UM named Carrefour's media AOR

The appointment follows a hotly-contested pitch between Starcom, Carat, Maxus and the incumbent Mediacom Malaysia.

Carrefour is one of the top three retail players in Malaysia, and the business is estimated to be in the region of US$8 to 10 million.

Summarising the win, Ngai Yuen Low, head of marketing and communications for Carrefour Singapore and Malaysia, said, “Carrefour needed a partner who could look at our media and communications in the larger marketing context and bring an offering, that creates business value via disruptive ideas and analytics.  We are looking to break the mould with UM and raise our media game.”

Prashant Kumar, CEO of UM Malaysia, said, “There is a notion in the market about how retail players approach or should approach media, and what kind of media product do they value. We have a healthy dissatisfaction with that status-quoist approach. We believed there is another way, and are extremely proud that Carrefour concurred. We are very excited about what that product could be.”