Tim Isaac, who currently holds chairmanship for both Ogilvy and Bates in Asia will give up his position as Asia Pacific chairman of Ogilvy by mid-2012 to focus completely on sister WPP network Bates Asia.

Isaac currently holds chairmanship for both Ogilvy and Bates in Asia and he mentioned that there will be a gradual handover to Paul Heath, currently the chief executive officer of Ogilvy in Asia Pacific who will then guide ops across the region.

"We grew at 8% here, which is reasonable, but less than half of what we were expecting to grow at. And, most of the growth didn't come from Mumbai or Delhi advertising; I must say, Praveen Vadhera's OOH unit led to the growth that we did have," says Tim Isaac.

When asked by afaqs! if there is any truth to the speculation that has been floating around for a year or two now that of Bates' dissolution and subsequent merger into the Ogilvy system, he replies, there are no plans to merge Bates with Ogilvy.

"Bates and Ogilvy are two very different brands in terms of scale and positioning. Ogilvy is a big, beautiful machine, while Bates is a single cell organization," he adds.