Tag: APAC

Hong Kong – Recognizing that people’s needs and behaviors are changing globally, Tatler Asia, the renowned luxury lifestyle media and publisher of the iconic Tatler magazines, is reinventing itself to deliver more values-driven content. 

According to Tatler’s CEO, Michel Lamunière, over the last five years, they have witnessed first-hand a shift in people’s outlook on media and lifestyle preferences.

With this in mind, Tatler had initiated a 2000-respondent survey of luxury consumers, and on response, will now be putting more focus on topics with purpose, such as female empowerment, sustainability, equality, and LGBTQ, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship.

True to its trademark, Tatler will continue engaging with influential consumers, business leaders, creatives, and personalities, who are shaping Asia’s future, but will now increase its younger audience base to reach the region’s mass affluent, appealing to individuals from a greater cross-section of communities, industries, and walks of life.

Lamunière said, “As a legacy brand, it is our role to redefine media for the future, introduce new initiatives and lead conversations that matter.”

The recent survey also confirmed Tatler’s approach to adding new channels across multiple platforms with alternative business models that go beyond print and digital media. New initiatives are being rolled out in markets, with some piloted and launched, and others set to be introduced by the end of 2022.

Tatler said that one of the most successful spin-offs is its feature Tatler Dining, which is particularly relevant since dining consistently ranks among the top hobbies across demographics, incomes, and regions. Its initiatives include Tatler Dining Kitchen, a culinary hub for food lovers to experience unique off-menu dining, and exclusive collaborations, while The Tatler Bar is a curated online and offline platform designed for the drink connoisseur. 

Within the festival space, OffMenu is an event that mixes local and international F&B trailblazers, chefs, and mixologists, with eclectic entertainment. Outside of F&B, Tatler is also introducing wellness events in collaboration with fitness brands and experts through the sub-brand Tatler Roots.

In addition, Tatler has recently introduced branded VIP venues such as Tatler House, where intimate luxury gatherings, dinners, roundtables, and product activations, among others, take place. It also provides an exclusive ‘second home’ for the group’s community to come together and experience the Tatler brand in real life. Tatler House is located in Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, and Malaysia, with more to open across the region in the coming year. 

Meanwhile, diversifying into e-commerce, Tatler Unlisted offers exclusive time-limited products and experiences for Tatler audiences, and the brand is also exploring rewards programs following the launch of UnitedWeDine last year, which was curated to support the F&B industry in Hong Kong.

Lamunière noted, “Our ultimate goal is to empower Asia’s most influential and affluent communities to live their best life and make a positive impact on the world.”

In September this year, Tatler has also launched its new website – a global platform that provides each location personalized content. It is designed to increase engagement with millennials and Gen Z audiences, featuring interactive and dynamic elements.

Singapore – Global web recommendation platform, Outbrain, has appointed Shouneel Charles, former executive vice president and business head digital at Time Group’s television division Times Network, to assume the position of managing director for its India arm

Charles brings more than 20 years of digital and media expertise, setting up large digital ecosystems, digital news publishing models, and profitable internet, as well as mobile-based businesses.

Aside from his previous role at Times Network, he worked as the chief revenue officer and chief sales and marketing officer at news media company NDTV, as well as the national sales head of Yahoo India, and as director at HBO & Warner Brothers India.

In his new role, Charles will be responsible for driving Outbrain’s revenue, business strategy, and digital growth.

Commenting on his appointment, Charles said that he will bring his skills to bear in the native advertising and digital ad tech spaces.

“Outbrain India is primed for rapid growth and I am privileged to now be a part of it. I hope to not only see business increase but also to be instrumental in the next phase of growth for Outbrain across India,” said Charles.

Andrew Burke, Outbrain’s managing director for APAC and growth markets, said, “We’re sure that with his impressive background in this region, he will help us continue to provide the best service across the open web.”

Hong Kong – Global news company South China Morning Post (SCMP) has appointed David Wightman, former group director of business operations at independent marketing and media consultancy Ebiquity, to assume the newly created role of global head of advertising.

Wightman brings more than two decades of industry experience, gained at the intersection of media, data, and technology. He has previously built and led local and international sales and operations teams within digital and traditional media companies. 

Aside from his previous role at Ebiquity, Wightman has worked as the managing director of GroupM’s audience intelligence and activation solution arm [M]Platform, where he launched and scaled the regional programmatic, data, and technology division of GroupM APAC. He has also worked as the chief operating officer of sports publication GiveMeSport, where he overhauled the editorial and content marketing approach, increasing readership, revenues, and investment.

In his new role, Wightman will be spearheading the ongoing growth and international expansion of SCMP’s global advertising business, leading a department spanning Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia, the USA, and Europe. He will also be overseeing the company’s global media sales, marketing, and creative solutions, as well as branded content, and advertising technology, among others.

Commenting on his appointment, Wightman said that he is energized and enthused to be joining SCMP.

“The award-winning history of the brand, coupled with an innovative approach to how we harness data and technology, offers an unprecedented opportunity. I believe the future is very exciting for our company, our advertising partners, and our audiences,” added Wightman.

Gary Liu, SCMP’s CEO, commented that they are delighted to add a leader of Wightman’s global expertise and reputation, and they look forward to broadening their business reach and international relevance with his strategic, operational, and commercial experience.

“His C-suite exposure across the EMEA and APAC markets will greatly benefit SCMP’s growing portfolio of international clients,” said Liu.

Just recently, the news company’s advertising arm announced the launch of the next version of its existing brand sustainability tool, SIGNAL 2.0, which features a suite of new functions to help drive optimization for advertisers and brands in their return of investment (ROI).

Singapore – CM Group, a portfolio of martech companies focused on multichannel digital marketing, has announced that it will now be merging with customer engagement solution provider, Cheetah Digital, under the CM Group name.

The merger aims to expand and enhance both CM Group’s and Cheetah Digital’s ability to deliver innovative email, omnichannel, and personalization, as well as loyalty solutions. Both will be owning a broad array of technologies, which orchestrate marketer communications with client segments across multiple channels. 

Following the merger, the company will also be planning significant investments across the portfolio to bring new products to its base of more than 70,000 active customers. As marketers increasingly seek multi- and omnichannel technology solutions to meet modern customer expectations, CM Group will be expanding its primary focus from email marketing to overall customer engagement and give marketers the ability to acquire, engage, and retain customers through the channels that matter most. 

Moreover, Cheetah Digital’s Customer Engagement Suite solutions, which includes experiences, personalization, loyalty, and the engagement data platform, will help accelerate the pace of innovation across CM Group’s existing products, enabling customer organizations of all sizes to meet the needs of modern consumers. It will also expand CM Group’s reach into the large enterprise segment across key verticals including retail, e-commerce, media, publishing, and financial services, as well as travel, and hospitality, among others.

Wellford Dillard, CM Group’s CEO, shared that the merger with Cheetah Digital means CM Group will be well-positioned to meet the needs of customers of all sizes and shapes, and will continue to be the group’s marketing technology partner as it grows by delivering the right technology at the right time, tailored to its industry and built for the scale at which they operate.

“By keeping each CM Group product distinct and focused on specific verticals or market segments, we deliver superior solutions, expertise, and outcomes for customers when compared to the large volume of generalist solutions in the market today,” said Dillard. 

Meanwhile, Peter McCormick, the executive chairman at Cheetah Digital, believes that CM Group’s ‘home for every marketer’ model is a completely unique approach in the industry and in broader martech, and this merger offers them the opportunity to bring immense innovation to the customers within the CM Group portfolio through an expanded suite of product offerings.

“The momentum of our ‘innovation engine’ at Cheetah will develop these solutions beyond email to bring net-new value for our customers,” said McCormick.

Singapore – Rakuten SQREEM Inc, the joint venture between AI solutions company SQREEM Technologies and e-commerce platform Rakuten Group, has launched ‘RMP – SQREEM Ads’, a new advertising product that offers deeper insights and significantly more targeted media buying.

‘RMP – SQREEM Ads’ combines the behavioral pattern analysis data based on more than 100 million Rakuten members in Japan with SQREEM’s AI behavioral pattern analysis capabilities, to provide insights that will enable advertisers including Rakuten Group’s Japanese vendors and partners to understand at an anonymized individual level what products and services consumers want to buy.

Through the new product, SQREEM will now be able to help companies understand their behavioral pattern analysis data accumulated by them at scale and speed, and will be able to enrich data on platforms and analyze it within a week, all without ever accessing data that sits behind clients’ secure firewalls. This will also allow companies to monetize the valuable trove of first-party data they may have but are unable to use in a meaningful manner, as the enrichment technology by SQREEM has been used by dozens of multinational organizations.

Ian Chapman-Banks, SQREEM Technologies’ CEO and co-founder, believes that SQREEM’s technology can help companies by providing and powering targeting and insights for their vendors, partners, and clients. According to Chapman-Banks, their AI technology has already produced very successful results for dozens of multinational clients, enriching their data to generate important insights that help optimize their marketing and sales funnel strategy.

“From identifying the target audience to predicting higher purchase intentions, having a strategy to maximize the value of companies’ data will help businesses take advantage of significant opportunities and deliver business success,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Ryugen Shimizu, the CEO and president of Rakuten SQREEM Inc, commented, “This is the first of a suite of products we’re planning to launch. We’re very excited to see this 12-month project come to fruition and help our clients in Japan create impactful, relevant touchpoints with consumers.”

Singapore – ONE Esports, the esports media company, has partnered with top online food and grocery delivery platform foodpanda, to create a new multi-part docuseries on esports called ‘Heroes of the Game’, which tackles the ‘ONE Esports Dota 2 Singapore Major’ event held in March this year.

The new docuseries features exclusive never-before-seen footage, including behind-the-scenes strategies, victories, and secrets, as well as challenges that the esports heroes had to face during the tournament in the Dota 2 series. The two-part documentary follows three teams as they compete as the ONE Esports Dota 2 Singapore Major, namely Evil Geniuses, Fnatic, and OB Neon.

Moreover, the viewers will be getting a behind-the-scenes look from inside the ‘bubble’ at the Fairmont Hotel in Singapore. It includes exclusive interviews with players, coaches, and industry veterans telling the story of the highs and lows of their journey through the tournament, which had a prize pool of US$500k. 

ONE Esports said that the Singapore Major is one of two majors that enables teams to qualify for The International, which will be held in Romania in October 2021 with a prize pool of over US$40m.

Carlos Alimurung, ONE Esports’ CEO, commented that they are delighted to continue their partnership with foodpanda, and they are not only immortalizing the iconic ONE Esports Dota 2 Singapore Major in film through the docuseries but also giving viewers an inside look at what it takes to compete at the highest level of esports. 

“Ultimately, compelling storytelling is the key to opening esports up to a wider audience and enabling them to appreciate the diligence, uniqueness, and achievements of its athletes. Heroes of the Game is a perfect example of this effort to broaden the appeal of the sport,” said Alimurung.

Idan Haim, foodpanda’s vice president of growth and marketing, said, “We are thrilled to be teaming up with ONE Esports to connect with foodpanda users in the esports arena. As Asia’s largest food and grocery delivery platform, we are the go-to partner for gamers to refuel with their favorite food and snacks, delivered straight to their doorsteps.”

The docuseries has already been released on ONE Esports’ social channels including Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube, and will soon be premiering on regional broadcast channels including eGG Network, One Sports Philippines, PPTV HD36 Thailand, and Astro, as well as RTM Sports Malaysia, and Eleven Sports Taiwan.

Singapore – Shopmatic has announced an exclusive partnership with VMLY&R, the global brand and customer experience agency, to launch a co-branded commerce platform, a one-click, channel-neutral commerce solution for WPP’s client partners.

The agreement will make VMLY&R the only agency or consulting network to deliver an end-to-end commerce solution to clients, from its Commercial Growth Consulting offering to completing actual transactions and last-mile logistics.

Through the partnership, VMLY&R will be rolling out solution stacks on the platform that span from social through rural commerce, with general trade commerce on-boarding by the end of the year.

“The partnership with VMLY&R gives us access to the world’s largest companies, such as Unilever, Kraft Heinz, Ford, and Swaraj Tractors, and more importantly, comes with VMLY&R’s ability to drive volume and value through our co-branded platform,” commented Anurag Avula, Shopmatic’s co-founder and CEO.

Hari Ramanathan, the chief strategy and transformation officer at VMLY&R Asia, said that partnering with Shopmatic allows them to move clients to very margin-friendly direct-to-consumer and third-party models.

“Combined with our existing growth-hacking solution for marketplaces, we can co-own commercial outcomes with brand owners, rather than simply selling our products and services. With Shopmatic, we are entering a new era for commerce partnerships with clients,” said Ramanathan. 

Beth Ann Kaminkow, VMLY&R Commerce’s global CEO and VMLY&R New York’s CEO, noted, “With Shopmatic’s diverse commerce platforms, be it chat, social, webstores, or marketplaces, we can now offer our clients solutions in all the places their customers are, not only streamlining the experience but improving every interaction a customer has with our clients’ brands.”

According to Shopmatic, in its seven years of operations, the platform has onboarded one million merchants and clocked US$400m in gross merchandise value (GMV), and is set on its path to cross the five million merchants mark over the next three years with US$3b GMV.

The new co-branded commerce platform will be launching in India by the end of this year and will roll out globally shortly after.

Hong Kong – In celebration of International Day of the Girl, commemorated every 11 October to promote the rights of girls, Kotex, the feminine hygiene brand, has launched a new campaign in APAC that aims to amplify girls’ voices, fight period stigma within society, and spark conversation on building girls’ bright future through education.

Titled ‘#GirlUnrestricted’, the campaign includes a region-wide video that encourages girls to embrace their uniqueness and experience girlhood on their own terms followed by local market activations. In Hong Kong, Kotex has also launched a dedicated website for puberty education. With informative and light-hearted videos, it aims to break the period stigma and to reassure girls of their possibilities.

Stella Chun, Kimberly-Clark’s general manager for Hong Kong, believes that a girlhood unrestricted is a girlhood full of possibilities and envision a more forgiving world where girls can live every adventure, and this is in line with Kotex’s purpose to remove barriers to girls’ progress.

Remarking on the East Asia market specifically, Chun said, “Girls in Hong Kong feel they do not have access to information about their bodies and health. Through our puberty education website and education programs, we aim to enhance access to information about female health for girls and improve key outcomes in the areas of education and health and wellness.”

Based on research conducted by Kotex, Gen Z teen girls in APAC are growing up under unprecedented pressure. It highlights that the classic struggles of puberty are amplified today against a backdrop of issues that range from climate change to cyber-bullying and unrealistic societal expectations.

Singapore – APAC Martech brand Techsun, which provides solutions for consumer marketing, consumer data, and marketing process automation has launched in Southeast Asia with a new headquarters in Singapore. In conjunction with the regional expansion, Techsun has also rolled out a new product built for SMEs.

The new product is an expansion of Techsun’s flagship product, Social Hub, a cloud-native customer understanding and engagement SaaS for omnichannel retailers and brands. It is an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Data Platform (CDP) solution and enables brands to have a 360 degree understanding of their customers by managing and analyzing relevant customer data across multiple online to offline (O2O) touchpoints such as transactions in-store and in-app, official and authorized reseller websites, social media channels as well as payment platforms. 

Deepening brand loyalty is also part of Social Hub’s value proposition via its omnichannel personalized customer messaging, automated precision marketing, and management of promotion initiatives and loyalty programs such as membership points and discount coupons. 

The expansion to Southeast Asia marks the martech’s first regional office outside of China and is considered as a stepping stone to the greater APAC region.

Ivan Zhou, Techsun’s general manager for APAC, commented that they see great potential for Techsun in the SEA region due to its growing regional economy and a strong business community. 

“With Social Hub, we aim to be the solution of choice for both the global brands and the large SME market in the region. We want to utilize the experience we gained working with numerous global brands in China and the APAC region and help businesses in Singapore as well as the rest of Southeast Asia,” Zhou said. 

Zhou added that its SaaS promises better value with less than 20% of what big companies are charging and is confident that it will go a long way in “uplifting the retail landscape in Asia.”

He also remarked on democratizing tech for SMEs, “SMEs may not be as prolific as MNCs but they are important engines of growth in Southeast Asia. Technology is a key competitive advantage for brands, especially in the new retail era, and we want to democratize access to the same cutting-edge solutions that big brands have been using for SMEs so that they can equalize the playing field.”

SMEs can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Social Hub on Techsun’s website.

Singapore – TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the Los Angeles-headquartered creative agency solely dedicated to Apple, has named a new executive creative director for the Asia-Pacific region, Kenny Blumenschein. Blumenschein was most recently from advertising agency Energy BBDO, and before that, worked for Facebook as its creative strategist for the Greater China Region for almost three years.

TBWA\Media Arts Lab currently operates in 25 markets globally, with five regional hubs outside its HQ—London, Miami, Singapore, Shanghai, and Tokyo. The agency solely creates work for the tech and smartphone giant Apple.

As the new ECD for APAC, Blumenschein will be based out of the Singapore hub and will be partnering with Managing Director, Michaela Futcher and reporting into Global Chief Creative Officer, Brent Anderson.

At Energy BBDO, Blumenschein held the same role of ECD alongside being the agency’s senior vice president. During his time there, he notably worked on the award-winning Wrigley’s ‘For when it’s time’ campaign. Meanwhile, at Facebook, he assisted global brands in crafting their stories and reaching business objectives through Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to his LinkedIn.

Blumenschein said that joining Media Arts Lab is a no-brainer as he always had a ‘crush’ on the agency.

“It’s a very rare opportunity to work on such an iconic brand with the smartest and nicest people in our industry. To do this in APAC, which is one of the most diverse, fastest-growing, and exciting regions is a further privilege,” he said.

Blumenschein is of Thai and German descent. He has amassed experience across multiple continents, including Europe, North America, and Asia, bringing with him valuable global perspective to his work. Aside from his most recent roles at Energy BBDO and Facebook, he also previously held posts at Ogilvy as ECD Digital & Content, and as head of creative at VMLY&R. Back in Germany, Kenny has also spent time at BBDO and Isobar.

In the new role, he will be working with teams stretching across the APAC, from India to Australia, to develop business building and culture-defining work for one of the world’s most recognizable global brands.

Futcher commented, “This part of the world couldn’t be more important to us, and ensuring that we have the creative firepower to deliver on our ambitions has been a critical focus. I’m so excited to have found someone of Kenny’s creative caliber, humanity, and experience to help us do that. His background as a ‘cultural chameleon’ is critical to us unlocking the diverse opportunities across a region as vast as APAC.”

Meanwhile, Anderson said, “Kenny is a strategic, innovative, and artful creative leader with great instincts and taste. He’s led dynamic, modern teams across agencies both in Asia and North America. He’s spearheaded cultural, integrated work that breaks through for challenging clients. Kenny is a creative soul with a reputation of mentoring, building atmospheres wherein creativity thrives and protecting great ideas.”