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AdSociety Strengthens Management Team in the World's Largest Broadband Market

Michael Kim is Appointed as Chief Operating Officer to Lead

South Korean Joint Venture with LG Advertising

Hong Kong, May 7, 2001—AdSociety, the first pan-Asian broadband advertising, marketing, and sales network, and a majority-owned joint venture of PCCW (SEHK: 0008, NYSE: PCW [ADR]) has appointed Michael Myeong Gil Kim as the chief operating officer (COO) of its South Korean joint venture with LG Advertising (LG Ad).

Reporting directly to Patrick Jonathan Wong, AdSociety’s founder and CEO, Michael will be responsible for the entire operations of AdSociety Korea. Michael will focus on driving AdSociety’s broadband, wireless and online advertising business in South Korea, which is now the largest broadband market in the world.

  “Michael comes with an ideal skill-set that will give AdSociety Korea a major boost in accelerating its business development and expansion plans in South Korea. With his start-up experience in the Internet industry and his extensive sales network, Michael is the perfect candidate to lead the joint venture to become the leading interactive advertising sales network in South Korea,” said Patrick.

  Michael gained much of his industry knowledge and expertise through establishment of two Korean Internet companies. Prior to his current role, Michael worked at Cyber Agent Korea Inc, one of the leading online advertising sales networks in South Korea. As the CEO, Michael was responsible for creating and implementing the company’s vision and corporate strategy. He developed a distinctive new online business model by unifying media consulting work. Michael consolidated both advertising and market research information to strengthen the company’s media planning and ad placement services such as customized sponsorships, email marketing, and rich media formats. During his tenure, Michael gained an impressive personal network of leading advertisers and media owners.

Michael was also instrumental in the creation of Asia Digital Networks Holdings, an Internet marketing solutions company. As vice president, Michael developed a number of leading Internet-based interactive and marketing solutions, Web design, and consultancy services.

“I feel honored to be part of AdSociety’s aggressive global expansion and to be able to contribute further to its success in the region. In particular, South Korea is a land of open opportunities for broadband and new media players like AdSociety. Based on AdSociety’s current business acumen, growth and sophisticated interactive service offerings, I’m confident that we’ll soon emerge as one of the leading players in the broadband and wireless circuit in South Korea,” said Michael.

  Prior to this, Michael held an illustrious career with IBM Korea Inc. for ten years, where he was in charge of a variety of business units including interactive, online and sales and marketing. In his last position as manager of the interactive marketing team, Michael oversaw the company’s Internet projects including the development of its Web site, and an e-commerce shopping mall. During his career with IBM, Michael won eight outstanding awards across Asia for his excellence in marketing. These included IBM Asia’s Direct Marketing Top Gun Award, IBM Korea’s Hundred Percent Club and IBM’s Asia Pacific Marketing Results Award.

Michael graduated in 1987 from Yonsei University in Seoul with a Bachelor of Arts in business administration and management. He then completed a series of professional and industry-related studies in Singapore, the US, Australia and South Korea.

South Korea is one of the most attractive online advertising markets in Asia due to a sophisticated population of Internet users and backbone infrastructure. According to a report issued by the Ministry of Information & Communication of Korea (MIC Korea) and Korea Telecom, South Korea’s broadband population was estimated at 4.2 million at the end of 2000 and is expected to soar to 11.18 million by 2003 (April 2001).

  According to Nielsen/NetRatings, South Korean surfers logged an average of 2,164 page views in the month of March compared to only 678 pages by surfers in the US, According to NetValue, South Koreans are far ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to broadband usage as 73.9 percent of South Korean surfers use Streaming Media in the month of February compared to only 29.5 percent by surfers in the US.

South Korea is also the first country in the world where the number of mobile phone subscribers outnumbers the number of fixed-line subscribers. MIC Korea states that at the end of March 2001, there were 22.09 million fixed-line subscribers and 26.56 million mobile phone subscribers in Korea.

According to Ovum, Korea’s wireless revenue has been forecasted to reach US$10 million by 2001 and to skyrocket to US$50 million by 2002, a 400 percent growth rate. The Korean wireless industry is a key focus market from which AdSociety will grow its wireless business.

About AdSociety Group

AdSociety, a majority-owned joint venture of PCCW (SEHK: 0008, NYSE:PCW [ADR]), is the first pan-Asian broadband and wireless advertising, marketing and sales network. AdSociety currently provides advertising, marketing and sales services to PCCW-related companies as well as provides pioneering online, broadband and wireless marketing solutions and services to marketers and to over 1,000 member websites.

With operations commenced in June 2000 and headquarters established in Hong Kong, AdSociety has offices in Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei and Tokyo and currently employs over 120 media professionals with a proven track record in pioneering advertising sales for broadcast television and the Internet in Asia. Its founder and management team were part of the core team that pioneered advertising sales for Star TV, the first pan-Asian satellite broadcasting television network (a News Corp company) and were also the core team who pioneered advertising sales for 24/7 Media Asia, the first pan-Asian Internet advertising network (a Chinadotcom company).

AdSociety’s investors and strategic partners include AdForce (a CMGion company), LG Advertising (a LG Group company), L90 (Nasdaq : LNTY), Interactive Media ContentSuite AG (a Axel Springer Verlag company), SkyGo Inc (a Vanguard Investee), AdClick (a KT Internet company), e-Brilliant (a joint venture between Hong Kong-listed e-New Media and US-listed Brilliant Digital Entertainment), Media Genesis (an Icon MediaLab company), Australia Media Holdings (a SportsWorld company) and B2BWorks. More information on AdSociety can be found in www.adsociety.com

About AdSociety Korea

AdSociety Korea is an equity joint venture company between AdSociety and LG Ad (SEO: 35000), the second largest publicly-listed advertising firm in South Korea and part of the LG Group. The LG Group is a diversified conglomerate with annual revenues over US$54 billion. In its 38 years of operating history, AdSociety Korea is the first-ever joint venture company established by LG Ad. Its annual revenue for 2000 was over US$600 million.

For further information, please contact:

Samantha Chan

AdSociety Ltd

Tel: +852 2884-8584                                                  

Email: Samantha.chan@adsociety.com


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