Following the globalization of the market, there is a stronger need to streamline the communication approach and channels on a worldwide basis. As an extension of their pan-European PR services Duomedia now offers client support in the Asian market.
 
To this end they have set up a partnership with Les Bovenlander who lives in Hong Kong and has been active as sales and marketing expert across Asia for companies like RealTimeImage, HP and Compose. Prior to this, Les worked 11 years for Scitex in different marketing positions and started to develop in 1992 the commercial print market in Europe. He is originally from South-Africa and has travelled the world with his family, the last 12 years in Asia.
 
Seen the diverse cultures in Europe, Duomedia is excellently placed to establish a similar PR and communication approach in Asia. They support clients on a central level, implementing programs locally through consultants and partners. In Europe they operate through dedicated Duomedia PR Representatives in London, Paris, Milan, Munich, Frankfurt and Barcelona. To really address the Asian market in an efficient way, Duomedia wanted someone who understands the cultures and local habits, and who is well connected to the market.
 
“Lutt Willems, partner at Duomedia, and myself have known Les for many years, as colleague at Scitex and to support mutual clients. He is very knowledgeable both from a technical and market perspective, and most importantly he knows all the right people in Asia – from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore to India and beyond. We do look forward to supporting Duomedia clients together with him, making sure they build an important presence in the Asian market, which offers great and new business opportunities.” comments Anja D’Hondt, Managing Partner at Duomedia.
 
Duomedia can support the press office centrally for Asia, using Duogate, including media list management and press release distribution, online clipping service, time and project management. Through this cooperation clients can now also rely on a local expert to advise and support them on speaking opportunities across the many specialized conferences. Success stories creation and placement, press relations and editorial opportunity sourcing can also be part of the program. To accomplish this, Duomedia works with local specialized copywriters and translators.
 
PR and localization services for the Asian market
“With Duomedia’s PR expertise in technology and graphic arts market and their localization capabilities – they regularly localize (translation to layout) website and marketing materials into Korean, Chinese and other Asian languages – we form a perfect team to put companies on the map in Asia. Duomedia has successfully profiled totally unknown companies into market leaders, eventually acquired or merged - like Enfocus, RealTimeImage, Versamark (Scitex Digital Printing), Scitex Vision, NexPress, Indigo and many more. I look forward to achieving the same results in Asia, where despite the current economic situation there are still many interesting opportunities. It is only a matter of finding them and getting introduced in the right way.” states Les Bovenlander, PR Partner for Duomedia in Asia.
 
Upcoming opportunities in Asia include the conference for inkjet in India and the reputed Labelexpo trade show in China. If a company wants to be taken seriously in this market they need to be visible and present, and build personal relationships and references, with respect and understanding of the local culture.
 
“We look forward to establishing a successful cooperation and to profiling Duomedia as a strong PR and marketing communication partner to companies in Asia, offering them a great entry and support in the European market. Our services extension to Asia is a perfect and logic complement to our current European PR services as we can leverage many efforts and materials following the industry globalization trend.” concludes Anja D’Hondt.