International advertising firm Young and Rubicam (YR) has partnered with a local media company to boost its sales and grow its presence in East Africa.YR announced Monday it had on Tuesday joined Creative Edge, a company owned by Prital Patel, who also serves as a board of director at Ramco Group.”According to PWC Kenya’s 16.3 per cent annual growth rate for the entertainment and media market in Kenya in the next five years is one of the highest in the world,” said Yossi Schwartz, the chairman of YR South Africa and Africa.Creative Edge was founded in 1995 as a small creative studio. It has grown into an established advertising agency. Among the list of clients on its list are East African Breweries, Kapa Oil Refinery, Planet Yoghourt, Google Kenya and GlaxoSmithKline.”We are thrilled to be partnering with YR Advertising and to be afforded the opportunity to become their anchor agency for this market,” said Ms Patel who will serve as the managing director at Creative YR.Mr Schwartz said that although YR had been present in Kenya for a while, the partnership was important for the global firm to grow its footprint in the region.Kenya now becomes one of the three advertising hubs YR plans to grow its presence in order to control the advertising market. The others are Nigeria and South Africa.”It is our intention to invest in Kenya and as such, we’ll be working to introduce YR Labstore to the local market,” said Mr Schwartz. Labstore is YR’s retail and shopper marketing network.”Shopper marketing is currently one of the fastest growing disciplines globally, and so in order to create a cohesive offering in the East African hub, it’s natural to include this in the agency services.”