Tag: APAC

Singapore – Aleph, a global digital expert in media, payments, and education, has officially rebranded its online advertising arm, MediaDonuts by Aleph, to ‘Aleph’ in a move to consolidate operations and deepen its presence across the APAC region.

The rebranding follows Aleph’s acquisition of Entravision’s digital advertising business in mid-2024 and marks the full integration of MediaDonuts into the Aleph brand. While Aleph previously maintained a presence in the region, the addition of MediaDonuts has significantly strengthened its footprint across APAC.

The transition affects key markets including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, where MediaDonuts will now operate solely under the Aleph name.

Through this move, APAC becomes fully integrated into Aleph’s global network, offering advertisers and platforms access to a unified ecosystem of media partners, payment solutions, and educational programmes aimed at supporting cross-market scalability.

Clients will also benefit from enhanced regional support, including closer publisher relationships, data-driven tools, and deeper insights into the local digital landscape. Aleph’s continued collaboration with major platforms and adoption of new technologies remains central to its service offerings.

Pieter-Jan de Kroon, managing director of Aleph in APAC, said, “Becoming one unique brand under Aleph represents a strategic outcome for our partners and clients, reflecting the significant potential that lies ahead under the broader umbrella of Aleph.” 

“With APAC’s emerging markets, Aleph enhances its competitive positioning in the region while we in turn bank on Aleph’s global scale. I am pleased to be part of this exciting new chapter,” he added. 

 The rebrand underscores Aleph’s broader strategy to elevate the role of APAC within its global operations and reflects its long-term commitment to digital transformation. Aleph now operates in over 150 markets, with more than 60 exclusive partnerships, a client base of 26,000 advertisers, and a global team exceeding 1,500.

Gastón Taratuta, CEO and founder of Aleph Group, explained, “By fully consolidating our APAC operations under the Aleph brand, we are achieving a new level of strategic alignment between global digital media platforms and the region’s vast opportunities.” 

He continued, “This unified identity is a unified vision serving clients and partners. It underscores our commitment to continuous innovation and ensures that the unique demands and immense potential of APAC directly contribute to, and benefit from, our overall global leadership.” 

The branding industry is constantly challenging agencies to innovate their ways of expressing brands’ identity. They are compelled to find the balance between representing brands while crafting unique messages that truly resonate with audiences. 

Design Bridge and Partners, as a brand design agency, built its foundation on its goal of being impactful. For the agency, success in the branding industry means moving people through its work with brands.

As part of this aim, Design Bridge and Partners recently appointed Alexandra Cerruti as its executive vice president, APAC.

In an exclusive interview with MARKETECH APAC, Alexandra dives deeper into her own strategy towards Design Bridge and Partner’s growth, leveraging collaboration and creativity to collectively bring impact to brands and their audiences.

Where strategy meets creativity

Design Bridge and Partners is a global brand design agency with 30 years of history in Asia, having studios in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, among others. This speaks of the agency’s profound experience in the diverse market.

“In our industry, you’re only as good as your last project, but we’re fortunate to have built long-standing client relationships grounded in trust, honesty, and mutual respect. This foundation allows us to partner closely with clients and shape their brands holistically, creating cohesive and distinctive identity systems,” Alexandra shared.

While acknowledging the tough task of needing to stand out, Alexandra shares the agency’s advantage among competitors: blending strategy with creativity.

“Our competitive edge comes from pairing outstanding strategic thinking—defining what brands stand for—with exceptional creativity that ensures they stand out,” she said.

In her leadership, Alexandra values the empowerment of employees, seeing them as vital to sustainable business growth.

“Achieving growth requires balancing an external focus—delivering outstanding work, strengthening client relationships, and driving new business—with an equally strong internal focus on our people and culture,” she said.

“In my new role, I’ll continue to champion both our creative ambitions and our people, ensuring we grow not just in size, but in capability and culture,” she added.

High-performance culture for a powerful future

The brand design agency has a mission to “design brands with the power to move people.” However, this does not come easily for the company. Alexandra shares how the agency faces challenges as it operates in Singapore, a dynamic yet expensive market.

“The challenge is to consistently deliver exceptional work that drives real impact for our clients’ businesses, especially as clients are under increasing pressure to justify every investment,” Alexandra said.

Nonetheless, she reaffirms her goal of helping Design Bridge and Partners’ talents go beyond boundaries in unlocking creativity.

“We address this by ensuring every project delivers measurable value and by nurturing a high-performance culture where our teams are inspired to push creative boundaries while staying commercially focused,” she said.

Looking towards the future, Alexandra is approaching the complex branding industry with powerful ideas, injecting them into the practice of branding as a vital part of the process.

“My vision is to help our clients find and activate that core idea—the one that truly moves people—so their brands can connect emotionally and stand out in today’s crowded attention economy. At Design Bridge and Partners, we’ll continue translating strategy into bold, tangible expressions that resonate with audiences and drive brand growth,” Alexandra said.

In its quest to help brands express themselves across multiple channels, Design Bridge and Partners is prioritising impact. In Alexandra’s new role, she is approaching this wider mission with a simpler yet powerful strategy: the empowerment of employees as they step towards sustainable growth. With Alexandra and its entire team, Design Bridge and Partners is accelerating towards its greater goal: moving people with branding.

Australia – Marketing evolution consultancy -lution has appointed Mike Worden as its chief media officer and partner, signalling its media advisory expansion. The appointment is part of its effort to address the demand for brands looking to revolutionise their media models.

Worden brings over two decades of experience in agency and client-side roles. Before the appointment, he led media and effectiveness at Endeavour Group. He also served as managing director at EssenceMediacom.

In his new role at -lution, he is set to lead its media advisory offering, helping brands optimise their in-house and hybrid media models. He aims to enable brands to improve their transparency, performance, and efficiency.

Alongside Worden, -lution has also named Nicola Smith-Cullen as its creative operations consultant and Josh Cave as consulting project lead.

The slew of appointments aims to strengthen -lution’s capabilities across creative, operations, martech, and media. It highlights the company’s philosophy of onboarding client-side talent.

Worden commented, “The media industry is undergoing its biggest shift since the advent of digital and more brands are choosing to in-house some part of their media operations as they look to make their budgets work harder. I’ve seen first-hand how transformative this can be for a business, and I’m really excited to work with the incredible team at -lution to help more CEOs and marketing leaders tap into these solutions.”

Chris Maxwell, founder and CEO of -lution, said, “Mike’s appointment brings firepower and credibility to our growing media practice. His track record across in-house and external agency leadership roles is unmatched, and we’re excited for what this means for our clients as they seek more control, accountability and value from their media investments.”

“Mike has been working with us for a couple of months, supporting our brand partners to redesign their current media models, as well as future-proofing and automating media processes, and he’s made a significant impact already,” Maxwell added.

Sydney, Australia – LEVO, a consultancy under the Clemenger Group, has been appointed as the exclusive Asia-Pacific (APAC) launch partner for digital experience platform Optimizely and commerce engine commercetools’ alliance. This partnership aims to revolutionise enterprise B2C retail by leveraging content, commerce, and AI.

The collaboration integrates Optimizely’s digital experience platform (DXP), encompassing its CMS, experimentation, personalisation, and Opal AI suite, within commercetools’ MACH-certified commerce engine. It aims to provide a solution that empowers marketers and developers to focus on innovation.

LEVO’s appointment underscores its position as the sole system integrator with a dedicated APAC presence. With its expertise in implementation, the consultancy will spearhead the go-to-market strategy across APAC.

The partnership offers capabilities such as faster campaign velocity, AI-powered content, and future-proof tech stacks. It also allows enterprise retailers to enjoy marketer-led personalisation, real-time experimentation, and unified content and commerce.

Cale Maxwell, CEO at LEVO, said, “We’re proud to bring this powerful partnership to life across Asia Pacific. Enterprise retailers here are hungry for composable solutions that accelerate speed to market, reduce reliance on dev teams, and allow for real-time, AI-enhanced content experiences. With Optimizely and commercetools, we can now deliver exactly that – at pace.”

Singapore – Ogilvy APAC has consolidated all its social marketing offerings under the Social@Ogilvy banner, providing a suite of solutions for its clients in the region. The move aims to help brands create social-first campaigns, allowing them to connect with culture while building their brands.

Ogilvy first unveiled Social@Ogilvy globally in 2012 before introducing it in APAC. The team unifies the agency’s paid and organic social, influencer marketing, and social marketing expertise. The consolidated team includes 550 experts across 16 markets.

Built on the principle of ‘Connected Social,’ Social@Ogilvy provides a single point of access to complete social marketing services for its clients. 

The offering aims to resolve brands’ issues of having to work with various social specialist agencies in different markets. Social@Ogilvy offers social media research, campaign development, content creation, media planning and buying, influencer marketing, and social commerce and CRM.

Social@Ogilvy uses a suite of in-house tools and strategic partnerships, including the AI capabilities of WPP Open. It also has training and collaborative projects on Meta and TikTok.

Chris Reitermann, co-chief executive officer of Ogilvy APAC, commented, “Social media is one of the most powerful cultural forces shaping how people connect, communicate, and consume. Brands can no longer afford to simply ‘do social’ as a tactic; they must become social at their core by embedding cultural relevance, community, and conversation into every touchpoint. Our unified offering empowers clients with an integrated, seamless approach that drives deeper impact, greater efficiency and results from creating brand value, consumer engagement to social commerce sales.”

Jeremy Webb, head of Social@Ogilvy, said, “The way brands show up on social media in APAC needs better connection – with culture, with brand, and with business. Our in-house creators, media buying, influencer and commerce specialists, as well as content production and operation centres in Bali, Manila, and Wuxi, allow us to execute at scale and consistently, across every market in the region.”

Singapore – Online used car platform Carro is reviving its award-winning ad series in its latest campaign for its 10th anniversary. The campaign highlights its drama-free and convenient car purchases.

The ‘No Drama’ series, first released in 2023, used drama cliches to contrast how buying a Carro car is drama-free. It is composed of three short films, highlighting the nature of purchasing a Carro Certified car that is like new.

Shot in South Korea, the ‘No Drama’ ad is set in the Joseon Dynasty, where the king is being tricked to sell his ride for a lower value. The ad was produced by Carro’s in-house team. It has been launched in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and Hong Kong.

The second part of the ‘No Drama’ ad series is set to be released in June 2025.

Carro offers a transparent and convenient process, with the company delivering the inspection and quotation processes to customers’ homes in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

The company was founded in 2015, leveraging proprietary technologies and AI to innovate the car ownership experience. Since its founding, Carro has expanded from Singapore to the wider Asia-Pacific region.

Katherine Teo, Carro chief marketing officer, said, “We’ve heard what our customers have said over the last 10 years: that selling their car can be stressful, complicated and long drawn. That’s why we keep our processes transparent and stress-free, and all the drama they see will only be from our ads – no matter whether they’re selling to us or buying a Carro Certified car that is As Good As New. Comedy remains a great medium for us to tell our story and we are so excited to be able to deliver our message in a manner that is entertaining and fresh.”

“At Carro, we take pride in setting a new standard of transparency and trust in the used car industry. Our commitment to providing 100% clear quotations and straightforward processes ensures that our customers feel confident and cared for at every step, even if it means appearing at their doorstep. With the understanding that every market is unique, we are deeply committed to delivering the Carro experience in a way that is not only convenient and worry-free, but also truly resonates with what our customers value and need,” Chua Zi Yong, Carro chief operating officer, commented.

Australia – Taboola has appointed Shivani Pant as regional publisher director for Asia Pacific (APAC), a newly created role aimed at supporting the company’s accelerating expansion and deepening partnerships across the region.

In her new role, Pant will be based in Sydney and will lead efforts to align and expand Taboola’s publisher relationships across Asia Pacific—a region that continues to play a key role in the company’s global strategy.

Pant brings nearly 15 years of digital media experience, including close to eight years at Taboola. Most recently serving as director of publisher partnerships for Australia and New Zealand, she has worked across key markets such as Japan, Thailand, China, and India. Her regional knowledge and deep expertise in publisher development position her well to help unify and scale Taboola’s efforts across APAC.

Earlier this year, Pant was also acknowledged for her contributions to the digital media industry. At Taboola, she has been instrumental in developing and maintaining long-term partnerships with publishers such as Sky News Australia and the Otago Daily Times, contributing to the company’s sustained presence in the region.

Pant’s appointment aims to support and strengthen Taboola’s regional growth.

Taboola is seeing steady momentum across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, driven by a broader advertiser mix and the growing adoption of its recently launched technology platform, ‘Realize’. Designed to deliver performance at scale beyond search and social, Realize marks a step beyond Taboola’s native advertising roots, focusing solely on measurable outcomes. The platform leverages Taboola’s data, performance-driven AI, and a wider range of inventory and creative formats.

In terms of publisher partnerships, Taboola has secured several long-term agreements in the region. In Australia, the company renewed its exclusive partnership with Sky News Australia through a five-year deal, extending the collaboration to a decade. Similarly, in New Zealand, Taboola signed a six-year renewal with the Otago Daily Times—the longest partnership extension in its ANZ portfolio to date.

Singapore – Global marketing network Stagwell has appointed Connie Chan its new chief growth officer for Asia-Pacific (APAC). The appointment is effective in July 2025.

In her new role, Chan is set to lead Stagwell’s growth strategy and operations across APAC. She will focus on leading its transformation, enhancing capabilities, and forging deeper connections within local markets in the region.

Chan brings decades of expertise in media, marketing, and strategic communications to the company. Before her appointment, Chan served as the chief executive officer of OMD China, driving growth and creativity. She has also held leadership roles at WPP and MEC, now Wavemaker.

She will report directly to Ryan Linder, executive vice president, global chief marketing officer at Stagwell.

“As the global marketing landscape continues to shift, Asia Pacific stands out as a region of extraordinary opportunity. Connie’s leadership will be instrumental as we build a network that not only responds to the complexity of today but sets the pace for what’s next,” Linder said.

Randy Duax, managing director, Asia Pacific at Stagwell, commented,  “Connie doesn’t just drive growth. She builds momentum that breaks the sound barrier. We’ve spent the last three years building the kind of platform the holding companies said couldn’t be done—media, creative, strategy and PR moving as one, built for speed, wired for scale. Connie isn’t here to learn the playbook. She’s here to call the next play.”

“I’ve always believed in the power of strategic clarity and bold ideas. At Stagwell, we have the talent, the ambition, and the platform to build work that matters – and impact that endures,” Chan said.

Australia – Special has appointed acclaimed creative duo Peter Defries and Alan Wilson as regional group creative directors for Uber and Uber Eats, further strengthening its leadership across the APAC region.

Defries and Wilson bring 14 years of creative partnership to the role, returning to Australia after nearly a decade in New York. During their time in the U.S., they served as executive creative directors at BBH NY, where they led work for the J.M. Smucker Company’s portfolio of FMCG brands, along with major accounts including Walmart and Cadillac.

Their work has been recognised with more than 30 international awards. In 2022, both were named among D&AD’s Top 20 Executive Creative Directors worldwide.

“We’ve been massive fans of Special for some time now. Watching from the other side of the world, we were consistently blown away by the breakthrough work they produced, especially with Uber and Uber Eats. So when the opportunity arose to be part of it, we couldn’t say no,” Wilson shared.

Defries added, “Leaving New York wasn’t a decision we took lightly—it gave us some of the best experiences of our careers. But the chance to come home and join this extremely talented team, pushing creative boundaries at a world-class level right here in our own backyard, was simply too good to pass up.”

Defries and Wilson will join Celia Garforth and Lauren Portelli as part of Special’s leadership team on the Uber account across APAC. Garforth and Portelli have played a key role in growing the agency’s strategic and creative remit with Uber and Uber Eats in the region.

The partnership now spans ANZ, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, with all work led from Special’s Sydney office. In 2024, the team’s work was recognised with a Gold Effie for the ‘Get Almost Almost Anything’ campaign in ANZ. Special also operates an on-the-ground team in Tokyo to support the expansion of Uber’s business in Japan.

Tom Martin, partner and CCO at Special Australia, commented, “We’re pumped to have Pete and Alan boomerang back to Australia and back into Special. We’re at our best when we bring together top-tier humans who get what it takes to make great work and do it with care, craft and real collaboration.”

Cade Heyde, global partner of Special, added, “The magic of Special Group comes from the extraordinary people behind it. Celia and Lauren have been instrumental in building our creative reputation across APAC. And now, with Peter and Alan joining them, we believe we have one of the best, most exciting teams in the world.”

South Korea – Tinder has launched its first pan-Asian campaign, celebrating Gen Z’s redefinition of dating norms. Spotlighting women embracing self-expression, exploration, and fun, the campaign highlights their shift toward dating on their own terms.

Tinder’s ‘Dating, Your Way’ campaign embraces the idea that dating is an open-ended adventure, not a one-size-fits-all journey. 

Created by Wieden + Kennedy, the campaign draws inspiration from real Gen Z dating experiences—where meaningful relationships don’t always follow traditional paths. It features three core videos and different taglines across countries, each capturing a unique relationship moment.

The first video, “Move On”, explores the power of embracing new beginnings. It follows a young woman moving on from a past relationship, symbolised by a pet turtle gifted by an ex. The story captures the bittersweet process of letting go and stepping into new possibilities—with Tinder offering a fresh start.

“Double the Chill” celebrates quirks and unexpected connections. It tells the story of a first date where a woman and her Tinder match bond over their unusual shared habit—sipping cold drinks on a chilly day. The video highlights how small, unique moments can bring people together, making first dates feel more natural and authentic.

Meanwhile, “Love and Hate” embraces differences in relationships. A couple who met on Tinder navigate a playful debate over olives—mirroring the timeless pineapple-on-pizza debate. The story underscores how opposites can attract and even strengthen relationships.

Director Saman Kesh said, “Working on this campaign with Tinder was so gratifying. I’m all about deconstructing old ideas and presumptions. Relationships aren’t one-size-fits-all—they’re layered, unpredictable, and endlessly unique.” 

“We wanted to dive into the idea of women exploring more open-ended dating adventures, where the real magic happens in the journey of self-discovery. By giving our hero characters unique quirks—a pet turtle here, a shared love of chilly weather there—we showed that every experience is its own story, as personal and unexpected as the people we meet,” Kesh added. 

Tinder’s campaign is driven by its recent survey, which found that women across Asia are redefining dating on their own terms. The survey revealed that 82% use dating apps, and 72% have had meaningful relationships through them.

Furthermore, women across APAC are prioritising meaningful connections over outcomes, with 87% seeking equal partnerships. Nearly 70% are open to dating across races and cultures, over 70% to different cities, and more than 60% to different countries.

Daniel Kim, VP of APAC marketing at Tinder, said, “We know that young women in Asia want more control over their dating lives. With fun and safe dating at the core of the experience, Tinder is about the endless possibilities that can unfold when two people connect.”

“With this campaign, we’re celebrating the freedom to date without judgement—because whether you’re on Tinder to move on, move forward, or just move at your own pace, there’s no set way to date, and every match has the potential to change lives in ways that people could never imagine,” he added. The pan-Asia campaign will roll out across digital, social, and on-ground experiences in Korea, India, Thailand, and Vietnam, featuring bold storytelling, culturally resonant creatives, and a fresh take on modern dating.