RI has potential for global marketing services: Sorrel
RI has potential for global marketing services: Sorrel
JAKARTA (JP): Martin Sorrel, the chief executive officer of WPP Group plc, a leading marketing services group, says that the potential in Indonesia for various kinds of marketing services is great.
"Besides its strong and persistent economic growth, Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific region have a large population with a growing middle class who has growing consumer tastes," Sorrel told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
Indonesia and the region also offer opportunities for the marketing services industries because their economy is driven by export-strategies and free-trade policies, he said.
WPP plc is a London-based multinational with interests spreading from various marketing and advertisement services to plastic manufacturing.
Some of the group's famous subsidiaries include Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson Company, Hill and Knowlton and Research International.
WPP's turnover in 1993 reached around six billion British pounds (around US$9.35 billion) while it recorded a net profit of almost twenty-five million British pounds.
Sorrel also said that due to government regulations, WPP's presence in Indonesia would take the form of an "affiliate- business" which does not include equity involvement.
The group's affiliates in Indonesia include a J. Walter Thompson tie-up with local ad agency Adforce, Ogilvy and Mather with Indo-Ad (another local ad agency) and Research International with PT Capricorn Mars Indotama.
"Of course we'd like the government, at some point in the future, to allow us to make an equity investment so that we can exercise some coordination control with our other ventures in the region," Sorrel said.
He added that WPP would not insist on owning 100 percent of their ventures here.
"In my opinion, the public relations and advertising business in Indonesia are quite mature. We are confident in the country's human resources development," he said.
The executive noted that WPP has had a "good history with the Indonesian government" since one of its arms in the United States, Hill and Knowlton, had, until last year, handled Jakarta's public relations needs in Washington D.C. for 15 years.
The group's clients here included American Express, Unilever, PT Freeport Indonesia and H.M. Sampoerna. (hdj)