Sports and entertainment consultancy Gemba has expanded its presence in China and Europe due to growing client demand.
Recent project wins for Adidas, Coca-Cola and World Rugby (formerly the IRB) has prompted the agency expand its offering in both regions.
Maeve Moriarty has been appointed general manager of Europe and global rugby projects, and will set up an office in Dublin, where World Rugby is headquartered.
Moriarty has worked at the Australian Rugby Union and across international rugby for years, as well as with the FFA in a sponsorships capacity.
Yan Mao has been appointed general manager of Gemba's Shanghai office with two or three more appointments to follow in the middle of the year.
Mao brings experience in sports and entertainment sponsorship, licensing and strategy. He is a former director of strategic business development for the NBA and has previously worked at Dreamworks, 4A, Oglivy, McCann Erickson and Bates.
A growth market
China is Gemba's second largest market and the agency helps clients as well as provide research on sport and entertainment consumer engagement.
Mao's remit will be to provide high-level strategic help to international brands looking for opportunities in China, leaving communications and activations to domestic agencies. Gemba will also help Chinese brands identify sports and entertainment opportunities abroad.
In the past few years, Chinese companies have been investing heavily in sports at home and abroad. An example of this is in the English Premier League, with Chinese companies AIA Insurance sponsoring Tottenham Hotspur, GWFX sponsoring Swansea City and 138.com sponsoring Watford this season.
Recently, Chinese telecommunications company Huawei offered €6 million to Lionel Messi to switch over from Samsung.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Super League has lured high profile footballers, including Jackson Martinez and Alex Teixeira, by offering obscene amounts of money, out-spending English clubs in the most recent transfer window.
“We increasingly see brands that have aspirations outside China and we can help join the dots for them with someone on the ground in China and though our international strategy work,” Mills tells AdNews.
“The Chinese president Xi Jinping is a massive sports and football fan. From a policy perspective when they wrote their 10-year plan, they are talking about increasing the spend on sport as a percentage of GDP from 0.6% to 1.7%.
“He has signalled they want to step-change the sports industry... so the corporates are falling in as they want to have favour with the government.”
Mills says there are no imminent plans to expand elsewhere, but Singapore could prove attractive down the track as a lot of international brands have Asian headquarters there.
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