Agencies partner in APAC

An increasing number of brand owners in the Asia-Pacific region, including Volkswagen and Jim Beam, are moving away from relationships with single network agencies to embrace cross-agency partnerships and joint ventures.

Australian industry figures said the development was a result of the growing number of channels and consequent fragmentation of advertisers' messages. By taking on more agencies, they suggested that brand owners can widen the pool of skills they are able to access.

"Two to three years ago, there wasn't even a thing called a social media agency," Jeff Estok, managing director of Navigare, a Sydney agency, told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

"These days social media is a specialisation," he added.

And Damian Pincus, creative director of The Works, a Sydney communications agency, compared the approach to the situation that prevailed twenty years ago before the major international agencies emerged.

"It probably died off and now I think it's back," he said.