Rice 5 wins RMB$1.8 million Dalian Wanda social media account

Rice 5, the creative arm of Hill+Knowlton Strategies, has been appointed by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group (萬達集團) as its retained agency to manage its social media marketing activities for the coming year.The agency won the account – worth an estimated RMB$1.8 million – after a pitch earlier this month against four agencies, including Ogilvy Hong Kong, IPG Hong Kong, CMRS Hong Kong, and Wonderful Sky Financial Group.The appointment will see the agency tasked with building Wanda’s social presence, growing the company’s social community, creating content based on the company’s four core businesses, as well as devising online marketing campaigns and social media activations.Dalian Wanda Group is China’s largest commercial developer by sales. The conglomerate operates in sectors such as entertainment, tourism, hotels and real estate with an extensive foothold in its domestic market and strong growth in Europe and the US.The group has been aggressively expanding its footprint abroad in recent years and will further accelerate its expansion plans, looking into ways to reach global audiences on social media, with Facebook and Twitter being the core communication channels in the initial stages.