Cheil launches office in Thailand; plots Beattie McGuinness Bungay rollout in Asia-Pacific

Following the launch of the Beijing office earlier this month, the Thailand office in Bangkok is the second new office expansion for Cheil Worldwide in the Asia region.

SJ Kimm, who is charged with Cheil’s Southeast Asia operations out of the agency’s regional headquarters in Singapore, said that Thailand would be a key growth market in the coming months.

In an interview, he spoke of his aim to tap on the network’s strengths and regional expertise to drive growth in local markets. The SEA chief also identified Vietnam and Australia as two other markets he would focus on.

“The thing I pride most is our global network. We have a good sound network with very strong cooperation that we can utilise. It’s not just about growing Southeast Asia. It’s also about tapping on our network to deliver relevant expertise to our clients,” said Kimm.

In Vietnam, Cheil currently has a smaller outfit but Kimm sees “potential” for the market given its buoyant economic growth. The network also has an office in the Philippines.

The Thailand office will be led by Brian Kim, who joined from Cheil China. On the new office, Haines said: “On a global level, we’ve identified 12 key markets that we wish to be very active in. For every other market, if there were enough business to be had, we’d be there. If not, we’d run it from headquarters or we’d close the business down.”

“In the last couple of years, we’ve closed in several locations including Malaysia and Indonesia in this area. But we’ve moved to grow our existing business outside of the Samsung office in key markets such as China, Russia, and India. Southeast Asia as a region is now a market we are getting into. We’ve identified Thailand as the absolute key market for us.”

“In terms of operating offices that can provide more clout to the group as a whole, we see Thailand as a bigger market than Singapore and a real opportunity for us.”

Separately, Haines revealed that he is currently in “heavy discussions” to roll out the Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB) agency brand in several markets in Asia-Pacific later this year.

“I’d like people to look at us more as a holding company with Cheil being in one column. At the moment, we have Cheil, BMB and The Barbarian Group. When we first bought BMB, we said at that time the priority was to grow the existing London business and to launch in New York, Sao Paolo and Singapore,” said Haines.

The global chief then said that on further analysis of the market in Singapore, launching BMB in the city-state would have been risky. “No disrespect to the Singapore market,” said Haines. “But we need to invest prudently and to grow new acquisitions in markets where we’d have the best chance. So we changed our minds on Singapore but we could re-visit this.”

He added: “We were also mindful of the way agencies had tried to enter the market here. That’s where our attention moved to Mumbai as our first stop for Asia. We are considering Shanghai and certainly Sydney as a next stop. Those markets themselves are so substantial that I think it will give us a better chance. We are in heavy discussions at the moment.”