Alan Platt never planned to leave the Big Apple, let alone go client-side. The veteran Madison Avenue Creative Director received a Gold Lion in Cannes for a Kellogg’s campaign and wrote New York Life’s famous tagline “The Company You Keep.” Now Platt has joined Agoda Company as Creative Director and is shaking things up at the Asia-based online travel company Agoda.com. Platt will be based primarily in Bangkok, where Agoda maintains its operations center on the 27th floor of the plush new Offices at Central World.
Platt’s roster of former clients reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the world’s top brands, including Perrier, Burberry, American Express, Reebok and Tanqueray. He was Group-CD at JWT New York and Senior CD and Ogilvy and Publicis New York, and Copywriter/Art Director at Chiat/Day and Arnell among other stops in his 20-year career. Now he’s turning his talents toward online travel.
”Agoda.com fascinated me,” says Platt. “In the last ten years, they’d built this multi-million dollar business with no branding, no public relations, no advertising—just a focus on delivering a good product at an even better price. This could only happen in Asia. The prospect for developing brands here is incredible. It’s a challenge I couldn't turn down.”
Platt's career has a healthy connection to travel. He's the author of a series of humorous travel stories, including Foreign Fool, and has written for The Guardian and Rolling Stone while hopscotching the globe.
Robert Rosenstein, Chief Operating Officer of Agoda says, “It’s a dream come true for us to work with someone like Alan. He shares a true passion for travel and its potential to transform lives for the better. This is what makes it all worthwhile for the people who make up Agoda.com. His real life experience with building global brands will help us reach out to millions of travelers, moving beyond our Asian base.”
With Asia booming and the online travel sector strengthening, Agoda plans to roll out more aggressively in 2007, adding flight and other content to its extensive worldwide hotel inventory and marketing directly to end-consumers. “Agoda.com offers an alternative to large corporate sites like Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity,” Platt explains. “Our focus is squarely on customer service, local connections and insider deals. Ad people are never insiders. It’s good to be one for a change.”
For more information regarding Agoda, please access its website at www.agoda.com or contact the Agoda Team via e-mail at
[email protected]
Note to Editors:
About Agoda Company
Agoda ( www.agoda.com ) is an independent online travel company that specializes in securing the lowest discount hotel prices. Based in Singapore with operations in Bangkok and the Philippines, Agoda’s network includes 7,000 hotels in Asia and more than 27,000 worldwide. The staff of 150 professionals provides a first-rate reservation service that uniquely combines local knowledge and local connections to provide the best hotel deals to both business and leisure travelers. Since 1997, Agoda Company has handled hotel bookings for more than 500,000 customers. Precision Reservations.com, PlanetHoliday.com, and hundreds of other internet sites use Agoda to provide hotel reviews and content, hotel inventory, pricing, fulfillment and 24/7 live support.
In addition, Agoda customers participate in the Agoda Rewards Program, earning further discounts and free stays. Launched in 2003, it was one of the first hotel loyalty programs offered by an independent online merchant. Unlike programs that limit travelers to a single chain, the Agoda Rewards Program allows customers to redeem Rewards Points at any hotel, at any time.
A member of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), Agoda's aim is to promote travel by making it more affordable and more accessible to more people.
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