Media Management

ECI and MMC jointly appoint George Patten to drive expansion in Asia Pacific

Global media and marketing consultancies ECI and MMC have jointly appointed George Patten to drive their expansion plans for the Asia Pacific region. Patten was formerly Global CEO at Accenture Media Management and ASEAN Lead for Accenture Song Operations and also COO at Dentsu APAC.

Patten’s appointment marks the next phase in ECI and MMC’s strategic growth strategy, focusing on the complex yet largely untapped APAC region. The region contains some of the top- spending media markets but, only 20% of clients use a marketing consultancy, meaning billions of ad dollars go unverified each month. Advertisers are understandably demanding credible, experienced senior resource based in-market, which ECI and MMC are now uniquely positioned to provide.

Both local advertisers and global brands with a strong APAC presence will be able to benefit even more from ECI Media Management’s expertise in driving higher media value via media performance audit, pitch management and KPI setting and analysis, and MMC’s commitment to delivering financial transparency in the marketing supply chain.

Patten, who has lived in Asia for 14 years, will be based out of the office in Singapore and will work alongside teams on the ground from both companies in Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Malaysia and Australia.

Patten said of his new role, ‘Marketing transparency continues to drive the agenda in Asia, with several high-profile cases being well reported over the last few years. I am delighted to return to the sector in which I have spent the majority of my career to work with two market-leading businesses in helping to grow their already-impressive client bases in APAC and help those clients to drive value from their marketing investments.’

Of his new role, Patten continues, ‘In my conversations with advertisers it has become increasingly clear that, given the complexity of the Asian market, having senior teams locally is critical to ensure that data is protected, strategies are fully understood and analysis is relevant and contextualised to the local environment.’

Having spent 14 years living in Asia and working on a daily basis with clients in China, Japan, India, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia, Patten has seen how important specific local expertise and presence is to achieve timely and actionable insights from media optimization and transparency work. Patten went on to say,  ‘I am excited about the opportunity to work closely with these two trailblazing firms and their teams already in market.’

Stephen Broderick, Senior Partner (Global) at MMC said, ‘I have known George for over 15 years and he has always been the go-to guy for media and marketing optimisation in Asia and globally in terms of his knowledge, connections and expertise.’

David Reid, Senior Partner (APAC) at MMC added, ‘Having someone of George’s experience representing us on the ground in Singapore will not only strengthen our existing client relationships, but will also promote greater opportunities for us in a market that has seen incredible growth for MMC in recent years.’

Fredrik Kinge, CEO of ECI Media Management commented, ‘We are thrilled to welcome George as our new Head of APAC at ECI. Strategically it reinforces our commitment to expand our presence and enhance our services in the APAC region. Having George on the ground will further allow our team to deliver innovative solutions and deep industry expertise to deliver higher media value.

Kinge continues, ‘APAC is complex and continually evolving region and George’s experience and seniority in market will help our clients to use Media performance to drive their business objectives and outcomes.’

For more information about Media Marketing Compliance (MMC) and ECI Media Management.