China Unicom hands GSM brands to TBWA\China

National- TBWA\China's Beijing office has been assigned to handle communications for China Unicom's GSM brands, having won the business pitch against incumbent JWT and five other agencies including BatesAsia and Publicis.

The deal include helping China Unicom design and create a full launch campaign for its new 156 brand to be introduced later this year and handling ongoing communications for the operator's existing GSM brands including youth brand U-Power and Ruyitong.

TBWA\Group\China companies TBWA\, TEQUILA\ and Agency.com will also create fully integrated campaigns including TV, print, outdoor, events, experiential, sales promotion, interactive and point-of-sale.

China Unicom is a mobile phone operator set up by the Chinese government in 1994 that provides long-distance, broadband data, Internet and mobile communications services.

In separate news, TBWA\ has hired Michele Crew as talent director for the agency in Asia Pacific responsible for the entire talent management process from recruitment to retention across TBWA\ and TEQUILA\ as well as the network's specialist brands including The Disruption Consultancy, agency.com, Auditoire and Integer.

Based in Singapore, Crew reports to Ian Thubron, executive vice president for TBWA\Asia Pacific and she will also work closely with Nancee Martin, global talent director at TBWA\Worldwide in New York.

"Everyone talks about the importance of talent in a people business, but we all know most agencies are pretty poor when it comes to recruiting, incentivising and retaining the best talent. So we've decided to elevate the role way beyond personnel management to paying real, deep attention to TBWA\ talent. Michele will build on what we already have in place to develop the region's strongest Talent Management system," Thubron said.

Prior to TBWA\, Crew was from Hudson, a recruitment and talent management consultancy.