Ogilvy & Mather leadership to attend annual worldwide board meeting in Chengdu China
In a move reinforcing Ogilvy & Mather’s commitment to the China market and the growing importance of western China for global brands, Ogilvy & Mather has announced Chengdu as the location for its Worldwide Board meeting. The agency’s leadership throughout the world will arrive in western China this weekend for a week full of discussion, experiences and debates.
Miles Young, O&M Worldwide Chairman and CEO, who is also Chairman of the Worldwide Board, commented, “When we considered locations for our Worldwide Board meeting, holding it in China and specifically Chengdu was my first and only recommendation. Given the growing importance of China in the world today to our business and to our clients’ business, not only do we need to be present here, but we need our top leadership to understand and touch the nuances of all parts of China.”
O&M further extended its network in China’s second tier cities through Apex Ogilvy, a Chengdu based joint venture, in November 2010. As the fourth largest city in China, Chengdu saw the fastest growth among cities in western China in 2012 with a GDP growth rate of 15.2 percent, well above the national average of 9.2 percent.1 In addition, more than 200 Fortune 500 global companies have set up operations in Chengdu, an indication of its solid and powerful middle class and business-friendly environment.
Over the years, O&M has also pioneered a thriving Location Branding practice. Since 2010, the agency’s award-winning “Pambassadors” and “Panda Awareness Week” campaigns to brand the city of Chengdu have lifted its image abroad and catapulted the Chinese city onto the international radar for tourism and foreign direct investment.
“The significance of Chengdu and our award-winning work here underscores the potential that western China offers ourselves and the world’s biggest brands and we plan to increase our presence in these and other important and growing Chinese second and third tier cities,” Young added.
To show its focus on the China market, O&M was among the first in the industry to launch a global China Outbound practice, which serves the growing need for communications services by China-based companies and public sector institutions as they move into international markets.
The O&M China management team will present its China strategy to the Board, which includes plans to show its leadership in the areas of entertainment marketing, all areas of digital marketing and the firm’s growing healthcare practice, Ogilvy Health. Naturally these areas are complemented by plans that will be presented by each of the leadership disciplines in China, specifically O&M Advertising, OgilvyOne, Ogilvy Public Relations, OgilvyAction, and RedWorks.
The O&M Worldwide Board has representation from two members of the China leadership team, O&M Greater China Chairman TB Song and O&M Greater China CEO Shenan Chuang. Chuang was elected onto the Board in February 2013.
O&M’s Worldwide Board meeting was held in São Paulo, Brazil last year.
4 Comments
what would i have done without this information?
thank you so much.
Will the board discuss overworked employees here in China? Are the long hours just as long for a Brit as it is for an Asian? You and Khai going to fix that Miles? This is so important. Perhaps it’s time to look into this.
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/05/15/24_year_old_ogilvy_china_employee_dies_from_overwork.php
This is not intended to disrespect the poor chap who died. But people need to know what’s important. If you can’t work late just go home. You do shit work when you’re tired anyway. Plus it’s only a bloody job. I have been in offices where everyone makes wisecracks when someone gets up at 6pm to go home. “Halfday today? they say. It creates a culture where everyone is too scared to act normally. Come in on time, work hard and fast, dont fuck arond on facebook and maybe you can leave on time. Of course, on the face of it all managers will agree with me. But whether they act to make this a policy is not a given.
More on the dead employee in the link below. This needs to be addressed. Stop talking about scam awards and start paying some attention to staff. We are the ones doing the real work. There was also a suicide in Ogilvy Singapore by an OgilvyOne project manager a few years ago. This went away quietly. The overworked to death culture needs to be addressed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325364/Advertising-man-Li-Yuan-24-dies-heart-attack-brought-overwork.html