GroupM fuels APAC search plans

Regional - WPP Group, which already has strong search operations housed under GroupM and its agencies Mindshare, Mediacom, MEC, Maxus and Outrider, has in recent months been reorganising and beefing up its GroupM Search unit in APAC.

Just five months ago, GroupM Search hired former 24/7 Real Media Australia MD Robbie Hills as CEO for APAC. Since then, the operation has made several key appointments including Rosemary Lising as MD for APAC, Sanchit Sanga as head for SE Asia, and Marcelo Silva as GM for Outrider Australia. Outrider is a search engine marketing specialist agency formed after 24/7 Real Media, which itself had a big search marketing offering, was renamed following its acquisition to WPP. Hills says GroupM is "looking at opportunities" to launch Outrider, which had a soft launch in Australia, to other markets in the region.

Key markets for GroupM Search are Australia, China, India, Japan, and SE Asia, and the company is currently looking to appoint heads for its operations in China and Japan. GroupM Search India is currently headed by Shekhar Sharma while SE Asia operations are hubbed out of Singapore.

"We look at search in its entirety. When we think of search marketing, we don't just think about paid search, we think about search engine optimisation, we think about mobile search, vertical search, and we've got teams now across the region who are specialists in both paid search as well as organic search optimization," Hills says.