Red Bricks Media (RBM) is a full-service interactive agency with offices in San Francisco and New York. Its Hong Kong-based team of search specialists is now moving into the Bite offices in Hong Kong. RBM's interest in the deal is an expanded service offering for its clients in Asia. Financial terms were not disclosed.
David Ketchum |
Bite has been building its digital capabilties and has added search expertise "one client, one person, one tool at a time," David Ketchum, president of Bite Asia-Pacific and Bite’s global digital development lead, told
Campaign Asia-Pacific. "But this will allow us to jump up to the next level in terms of what we can offer our clients."
Search plays an increasingly important role both as a stand-alone service for clients that want to address a specific need and as part of broader, integrated campaigns alongside activities such as social-media, media relations, and events, Ketchum said.
The addition of the RBM team will allow Bite to manage search campaigns in-house, said Paul Mottram, Bite’s executive vice-president, Asia-Pacific. "The difference between working with outsourced vendors and having in-house agency capability is like night and day for clients,” he said.
An integrated digital offering is increasingly what "Bite is all about" Ketchum said, adding that at the moment about 32 per cent of business is digital. "Our origins as a company were as a public relations company, but obviously the future is all about integrated," he said.
Ketchum cited telecom, hospitality, education, and financial services as active sectors.