Tag: APAC

Singapore – Initiative, a media agency within IPG Mediabrands, has announced their appointment as the media agency of record for global technology and manufacturing company 3M in the Asia-Pacific region

Initiative’s scope, which extends to 13 markets, will cover all media and buying duties for the portfolio of brands across 3M’s Consumer Business Group segment. The markets they will cover include South Korea, Japan, Australia, India, Singapore, and more.

“Marketing at 3M is on a transformation journey to enhance our digital footprint, accelerate our go-to-market execution, and optimize scale and efficiency. We are very pleased to have Initiative as our media partner, who bring strategic thinking, agility, and understanding of diverse consumer targets, making them a great fit for 3M Asia Pacific’s consumer business,” said Chitkala Nishandar, director, APAC marketing centre at 3M-CBG.

Commenting on the appointment, James Smyllie, president of Initiative APAC, said, “3M is a globally established company that is known for its extraordinary culture of innovation, one that has led to breakthrough solutions for consumers and businesses around the world. We are thrilled to partner with 3M on a strategically unified marketing approach using Initiative’s new Fame & Flow model.”

Initiative’s regional appointment to 3M is effective immediately.

Singapore –  Around 50% of Gen Alpha and 43% of Gen Z in APAC cited gaming as making them feel better if they’re anxious or stressed, according to the new research conducted by youth-first marketing and media platform TotallyAwesome. 

Based on the data, Gen Alpha and Gen Z consider gaming a better way to relieve their stress and anxiety as compared to talking to family members (28% and 21%, respectively), as well as talking to friends (28% and 32%, respectively). 

These trends are impacting several markets in APAC, where Vietnam came out on top with 60% of Gen Z youth turning to gaming to ease their anxiety and stress, followed by the Philippines and Malaysia at 56%, South Korea at 49%, and Singapore and Malaysia both at 47%. 

The research also reveals how gaming has become gender agnostic, especially amongst Gen Alpha, where 46% of girls use gaming to relieve anxiety, which is extremely close to boys, who sit at 54%.

Furthermore, Gen Alpha (52%) and Gen Z (48%) cite gaming as a way to feel more connected with their friends and family. This data is especially relevant for parents, who hold purchasing power when it comes to these demographics.

The youth in APAC are increasingly placing more value in gaming compared to other channels when building connections. However, the expansion of the commercial gaming industry influences streaming services as well, underscoring heightened participation among the youth who are exploring the gaming ecosystem for content. 

The research reveals that the big players are still dominant across APAC, with 77% of Gen Alpha and 76% of Gen Z citing YouTube as their most used streaming channel, compared to only 6% and 8% going to Twitch.

TotallyAwesome’s Youth-first Digital Insights highlight the impact of these nascent trends on advertisers in the region. APAC is the world’s largest gaming market, with total revenues exceeding US$84b in 2022. 

The data revealed in this study presents a significant prospect for tapping into the market’s potential by connecting with these consumers through well-thought-out advertising approaches that effectively connect with the younger demographics of Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Will Anstee, TotallyAwesome’s executive chairman, said, “Our Youth-first Digital Insights underscores the gaming industry’s profound influence on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. When it comes to forging a sense of community and self-expression, young people are increasingly looking to gaming as the most important space for social bonding. Gaming is no longer just gaming – it’s their new social.”

“Our extensive research shows that parents are more digitally literate than ever and are increasingly concerned with cyberbullying, highlighting a demand for safe online environments that provide an outlet for positive play. Brands need to be brave and step into gaming in a way that considers the myriad concerns and needs Youth have. These rich insights help Brands and media agencies alike to gain a better understanding of young people’s appetites and how best to support their passions,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Raja Kanniappan, TotallyAwesome’s newly appointed chief executive officer, commented, “TotallyAwesome has been conducting our Youth-first Digital Insights for 8 years. We have built a deep understanding of the attitudes and behaviours of youth across Asia Pacific. We work with marketers and media agencies to take these rich insights and learnings to enable Brands to connect with Youth in a safe, relevant and effective way. If you want to capture the hearts and minds of Youth and build meaningful and long-lasting relationships – you need to get into gaming. It’s their now and their future.”

Sydney, Australia – Hotwire, the global technology communications and marketing consultancy, announced the appointment of Melissa Cullen to the new role of managing director of communications for the Asia-Pacific region. 

In her new position, Cullen will be responsible for Hotwire’s business in Australia and will expand its reputation and relationship services footprint across APAC. 

Cullen will work alongside Anol Bhattacharya, managing director of marketing in APAC, to deepen the consultancy’s offerings in communications strategy, public relations, media relations, digital marketing, crisis and issue management, content production, executive thought leadership services, account-based marketing, corporate narrative platforms, and influencer management. 

Heather Kernahan, global chief executive officer of Hotwire, said, “We were looking for an experienced tech communications leader with the drive and ambition to expand our communications and public relations services in both capabilities and reach as we build with clients across Asia Pacific.”

“Mel’s experience in running her own agency for more than a decade, her work as a senior communications strategist with global tech brands and her leadership role in the PR industry are a fantastic combination that bring value and expertise to Hotwire clients and our team,” Kernahan continues. 

Prior to her appointment, Cullen worked in senior roles at Icon Agency, Finchco and Ogilvy, leading on major clients including Salesforce, Westpac and Microsoft. She was also the co-founder and managing director of Res Publica, where she spent fifteen years designing and delivering successful communications programs for some of Australia and the world’s best-known brands and businesses, including Lion, Unilever, Westpac, Jurlique, Priceline and Gatorade.  

Throughout her career, Cullen also held several leadership roles within the Australian public relations industry, including Chair of the Public Relations Council and Board Member of The Communications Council.

On her recent appointment, Cullen shares, “I am thrilled to be joining Hotwire to lead our communications services across APAC into an exciting new growth chapter.  Hotwire is a truly global agency with deep expertise in technology communications and marketing and I am really looking forward to partnering with our clients to share their stories of success and deliver real commercial impact.” 

Singapore – Wunderman Thompson, a WPP agency, announced the appointment of Audrey Kuah as its new chief executive officer of Asia-Pacific. 

In her new role, Kuah will oversee the creative and strategic growth of the business across the APAC region. She will be based in Singapore and will report to Wunderman’s global CEO, Mel Edwards. 

Kuah’s expertise in marketing and advertising has been deployed across industries and geographies for more than two decades. 

Kuah joins Wunderman Thompson from OCBC Bank, where she formerly served as head, group marketing, global consumer and financial services, responsible for driving business and growth-focused marketing initiatives. During her time at OCBC, she delivered creatively driven, integrated campaigns that were inspired by consumer insights with personalisation at the core. 

She also partnered with OCBC’s group brand and communications team to design the consumer arm’s experience in Decentraland, OCBCx65Chulia. Kuah also spent eight years prior at Dentsu, where she was recognised as one of The Drum’s Top 100 Digital Marketers in the World (2019). 

Mel Edwards, global CEO of Wunderman Thompson, says, “Having worked both client and agency side, Audrey understands and appreciates the dynamics of working with leading global brands. We’ll have the best of both worlds for our people and our clients in APAC with Audrey at the helm, and I have no doubt she will bring her joy for creative problem solving to combine our creative offering and capabilities to drive growth in the region.” 

Meanwhile, Kuah also commented on her appointment, saying, “My journey in marketing and advertising jump started at J. Walter Thompson Singapore, I’m delighted to come full circle and lead the network’s operations across Asia Pacific. It’s not often this kind of opportunity presents itself, let alone for a network as progressive as Wunderman Thompson. The depth and breadth of the capabilities Wunderman Thompson has to offer is unmatched, and I look forward to working with both teams and clients to deliver their vision in one of the most dynamic and fast growing regions in the world.” 

Kuah will start her role at Wunderman Thompson at the beginning of September. She will be taking over from global president and EMEA CEO Ewen Sturgeon, who was acting as interim APAC CEO.

She is currently on the board of the Singapore Tourism Board and was most recently on the board of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore International. 

Singapore – Social and media intelligence firm Meltwater has recently appointed two senior hires to spearhead its customer journey and business functions, as well as to bolster their footprint in the APAC region.

The new appointments are Huixian Yang as customer experience director, and Jeff Piniros as sales development director. These appointments are in line with Meltwater’s expansion in the area, which has been centered on Southeast Asia and Japan. 

In their new roles. Yang will be using her data-driven methodology to deliver exceptional customer service and help define Meltwater’s worldwide framework for customer success. Meanwhile, Piniros will be in charge of developing the pipeline in order to support revenue and growth objectives and develop the upcoming sales talent.

Commenting on both appointments, David Hickey, executive director of Meltwater, said, “Huixian and Jeff will be pivotal in steering the company through our next phase of growth. With the recent launch of Meltwater’s powerful new Enterprise Intelligence Suite in the region, we have also welcomed a slew of key enterprise clients. We plan to continue building on our best-in-class artificial intelligence, natural language processing, computer vision and inference models to expand our capabilities and serve the evolving marketing needs of organizations.”

These hires follow Meltwater’s 52% growth in new business for APAC in Q2 2023, with companies such as PGAG, Shang Properties, and Inquirer.net employing their influencer management platforms, and AI-powered ‘Engage’ and ‘Explore’ services.

Singapore – Following a slew of recent senior appointments, Bondee has just announced the appointment of Lionel Sim as head of commercial.

In this role, Sim will be managing all corporate partnerships and commercial initiatives, backing Bondee’s efforts to further drive engagement with users and brands across the region.

With a career spanning more than 15 years in digital media and advertising, Lionel has held key roles in global tech firms, including Apple, Tencent, and TikTok, that operate in a variety of markets such as Singapore, Japan, China, the United States, and Australia. His proficiency in English, Mandarin, and Bahasa Indonesia reflects also his cross-cultural competence, which has been instrumental in fostering collaboration with international teams.

Speaking on his new position, Sim said, “I’m really excited and grateful to be taking on this role at Bondee, which lines up perfectly with what I’m passionate about. I love building businesses and bringing communities together, and I’m looking forward to forging win-win partnerships that will add value and deliver joy to Bondee users. We are actively listening to customer feedback and embracing the opportunity to work hand in hand with partners to shape innovative commercial models together.”

Meanwhile, Fei Yu, the newly appointed CEO of Bondee, commented, “Lionel brings years of experience in establishing partnerships that drive growth for all partners, aligning perfectly with Bondee’s strategic goals. Bondee is super focused on hiring talented individuals who share our vision,  and we believe Lionel will effectively leverage his extensive global background to build highly-valuable collaborations with businesses to drive monetization at Bondee.” 

Sydney, Australia – Data collaboration platform LiveRamp has announced an expanded partnership with visual inspiration platform Pinterest, to offer a better global integration for advertisers to reach their audiences on Pinterest’s platform globally. 

Through the partnership, marketers will be able to reach their customers on Pinterest with seamless activation on RampID, LiveRamp’s pseudonymous, people-based identifier.

The partnership between LiveRamp and Pinterest will now span APAC markets of Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Marketers in the region will now be able to easily activate Pinterest as a destination via LiveRamp.

The expansion aims to  improve measurement and analytics for advertisers and create more opportunities for brands to derive value from first-party data within the APAC region. At a time when ROI matters more than ever, APAC  marketers can benefit from the performance and access to insights enabled by this partnership.

“We’re excited to continue building on the momentum of our privacy-centric data collaboration with LiveRamp. We’re now enabling even more marketers around the world to activate on Pinterest without compromising on control or privacy,” said Bill Watkins, chief revenue officer at Pinterest. “Global marketers can build better campaigns with LiveRamp and Pinterest today. They can also build campaigns with the confidence that this partnership is sustainable beyond third-party cookie deprecation and other ecosystem shifts.”

“In this evolving macroeconomic climate, every dollar marketers spend must be addressable and measurable, and we’re excited to offer marketers across the world the ability to seamlessly leverage RampID, enabling better campaigns,” said Travis Clinger, SVP, activations & addressability, LiveRamp. “By building on identity that can power better data collaboration in the future, marketers can begin building enduring brand and business value.”

Singapore – Global adtech firm Quantcast released its ‘Asia Pacific 2023 Advertising State of Play Report’, which discussed the future of digital advertising, the challenges and opportunities lie ahead for advertisers and agencies, where brands are planning ad spend this financial year, and what barriers stand in the way of programmatic video adoption.

In the report, Quantcast found out that key challenges and barriers were the need to prove return of investment (ROI)/performance and effectiveness, while personalising ads and finding new audiences amidst the global economic downturn.

APAC marketers and agencies identified and are looking to invest in several opportunities including performance-led advertising, business growth, and investing in easy-to-use tools, with programmatic video and search expected to grow significantly in APAC over the next year, particularly as social channels remain critical in countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

With this, data suggests that OTT investment in APAC is expected to grow from US$4.3 billion to US$7.2 billion between 2020 and 2026 – a 67% increase within six years. Linear TV and radio are likely to see the largest decline in media investment, as advertisers lean towards digital experiences. 

Preparing for a cookie-less world is also a priority, with nearly 60% of agencies and just under 43% of brand-side marketers naming it as their top priority for FY 23/24, focusing on cookie-less advertising solutions and getting audience insights through first-party data over the next 12 months.

Sonal Patel, vice president of Quantcast, APAC, said, “In the coming months, we’re expecting to see advertisers continually asked to deliver more value, navigate more technological changes, and get on top of changing consumer behaviour to maximise advertising outcomes. To get ahead, APAC marketers will need to seize the opportunities to build their brands now. Businesses that increase advertising activities during downturns can snag market share from more conservative brands.

Singapore – Customer engagement platform Twilio announced that it will enable companies to create personalized, customer-aware experiences powered by OpenAI.

Through this integration, Twilio clients will be able to use OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to fuel new generative capabilities in ‘Twilio Engage’, the company’s multichannel marketing solution built on the segment customer data platform, as a result of this integration. 

This collaboration with OpenAI will formalize opportunities that many in Twilio’s community of more than 10 million developers have already been experimenting with. For instance, it’s possible to build a ChatGPT plugin for Twilio, which gives users the ability to access Twilio directly from ChatGPT’s interface, creating a new channel for brands to serve their customers better.

Furthermore, developers can create voice-activated chatbots, and feature capabilities can even range to build  serverless SMS chatbots. These builds validate the potential of OpenAI and Twilio’s ongoing and aligned efforts, and the value it can bring to customers looking to enhance customer engagement strategies.

Talking about the integration, Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, said, “Experiences like ChatGPT are coming to the enterprise to power groundbreaking experiences in sales, service, content, marketing and more. Twilio CustomerAI enables companies to build customer-aware interactions – giving the language models context about the customer they’re helping. Without customer-awareness, any ChatGPT-like experiences would be generic and unhelpful. But with CustomerAI, companies can transform LLMs into the most helpful, knowledgeable agent imaginable at scale.”

Meanwhile, Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, commented, “As AI drives down the cost of intelligence, it is increasingly possible for companies to deliver a deeply personalized experience for every customer. We know how much people want this, and we’re happy to be working with Twilio to bring it to the world. Twilio’s customer data platform will enable today’s and tomorrow’s large language models to unlock deep personalization at scale for every business.”

Singapore – Advertising agency McCann Worldgroup has announced the appointment of Shilpa Sinha as the new chief strategy officer of the APAC region. 

In her new role at McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, Sinha will be taking the reins from former CSO Richard McCabe, and will be bringing her two decades of experience in marketing strategy to the table.

Sinha is an experienced global marketer and strategist with a strong track record working in major markets including India, UK, China and Russia, for agencies including Grey, FCB and Ogilvy. She served as Head of Strategy & Transformation for McCann Moscow before the agency closed its operations in Russia in 2022. 

Sinha has also held a unique combination of senior roles in brand management at Unilever and strategic planning leadership at prominent agency networks, bearing experience in building leader and challenger brands across diverse categories, and even winning the first ever Gold Cannes Lion for any IPG agency in Russia.

Ghassan Harfouche, President of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, said, “I’m so excited to have Shilpa move back to our region and know that her global experience and emphasis on effectiveness will add significantly to our client work.”

Meanwhile, Harjot Singh, global CSO of McCann Worldgroup commented, Having worked with Shilpa for six years, I’m thrilled that she is taking the baton. She has a proven track record in key global markets, including regional powerhouses, China and India, and combines creative smarts with rigour and passion. I can’t think of a better person to help our APAC brands earn a meaningful role in people’s lives.”

Speaking on her own promotion, Sinha stated, “After eight years away, I am excited to be back in vibrant Asia, one of the significant growth engines in the dynamically evolving world order. It’s amazing to have the opportunity to move within the McCann Worldgroup family and work on our incredible brands. I’m really looking forward to hitting the ground running.”