Seeing online trade strengthening globally, OgilvyOne Worldwide last month opened its latest subsidiary - Neo@Ogilvy - to further open the Web to its global corporate customers.

In the early stages, OgilvyOne plans to open regional Neo@Ogilvy offices around the world.

It recently opened an office in Singapore that OgilvyOne staff in Thailand will work with, said Saharath Sawadatikom, an OgilvyOne Worldwide partner.

To design and plan online marketing campaigns, the company has a tool called "Verge" to help create adverts and other online activities, Saharath said.

In Thailand, OgilvyOne is working on the online operations of four corporate customers: Singha, Nestle, IBM and Nokia.

The online advertising market is valued at Bt80 million and the overall Thai marketing industry is worth Bt88.9 billion.

If Neo@Ogilvy is successful in Thailand, the company may open a Bangkok office.

In Thailand, most companies that invest heavily in online advertising have been multinationals like Unilever, Nokia and Nestle. Thai companies that use the Web heavily to advertise are mainly in the telecom industry.

Unilever last year used the Web heavily for its Dove hair products.

The company created a campaign to enable the public to decide whether women were wizened or wonderful, fat or voluptuous, scrawny or supermodels. People could vote through mobile phones or on the Dove website.

Running scores on the website showed how the public was rating the models. Unilever has used the technique around the world.

Portable devices that allow people to access the Web have helped to make online advertising a potent marketing force.

Advertising on the Web can cut marketing budgets significantly, as companies are able to target their desired customers, interact closely with them and build bonds.

Asia is the largest online market with 327 million users accounting for 34.2 per cent of the world's surfers. The market grew by 218 per cent last year.

The continent also has the world's highest number of broadband users and the largest mobile phone market on the planet.

It has a promising market for wireless Web connections, according to Kent Wertime, CEO for the Asia Pacific region of Ogilvy Interactive Worldwide.

Wertime said the Web would play an increasing role in advertising and eventually dominate the market.

OgilvyOne and its partners polled  325 executives and found they were paying more attention to the Web and had upgraded it from the sixth most important advertising channel last year to the fourth this year.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation