Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Weber Shandwick to launch in Korea

Word reaches me that Weber Shandwick is poaching Edelman Korea chief Tyler Kim to launch its presence in that market.

It’s an interesting move. Korea has been a blind spot for WS for a while now and some of its key clients – such as Microsoft and MasterCard – must be wanting support in the country. And, no doubt, the agency is shelling out plenty of money to affiliates anyway.

WS Asia-Pacific supremo Tim Sutton confirmed the development, but his Edelman counterpart Alan VanderMolen declined to comment. More comments after the jump.

Sutton said WS is hoping to go live before the end of the year:

“I’m not going to make any bombastic claims about what we are going to do there. We want to be a top three player, however long it takes to get there.”

Sutton also said that this may eventually lead to GolinHarris launching in Korea too.

As for Edelman, it appears that Charles Lankester will shift from Beijing to Seoul to head North Asia. It has been a rapidly expanding brief for Lankester since he returned to Asia. First Hong Kong, then China, now North Asia!

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