HONG KONG – Ogilvy & Mather (Ogilvy) – a WPP company – has announced it has acquired a majority stake in ARBA, a Hong Kong-based digital consultancy.
ARBA is a digital consultancy founded in Hong Kong in 2012, with a strong reputation in the financial services industry. The business specializes in digital strategy and offers bespoke digital design and software engineering services with a focus on sales acceleration, and customer experience.
The deal advances Ogilvy’s digital capabilities in the territory, aligning its existing excellence in digital strategy and creative with the technical and production strengths of ARBA that includes expertise ranging from enterprise mobile apps, responsive web and intranet, in addition to CRM and predictive analytics.
Jerry Smith, Chief Operating Officer, Ogilvy Asia Pacific said, “Digital is the fastest-growing component of the marketing communications industry in Hong Kong. Digital transformation is a mandate for many of our key clients and our largest clients are already heavily invested in the space. We expect an increase in digital spend by three to five times over the next five years, so strengthening our specialist digital services is key to our growth and innovation agenda both in Hong Kong and across the region.”
Ingo Leung, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, ARBA added, “We are delighted that our partnership with Ogilvy will bring more power to our team to grow with strengthened service offerings, and extend our client successes across additional industries. We look forward to joining Ogilvy’s management team in Hong Kong, and benefiting from their expertise.”
ARBA will operate as Ogilvy Hong Kong’s digital user experience unit, working as part of the agency’s integrated team offering, as well as pursuing direct clients.
In photo, Ingo Leung (Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, ARBA), Jerry Smith (Chief Operating Officer, Ogilvy Asia Pacific), Sunny Lee (Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder, ARBA), and Katryna Mojica (Chief Executive Officer, Ogilvy Hong Kong).
