Red Bee halts Singapore operations

Singapore - Red Bee Media has decided to close its Singapore operation temporarily, as the company decides on a new strategy and embarks on a restructure.

This follows the departure of its local agency head Petri Nikula, its vice president for SE Asia, who left a couple of weeks ago.

Nikula could not be reached for a comment but Anthony Shang, Red Bee Media's executive vice president of Asia, who is based in Shanghai, said that he would be overseeing the local business in a "caretaker role".

"Operations in Singapore will continue as usual as we have clients here but in the interim, work from Singapore will be executed by the Shanghai office. The headquarters are still working on the direction for the Singapore. Once that is in place, it would hire a replacement for Nikula," Shang said.

Marketing broke the news of Red Bee Media's launch in Singapore in October last year. The direction for Singapore when it opened was to work with all media platforms like mobile websites, IPTV on design and integration, but this will have to be reworked as the model did not serve the local market well.

Shang revealed its China office has been working with a good number of clients on their brand and creative design, and attributes it to the Olympics Games this year. However he admits that the value of projects are generally lower than in SE Asia, hence the company needs to keep its costs in control while ensuring its quality.

Shang declined to share with Marketing the names of the clients it worked with in Singapore as it has signed a confidential clause and would only reveal that one of them is an international broadcaster. Red Bee Media recently launched a global brand campaign for BBC World News in early November.