," said Jayapani. "We are planning for a few markets in Asia this year."</P> <P><BR>Since it joined the TBWA network in 2002, Creative Juice has emerged as one of the region's hottest creative shops, winning a string of global accolades, including Office of the Year at Media's 2005 Agency of the Year awards. Its 2005 Tamiya campaign, meanwhile, was the most awarded global print campaign of that year.</P>