Tag: APAC

Singapore – Deel, a global compliance and payroll solution that helps businesses hire anyone, anywhere, has launched its first outdoor campaign in APAC, which deems to have the second-highest rate of global hiring talent from abroad, just behind LATAM.

The new outdoor campaign aims to help Singapore businesses hire quality talent from anywhere and alleviate the stresses arising from complicated compliance and different legal processes around the world. Singapore-based creative agency SixmoreDays, together with Deel’s in-house design and copywriting team, were responsible for the campaign creative. Meanwhile, GroupM managed the media buying responsibilities.

Located at Tanjong Pagar and Raffles Place MRT in Singapore, the campaign will primarily be targeted at professionals who might want to take up remote working opportunities or businesses facing the challenge of the new global hiring movement.

Catherine Chien, Deel’s head of growth marketing for APAC, shared that talent shortages in Singapore are at their highest in 16 years, with more than eight in ten (84%) of employers reporting finding difficulties in filling roles.

“The remote workforce movement is moving full steam ahead, and so it is the perfect opportunity for businesses to tap into a more global network. Deel makes onboarding and paying global teams much less complex,” said Chien.

Singapore – As part of MSIG Asia’s commitment to its contribution towards biodiversity conservation in the region, the insurance company MSIG Asia has partnered with Conservation International Asia Pacific (CIAP), an organisation that works with corporations, governments and communities to create a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable planet, to support CIAP’s ongoing internship programme in Singapore. 

The immersive programme is designed to provide students with the opportunity to experience conservation work as they explore their interests in the field.

To mark the new commitment, MSIG Asia has also unveiled a collection of 12 limited-edition nature-inspired fine art prints, which it recently purchased to commemorate the opening of its refurbished office. 

With 100% of the proceeds going to CIAP for their environmental conservation efforts, the collection was commissioned with the aim to spread awareness of the importance of nature and what individuals can do to protect it. Every piece of work in the series, aptly titled 12-Artists-1-Cause, is dedicated by renowned artists and photographers including Steven Dews, Staffan Widstrand, Deborah Azzopardi, Wink Gaines, and Lucy Francis, as well as the late Peter Adams, amongst others.

Clemens Philippi, CEO of MSIG Asia, commented, “We are delighted to be given the opportunity to work with CIAP to support the learning experience of the next generation of environmental conservationists.”

Singapore – WPP creative company Superunion has unveiled its proprietary design technology which enables brands to create innovative digital experiences and build meaningful connections with their audiences. This new offering includes generative design and metaverse experiences, in addition to established motion design expertise.

The new creative technology service was developed by the Superunion Asia team across APAC and China studios, led by Jessica Tan, Superunion’s digital director for Asia, and Paola Demichelis, Superunion’s digital designer. By applying technology and digital art, and connected to data, the tools enable brand owners to generate limitless creative assets in record time, within the parameters of their brand identity, giving them creative control, and a platform to express their creativity, over their own brand.

Moreover, the tool has been put to use by multiple Superunion clients to ensure brand innovation and coherence after the creation of brand guidelines. After defining the brand rules with the client, Superunion codifies what makes the design unique, creating a set of design rules. These are then built into a series of algorithms and codes to build bespoke software, along with the UI and UX interfaces integrated into the final tool.

The generative design tool is also complemented by the launch of the Superunion metaverse offer for clients looking at the next generation of digital experiences to engage their employees and external audiences through gamification and creative possibilities of Web 3.0.

With Superunion expanding its portfolio of services, the company will be able to act as a creative partner for the world’s biggest businesses across multiple sectors and geographies.

Tan shared that creative technology is a core aspect of their Superunion proposition, along with digital-first brand creation and the exploration of the opportunities of the next generation of internet experiences. 

“We believe in handing power to our clients and their creative teams, and our creation of these expansive systems enables this. Clients can use the design rules of their brand and create an almost never-ending suite of assets to suit any need over time and let their own creativity free. This is where Superunion has come into its own and where we see the opportunity for growth, globally,” said Tan.

Meanwhile, Ambrish Chaudhry, Superunion’s managing strategy director for Asia, said that their creative technology offer has already changed the way they think of branding and design at Superunion. 

“It’s helped us to think screen -first, be agile around [the] adoption of our work and to play an even more consultative and partnering role for our clients. The opportunities are truly boundless and if client response is something to go by; then we are well poised to write the next chapter of brand and product identities for some of the largest businesses globally and in Asia,” said Chaudhry.

Singapore – Media agency Wavemaker has appointed Jenny Pham, former general manager of marketing and strategy at GTI Tourism, to be its new APAC head of media for Colgate-Palmolive.

In her new role, Pham will be based in Singapore, and will be responsible for leading the Colgate-Palmolive business in the region. In July, Wavemaker launched a new agency model for Colgate-Palmolive, creating an APAC hub in Singapore designed specifically to support the client’s business transformation agenda. The team will develop strategy and audience planning for the region across Colgate-Palmolive’s product portfolio, and lead execution through the performance practice established over recent years.

Pham brings with her great experience and a strong point of view around digital transformation, which will be invaluable as the agency partner Colgate-Palmolive into a new era of growth. No stranger to the group, she has previously worked in senior roles at GroupM agencies in Australia, including Essence Digital Global as VP client partner, MEC Australia as managing partner, and Mindshare as business director.

Commenting on her appointment, Pham said, “I am delighted to return to the GroupM family and for the opportunity to play a role in this transformative journey of building the hub for excellence with innovation and growth at its forefront.”

She continued, “I’ve long admired the brand’s work, particularly the Smile Strong campaign showcasing stories of real people who overcame seemingly insurmountable challenges through the sheer power of their optimism. I am excited to lead, inspire and champion optimism at Wavemaker!”

Meanwhile, Rose Huskey, Wavemaker’s chief client officer for APAC, said that they are thrilled to welcome Pham back to their agency group network with Wavemaker being the top choice.

“I am certain that with her strong digital knowledge coupled with her experience in managing brands in fast-paced environments, she will be building strong relationships where clients, teams and collaborators are empowered to achieve success collectively,” added Huskey

Gordon Domlija, Wakemaker’s CEO for APAC, commented, “I love Jenny’s energy, passion and drive to make a difference, it is inspiring and infectious. Jenny joins at a fantastic time, as we launch a new agency model for Colgate-Palmolive. Her leadership of the hub will accelerate our growth ambition for Colgate-Palmolive and further enhance Wavemaker’s position as the leading agency in the digital transformation space.”

In July 2022, Alban Dudek, formerly the chief digital and marketing officer at Omnichannel Retail Indonesia, has joined Wavemaker Indonesia as partner for e-commerce. In his new role, he will be responsible for leading e-commerce services for all Wavemaker Indonesia clients, from brand awareness to conversion on multiple channels.

Hong Kong – Insurance company FWD Group has launched a new brand campaign that spotlights its promise to encourage and help empower people in Asia to celebrate living.

Developed in partnership with TBWA\ Singapore, Sixtoes TV, and AIRBAG, the new campaign includes remotely filmed and produced videos in five locations. It capitalises on the strength of the highly recognisable ‘play’ symbol, consistent with the FWD philosophy that insurance should be a source of empowerment to enjoy life and celebrate it with confidence.

Titled ‘press play’, the campaign is inspired by the stories of six, real-life heroes and features real moments and experiences as they navigate common themes that are impacting the day-to-day lives of people across the region. The people featured each took moments of pause to reflect on their lives and understand their personal objectives and dreams, in order to press play on reconnecting with loved ones, following their passions, taking risks, and changing careers.

Ryan Jong Hoon Kim, FWD’s group chief digital and marketing officer, shared that their new brand campaign reflects the opportunities and challenges that people are facing as they think about their futures, and they want to inspire everyone to ‘press play’ to actively pursue their professional and personal passions and dreams.

“Our vision is to transform the industry by changing the way people feel about insurance. The campaign’s message of empowering individuals to celebrate living is a fitting expression of that commitment and our brand promise,” said Kim.

Meanwhile, Andy Grant, executive creative director of TBWA, said, “The creative idea ‘press play’ is a call to action to inspire and enable people to go out and press play on all the things that they are holding back on. For the campaign, we searched all across Asia to find real stories of people who are doing this. We hope that these stories inspire everyone to go out and press play today!”

Robin Nayak, chief strategy officer of TBWA, commented, “We recognised early on, how FWD’s invitation to celebrate living has never been so apt as it is now. So our approach to strategy was not to re-think it, but to find the most powerful cultural triggers to give it meaning: the real things people across this region had been forced to pause that FWD gives them the means to press play on.”

The campaign is now live in the Philippines and Vietnam across multiple media including TV, social, and digital media channels, and will feature in other FWD markets across Asia in the coming weeks and months.

Hong Kong – Insurance company FWD Group has launched a new mobile app called ‘omne’, which aims to empower individuals with a unique set of value propositions centred on personalised goal-based journeys.

‘omne’ is designed to help people celebrate living through tools that foster micro-habits and achieve daily goals. It also provides a suite of activities and content – including music, mini-games, sketching, and health, as well as wellbeing, and a vast array of engaging features – that are personalised to an individual’s preferences and interests. Additionally, the app intends to expand its capabilities to offer self-service functions for FWD Insurance customers in the coming weeks and months.

Troy Barnes, FWD’s group chief transformation officer, shared that a critical part of how they’re changing the way people feel about insurance is reimagining how they bring value to, and anticipate, the evolving demands of Asia’s ever-more digital and mobile population.

“‘omne’ brings a new dimension to how people achieve their personal goals, with an engaging experience that creates micro-habits from the convenience of their mobile device,” said Barnes.

‘omne’ is now available in all FWD markets, and can be downloaded for free on both the Apple and Google app stores.

In June 2022, FWD announced its foray into launching its first-ever NFT collection. The move aims to further enhance customer experiences with a diverse suite of engagement activities extended to the metaverse so that people can pursue their passions and live life to the fullest anywhere, anytime.

Singapore – AnyMind Group, an end-to-end commerce enablement company, has launched a new HTML5 game feature on its publisher platform AnyManager called ‘AnyManager GAMES’. This enables web publishers to increase ad revenue sources by implementing a variety of games on their sites.

‘AnyManager GAMES’ enables web publishers to choose from a library of already-developed HTML5 games, try the games out in AnyManager, and implement these games on their desktop and mobile sites by implementing a single JavaScript tag. In addition, publishers can implement a variety of ad formats on their selected games including banner and interstitial ad formats. 

With the new game feature, publishers can now increase their means of ad income without the need to develop their own games or create additional content, whilst providing users with a new point of engagement on their sites. 

AnyMind Group said that with this new feature, it looks to expand its publisher base and available inventory for publishers, and provide advertisers in Asia and internationally with access to a greater ad inventory pool. 

Hitoshi Maruyama, managing director of publisher growth at AnyMind Group, said that they are entering the age of next-generation commerce, where business can be done through a single platform, is borderless and open, and data can be utilised and maximised freely across traditionally siloed business functions. 

“We have empowered publishers in Asia for the past five years through our constantly growing suite of solutions, and we will continue to move the needle for innovation to bring more growth to publishers,” added Maruyama.

In July 2022, AnyMind has raised ¥4b in funding, around US$91.7m, to strengthen the company’s advancement in the e-commerce enablement space and fund future acquisitions.

Singapore – Storyly, a user engagement platform based in the United States, is now available in APAC, helping marketers in the region achieve user engagement goals in their mobile apps and websites through the mobile content format – Stories.

Storyly Stories, by nature, provide mobile apps with an opportunity to communicate any message interactively without interrupting the experience and empower lifecycle marketing strategies from discovery to purchase and beyond to loyalty and advocacy. 

By using Storyly Stories, marketers can make use of advanced personalisation, targeting, content-automation capabilities, monetisation via Google AdMob or Ad Manager, and various interactive features such as polls, quizzes, countdowns, and call-to-action buttons to deliver a much more captivating mobile experience. 

Moreover, aiming to provide video-centric capabilities and help gather users’ attention starting from the discovery level without compromising the app’s performance and any media hosting cost, Storyly empowers its customers with interactive shoppable videos. With its intuitive studio and dashboard, Storyly also makes creating engaging content that fits the style and design of any mobile app and website effortless. 

Emre Fadillioglu, Storyly’s CEO, said that losing a user acquired is very costly in comparison to user retention and that brands have to get even more creative with how they engage with their users to avoid such a cost.

“On top of all, attention is a scarce resource today. So, marketers have to take the experience beyond the limits of the mobile screen and build engaging, immersive, interactive, and personalized communication with consumers. That’s what Storyly is aiming for. Storyly brings the leading mobile content format, Stories, that we are all familiar with into mobile apps and websites. Actually, that’s the reason why we call it ‘the missing piece to deliver captivating experiences,” he added.

Fadillioglu continued to say that APAC is a promising market for Storyly as the app market in the region is blossoming. He noted, “Our growth journey in the region has kicked off from Thailand and Singapore as the key markets but we are definitely looking to extend our footprint across the region as we grow.”

Australia – Global advertising agency and public relations company Publicis Groupe has announced new senior leadership elevations. The appointees are Jason Williams, the new head of creative excellence at Publicis Groupe for APAC & MEA, and Andy Fergusson, the new national executive creative director at Leo Burnett Australia.

This shift recognises Williams’ contribution to Leo Burnett Australia over the past 15 years, where he is currently chief creative officer. In his new role, Williams will be reporting to Natalie Lam, chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe for APAC & MEA. He will be focusing on elevating the creative output of the company’s clients, and will continue to collaborate with Publicis Groupe Australia, bolstering the creative firepower of each market in APAC & MEA by connecting creatives, technology, media, and data experts to global brands and opportunities. 

Together with a regional team led by Lam, Williams will also contribute to initiatives that connect, inspire, and strengthen the creative community, from monthly creative sessions to mentoring programmes and inspiration sessions.

Commenting on his elevation, Williams said, “When Natalie first mentioned the possibility of moving into a role that champions creative bravery and business changing ideas across 60+ agency brands, it seemed too good to be true. The chance to unite the Groupe’s most ambitious clients with a squad of creatives, future-thinkers and makers, while still staying connected to the Leo Burnett family – it’s a dream role for me.”

Lam also commented, “Jason is a creative heavyweight in Australia and the global Leo Burnett network, now we are lucky to share his creative firepower with all of Publicis Groupe APAC & MEA and with many more markets, clients and teams. I’m thrilled to have the chance to partner with him to deliver even stronger business impact and creative excellence, as well as shape the overall creative vision for Publicis Groupe to be the best modern creative powerhouse with many exciting initiatives for a connected community of 4,000+ creatives,” says Lam.

Meanwhile, Fergusson will now be responsible for the creative product across Sydney and Melbourne. He will now be working closely with Emma Montgomery, CEO at Leo Burnett Australia, and Catherine King, chief strategy officer at Leo Burnett Australia to lead the agency’s growth.

Fegusson first joined Leo Burnett Sydney in 2020 and has been instrumental in the agency’s new business and creative wins, including the launch of ‘Feel New’ for Destination NSW and the recent Grand Prix-winning Suncorp campaign, ‘One House to Save Many’. Prior to joining Leo Burnett Sydney, he has led accounts across the US, Asia, and Australia during a 10-year stint at Droga5. 

On his elevation, Fergusson commented, “I’m beyond excited about the opportunity to help shape the future of Leo Burnett in Australia, alongside Emma and Cath. We have such great creative momentum right now across both offices. And with a bunch of truly ambitious clients, and a really strong talent pool, I think we are well placed to continue that momentum.” 

He added, “Jason leaves us with a strong culture of creative consistency, and I look forward to building on that. We wish him nothing but the best as he steps up to bigger and better things in the Groupe.”

Meanwhile, Montgomery noted, “Jason has been foundational to the creative success of Leo Burnett in Australia and we are thrilled to see this success recognised in this new role. We are also delighted to have Andy expand his creative leadership to take on the National ECD role. Andy’s progressive thinking and generous style, partnered with our borderless creative team, set the scene for an exciting next chapter.”

Singapore – Fyllo, a marketing and regulatory solutions company, has appointed Robert Woolfrey, former senior vice president of Asia (Division of Singtel) at advertising and martech platform Amobee, to be its new managing director for APAC. 

In his new role, Woolfrey will be opening and leading the company’s business in the region, and will be reporting to Jeff Ragovin, Fyllo’s chief commercial officer.

Woolfrey has nearly 20 years of experience growing and directing business operations across APAC. During his stint at Amobee, he was responsible for integrating two global acquisitions, Turn and Videology, and spearheading the agency’s expansion across Asia. In that role, Woolfrey has also played an integral role in building partnerships with telcos, TV broadcasters, publishers, brands, and agencies, as well as executing cutting-edge, award-winning digital campaigns for brands.

Woolfrey noted, “Many of the brightest – and progressive – brands today are in Asia. This represents an immediate opportunity for Fyllo, where we can demonstrate our combined marketing and regulatory expertise.”

Meanwhile, Chad Bronstein, Fyllo’s founder and CEO, shared that as Fyllo continues to expand across the globe, they are looking for the best talent that fully understands the local and regional context, and can make the connection between high-growth brands and progressive consumers.

“Robert is perfectly suited for the challenge, and has a strong track record in building businesses and developing partnerships across the region. We are looking forward to Robert bringing the Fyllo story to life in the Asia Pacific,” said Bronstein.