UM Malaysia’s top clients move to invest in search marketing

Universal McCann Malaysia’s top ten clients have embraced search marketing in the new year, marking a significant milestone for the agency.  

The agency successfully moved most of its clients, including Johnson & Johnson, Telekom Malaysia, Proton, RHB Bank, Cerebos, Coca-Cola and Mastercard, to invest substantially in search marketing, following the launch of its ‘Project Mandate’, a test-learn-deploy programme for its clients to experiment with search marketing and establish its role in the marketing mix.

Prashant Kumar, CEO of Mediabrands Malaysia, which houses UM, Initiative, Rally and Reprise, equates this achievement as a futurist’s dream where search marketing, the default go-to place for research, information, comparisons and advocacy, will soon become a mainstay of clients’ overall marketing plans.

“Our search marketing billings tripled in the past year that accounted for a substantial part of our total digital billings,” confirms Kumar. “This success defines our integrated strategy to encourage the use of search marketing in the total marketing mix,” he said.

“Search marketing is a natural inclusion in our media planning,” says Kumar. “Consumers repeatedly use search engines for their purchase intentions, making them well-defined prospects.”

In 2009, UM emerged as the first Google Advertising Professional (GAP) qualified media agency in Malaysia, and formally launched Reprise, Mediabrands’ global search offering, last year.