BBDO Proximity wins regional Visa digital business

Visa's global marketing executive – head of APCEMEA (Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa) Rajiv Kapoor confirmed that BBDO Proximity will handle Visa’s digital business for the region within his remit.

He said that TBWA remains as Visa’s creative agency-of-record for the region, and OMD remains as Visa’s media agency.

Visa’s below-the-line (BTL) advertising is handled by a number of agencies including TBWA.

Prior to this announcement Visa did not have an agency-of-record for digital in the AP CEMEA region, and was handled on an ad hoc basis by TBWA Tequila.

A source said that the digital business handled by TBWA was not very substantial, “So this is more of a win for Proximity than a loss for Tequila,” he said.

It is understood that previous head of marketing Asia Pacific Deepankar Dutta had instigated a major digital pitch, to be handled by consultancy R3. But that pitch failed to come to fruition after Dutta chose to extend TBWA’s creative remit to include digital projects.

Visa recently appointed Coca-Cola's David Fielding as its new head of marketing Asia-Pacific replacing Dutta who left the company suddenly in September last year.