Madison Communications expands to Shanghai

Samuel Mak (pictured), the agency's chief executive, said he was aiming for quality rather than rapid expansion with the new outpost. The office is in Luwan near Xintiandi.

Mak, who has been dividing his time between the two offices, said that Madison had operated on an ad hoc basis in China with local partners for an extended period, but had now accumulated a high enough volume of work to build its own company brand in the market.

Clients in Shanghai include the Norwegian Seafood Council. Mak noted that demand for salmon—in particular sashimi grade salmon—was growing at a rate of around 30 per cent per year. He predicted that over the next three to five years, consumers in tier-one cities would become more concerned with food's country of origin and the company heritage of food suppliers. He said Madison was working on integrated branding communications to help the client stand out.

Mak said that Madison was also working with new clients the media and entertainment, healthcare and fashion industries for upcoming new product launches in China. He said that while he once felt Hong Kong agencies had lost competitiveness in China, a number of emerging Chinese brands as well as multinational brands had become drawn to Madison on account of its flexibility as an independent.

Mak said his agency’s ‘discipline freedom’ nurtured staff to be more flexible ‘generalists’ from its core business disciplines, branding, PR, digital and social media and creative service. He said he was not in a hurry to expand the operation and was looking to execute longer term, quality initiatives rather than ad hoc projects.