Lars Bjørge Joins TBWA\Asia as EVP, Head of Customer Acquisition

TBWA today announced the appointment of digital specialist, Lars Bjørge, to the role of executive vice president and head of customer acquisition, TBWA\Asia, effective April 2018. Bjørge joins from PHD where he held the role of chief digital officer, Greater China from 2011 to 2018.

Ian Pearman, president, TBWA\Asia, commented: “I’m thrilled Lars is joining the TBWA collective, and his depth of expertise remains within the Omnicom network. TBWA’s ambition is to disrupt existing agency practices for the benefit of our clients, and to achieve this we must attract best-in-class talent who will elevate our overall digital IQ, deepen our capabilities, and keep us in the top spot when it comes to developing the next generation of communications. Lars is tasked with building a centre of excellence in data-centric performance marketing, integrating this with TBWA\Asia’s creative practice, and rolling these capabilities out across our entire network in Asia.”

Bjørge is a seasoned agency leader with over 20 years digital marketing experience across Norway and Greater China, including senior positions at Omnicom Group’s PHD Greater China, Proximity BBDO and Tribal DDB in Norway, and OgilvyOne Shanghai. He was listed in China’s Digital A-List 2017, recognising those who are leading the industry in one of the world’s fastest evolving digital markets.

“TBWA’s 'can-do' agency culture and company ethos around disruption make this the perfect place to build a new and more effective agency model for a rapidly changing marketing world – I’m looking forward to joining the collective," said Lars Bjørge.

In his most recent role as chief digital officer for PHD Greater China, Bjørge was brought on-board to transform PHD into a digitally-led agency. He doubled the size of his senior digital team and lead the application of specialist capabilities to PHD clients, including e-commerce, search, programmatic, social, mobile and measurement analytics. PHD is now a recognised a world-class digital offering – ranked #1 for China in the World Advertising Resource Centre’s (WARC) global ranking of effective agencies for two consecutive years.