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| AdSociety Establish Office in Australia and Announce Strategic Alliance with Australian Media Holdings to Pioneer Broadband Advertising Sales in Australia
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| HONG KONG, October 18, 2000 - AdSociety today announced the launch of its Australian operations and a strategic alliance with Australian Media Holdings (AMH) to pioneer broadband advertising sales and to deliver new and exciting broadband marketing opportunities to the Australian market.
AdSociety, a majority-owned joint venture of Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW), is the first pan-Asian broadband advertising, marketing and sales network. PCCW is the Hong Kong-listed technology flagship of the Pacific Century Group. Publicly listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, PCCW is one the largest Internet companies in the world by market capitalization. AMH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sportsworld Media Group (Sportsworld), is Australia's largest independent media sales and event sponsorship company. Sportsworld, a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange, is a leading sports marketing, television and events management company, with its origins in the production of magazine-style sports programming for sale to multi-channel and terrestrial markets worldwide. AdSociety has established its presence in Australia offering its advertising, marketing and sales services to premier media owners and advertisers across the country. They currently provide sales and marketing services to PCCW's innovative Network of the World (NOW), the first-ever truly synchronized TV-web service, and other PCCW-related companies as well as provide pioneering online marketing solutions to both advertisers and media owners. AdSociety also operates from seven other cities across Asia Pacific, namely in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Taiwan, and Tokyo. As part of their agreement, AMH will become AdSociety's exclusive sales partner in Australia to provide broadband advertising, marking and sales services on PCCW's NOW. NOW will initially be accessed in Australia via a button prominently displayed on the "telstra.com" home page. Telstra will distribute NOW via Telstra's HF, xDSL and satellite high-speed Internet services. Telstra currently has 2.5 million HFC homes passed and has provisioned more than 200 exchanges with xDSL capability. It intends to provide access to broadband services to 90 percent of the Australian population within 24 months. The relationship demonstrates AdSociety's ability to quickly penetrate key advertising markets by leveraging on the success of a local media organization. AMH obtains knowledge of pioneering broadband advertising, marketing and sales experience and gains association with PCCW, PCCW's partners and NOW's distributor in Australia, Telstra. "Capitalizing on our leadership position in broadband advertising solutions in Asia Pacific, we will play a major role in developing the Australian broadband advertising market. Through this partnership with AMH, we have once again obtained speed to market as well as relationships with Australia's premier advertisers and knowledge of the local market. We will soon be making more announcements of similar agreements in the other key Asian markets", said Patrick Jonathan Wong, AdSociety's founder and CEO. "We are very excited with this strategic alliance with AdSociety and look forward to learning from each other and leveraging one each other's strength and success. Working with AdSociety allows us to combine our solid experience in media sales and event sponsorship with their experience in broadband advertising to offer new and exciting advertising opportunities to our customers", said Ric Hutchison, Chairman of AMH. In addition to the announcement of the strategic alliance with AMH, AdSociety today also announced the appointment of Mark Halstead as its general manager for Australia. Mark has overall responsibility for the company's operations throughout Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining AdSociety, Mark played a major role in pioneering the Internet scene in Australia. He was the business development manager at Persona Asia where he was instrumental in the launch of Asia's first permission-based marketing organization and built the company to become one of the leading one-to-one interactive permission-marketing network in Australia and Asia. Mark was also was the group sales manager at LibertyOne where he helped establish the overall sales strategy for Australia's first listed Internet company. Before returning to Australia, Mark spent seven years as the group sales manager for Channel 5 Broadcasting in London where he launched the UK's last terrestrial station. At the UK Gold Broadcasting, Mark was responsible for building the advertising revenue for the launch of two satellite channels - UK Gold and UK Living. Under his strong leadership, the UK Gold made remarkable profits within the first three years from its inception. "Mark's successful track record in Internet start-ups in Australia will ensure that we maintain our speed in rolling out our online sales strategy to capture the market leadership position. His pioneering advertising sales experience in television will add tremendous value to our relationship with AMH and also provide us the winning strategy in maximizing revenue for PCCW's NOW services in Australia. We will continue to focus on hiring the best media professionals from around the region to fulfill our global expansion ambitions. We are truly delighted to have Mark on board our family", said Patrick Jonathan Wong, AdSociety's founder and CEO. About AdSociety AdSociety, a majority-owned joint venture of Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW), is the first pan-Asian broadband advertising, marketing and sales network. Headquartered in Hong Kong, AdSociety has offices in Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei and Tokyo. It is aggressively rolling out its global network and plans to further expand its presence in London and New York in 2001. In the meantime, AdSociety will continue to leverage on PCCW's global presence. AdSociety currently employs over 50 media professionals with a proven track record in advertising, marketing and sales for broadcast television and the Internet. It plans to expand the team to more than 100 before the end of 2000. More information on AdSociety can be found in www.adsociety.com. About Australian Media Holdings (AMH) AMH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sportsworld Media Group is Australia's largest independent media sales and sponsorship company. Headquartered in Sydney, AMH has offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide. About Sportsworld Media Group (Sportsworld) Sportsworld [FTSE : SWD] s a leading sports marketing, television and events management company, with its origins in the production of magazine-style sports programming for sale to mulit-channel and terrestrial markets worldwide. Since listing in London in December 1998, Sportsworld has embarked on an expansionist strategy to create a marketing, advertising, events management and television production company with the primary purpose of providing services to major advertises and sponsors. For further information, please contact: Sandra Low AdSociety Limited Tel: +852-2509-2228 Email: Sandra.low@adsociety.com Jeff Brown Australia Media Holdings Tel: +612 9929 4455 Email: jbrown@adsales.com.au Sarah Cave Spike CyberWorks (for AdSociety Australia) Tel: +612 8584 8584 Email: sarah@spike.com.au Nor E. Badron Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (for AdSociety) Tel: +852-2884-8570 Email: nor.badron@ogilvy.com | ||
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