In October of 2009, Upstream Asia—a leading independent network focused primarily on the technology and business-to-business sectors—was acquired by Bite Communications. The deal provided the Next Fifteen-owned agency a significant footprint in the Asia-Pacific region to complement its established presence in the North America (where it has offices in three major U.S. markets and in Toronto) and Europe (offices in London and Sweden) as well as additional expertise in financial and consumer PR (supporting Bite’s ambitions to expand beyond the technology space) and a blue-chip client list in the region, including longtime Upstream accounts such as HTC, Jumeirah Hotels, Linksys, Siemens PLM, Skype, and SWIFT. It provided Upstream with access to a global network and the financial strength to continue its expansion in Asia.
For Upstream founder David Ketchum, the acquisition was the culmination of a strategy that began in 2006. At that time, the firm he had created in 2000 had grown rapidly but was in need of access to capital. Ketchum could have sold to one of the giant multinationals that had made enquiries; instead, he chose to take the firm public on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, using the funds he raised to invest in strong local leadership and to make select acquisitions to continue the firm’s growth. As a result he was able to bring in several strong senior managers, with experience in positions with Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton, and on the client side of the business with Calvin Klein, and continue to expand its regional reach.
Now Ketchum is serving on the Bite group board and chief operating officer Paul Mottram, a business marketing specialist and former vice president of corporate marketing at Global Sources who joined Upstream in 2001, is running operations in the region. The bulk of the Upstream team remained in place, with its China operations supplemented by a small Bite office in Beijing, and with new hires during the year including Bill Ang, who joined Bite as managing director for Singapore and Southeast Asia, and Lancy Ma who was named managing director for China.
One immediate and concrete benefit of the merger was the extension of Bite’s U.S. and EMEA corporate communications assignment from HP into Asia, including work in Singapore, China and India. That was one factor that helped the newly-merged operation weather the economic storm better than some of its closest competitors. Another was the significant demand for digital and social media expertise, which Upstream had been cultivating for some time. The firm conducted significant digital work for clients including WebEx, Linksys and Trend Micro. As a result, despite a difficult year, Bite was seeing encouraging signs of growth by the fourth quarter, and was continuing to innovate.
In September of 2009, for example, the firm rolled out a new suite of social media intelligence services designed to help marketers and corporate communications executives shape their organizations’ digital strategies and engage with stakeholders in social media. Bite SMI delivers detailed reports on what customers, analysts, and competitors are saying online—tracking conversation in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean—as well as recommendations for a company or brand’s messaging and engagement strategies. Clients of the new service include Siemens PLM Software, Sun Life Financial, Sanofi Aventis, GM China, HTC and Unisys.
The firm’s digital expertise also helped on the new business front, as it continued to expand its capabilities beyond technology into healthcare (Sanofi-Aventis and Gensci) and automotive (GM China). There was new business on a regional basis from HP, HTC and Siemens; in China from Sanofi-Aventis, GM China, the British Standards Institute, Cisco-WebEx and Motorola; in Hong Kong from Citi Global Transaction Services, The GSM Association, iPS Payment Services and Trend Micro (expanding from Australia); and in Singapore from Trane, Standard Chartered Bank and Trend Micro.
“The Bite team in Asia-Pacific has been working with SWIFT across the region for three years now, and has progressively become an integral part of our communications team,” says Beth Smits, head of communications, Asia Pacific, for SWIFT. “Bite’s contribution ranges from high-level industry messaging to on-the-ground media relations, from China to Australia to Singapore and beyond. Bite has been particularly effective in helping our executives articulate strong points of view about the development of the industry we serve.” Adds Freddy Li, regional general manager, Greater China, Korea and Philippines, for Qantas Airways: “Bite is always enthusiastic and resourceful in keeping Qantas abreast of industry updates.” And Lucinda Barlow, corporate communications manager for Google Australia, says: “The Bite Communications team has continued to be forward thinking, diligent in spotting opportunities and challenges, and strategic in their delivery throughout to generate positive, enlightening media coverage.”
Interesting assignments include work in Hong Kong top support two of the most important events of the year, the annual Sibos financial services industry global event, and the Mobile Asia Congress, the region’s leading event for the mobile and wireless industry. In China, Bite worked throughout the year with the WebEx web conferencing unit of Cisco Systems, tasked with raising the profile of the sector among potential users in the Mainland, and the firm has been engaged by GM China to work on corporate messaging and positioning, following a highly challenging year in which the company’s U.S. bankruptcy was in sharp contrast to record performance in the world’s fastest growing marketplace. And HTC, the region’s leading smartphone handset manufacturer expanded its relationship with the Bite team from Australia to both Hong Kong and Singapore, while Trend Micro expanded from Australia to Singapore.
The Bite acquisition means that the firm’s presence in Asia is now supplemented by offices in London, Stockholm, San Francisco, New York, Toronto and Los Angeles. And to provide comprehensive coverage of the region, Bite continues to work with independent partner agencies such as Rantau in Malaysia and Briman in Korea. —PH