Ciao Opens in Australia

Online panel specialist Ciao has announced the opening of a new base of operations in Sydney, on July 3; and has appointed Chris Herbert, formerly Business Group Director at GfK Australia, as its Research Director and David Fernandez as its Director of Client Development.

The office will provide sales and service for clients based in Australia and New Zealand. Ciao has an Australian panel of over 160,000 double-opt-in respondents as well as proprietary Asian panels in China, Japan and South Korea which combined now total more than 150,000 respondents. The company maintains market research panels in 25 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Herbert was previously with Inform pty, a Sydney-based research company specializing in the IT and entertainment sectors. He began his career in the UK with TNS and Romtec plc, now part of Harris Interactive.

Fernandez, who will be responsible for driving new business development and client acquisition with MR and other firms in Australia and New Zealand, has an extensive background in sales and client development in the advertising industry at mainstream and online agencies including Lowe Lintas, Massive Media and APL Digital.

Herbert comments: 'We look forward to being able to serve the global online data collection needs of Ciao's Australian and New Zealand clients locally from Sydney. With David Fernandez' successful career establishing and building new client relationships we feel we are very well situated to meet the needs of clients in this new market.' The company will mark its launch with Gold Sponsorship of September's Australian Marketing Social Research Society (AMSRS) Annual Conference, to be held in Melbourne.

According to Albert Angrisani, President and CEO of Ciao's parent company Greenfield Online, 'International expansion, particularly into the Asia Pacific region, continues to be a high priority for Greenfield /Ciao... and our new office in Sydney, including the hiring of two experienced managers, is our first step to establishing a presence for us there.' Ciao MD Gunnar Piening adds: 'I am particularly pleased by the work done by Richard Thornton, Director of Client Development for the U.K., Ireland and Australia who has been managing Australia remotely from Europe since early 2005. His establishment of this new base of operations for us in Sydney will now enable us to provide our standard high quality service locally to our clients based in the region.'

The companies are online at www.Greenfield.com and www.ciao-group.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

• Ciao Ag
• All news