Tag: Asia Pacific

Singapore – International travel, lifestyle, and accessories brand TUMI recently opened two new airport outlets in South Korea and Thailand, along with the announcement of two more locations in major international airports throughout Asia-Pacific. 

These openings mark TUMI’s commitment to delivering sleek, sophisticated and inviting spaces to travellers, redefining and reinvigorating travel retail with an expanded and refreshed presence at major international airports throughout Asia.

Going into detail, the first two stores opened on May 1, 2024 at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport and Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, which both showcase TUMI’s evolution as a sleek and sophisticated global performance luxury brand, while providing a comfortable and easy-to-navigate environment to browse the wide range of products curated to meet the needs of discerning travellers.

On the other hand, scheduled to open in late May, the new store at Soekarno–Hatto International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, joins various duty-free shops and restaurants inside its largest and newest Terminal 3. This will then be followed by the new store at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, slated to open in mid-June, which will feature a similarly sleek design in a high-traffic location inside the country’s second-busiest airport.

Talking about these openings, Aris Maroulis, vice president for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at TUMI, said, “The latest openings at Incheon International Airport and Suvarnabhumi Airport are a testament to TUMI’s ongoing commitment to creating unique and exceptional experiences for our international customers through our high-performance products and stores.”

“With more launches coming soon at Soekarno–Hatto International Airport in Jakarta and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, which are also among the busiest in the region, travel retail will continue to be a key focus through thoughtfully planned and skilfully executed designs that bring customers into our world and speak to the way they travel today,” he added.

Hong Kong – FINN Partners, a global integrated marketing and communications agency, has promoted Annouchka Behrmann, a former senior partner, to managing partner, Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Cathy Feliciano-Chon will take on a new job as managing partner, strategic development, Asia Pacific, after her former position as managing partner and Greater China Lead. 

In her new position, Behrmann’s duties include developing the capabilities and services available to clients, especially in corporate communications and purpose, and improving and growing FINN’s leadership position in travel and tourism, hospitality, design, wellness, and luxury. She will also focus on expanding the agency’s product offerings into other industries, such as consumer, B2B, technology, and health. 

After joining FINN in October 2023, Behrmann—a industry veteran with a track record of growing brands and agencies in Asia Pacific—successfully won major new business wins for the Hong Kong office.

Chon will broaden her responsibilities as managing partner, strategic development, Asia Pacific, concentrating on business development, brand strategy, and thought leadership initiatives to strengthen the agency’s presence in the area. 

As a component of FINN Asia’s management team, Feliciano-Chon joined FINN in 2019 as a managing partner. She has played a role in establishing FINN’s standing as a global leader in travel and tourism, with a portfolio of brands, and a current size and revenue ranking of #1. As a thought leader, she has created important industry tools and trend research, speaks at conferences frequently, and is on the advisory board for the Global Wellness Summit. 

Speaking about the promotions, Howard Solomon, founding managing partner in Asia, said, “Cathy’s new role expands our regional leadership bench so we can grow our capabilities across offices and position the group for long-term sustainable growth in Asia. She brings to this new role over 35 years’ experience in brand strategy and marketing communications with clients and projects throughout the region, a track record in thought leadership and a formidable network.” 

Meanwhile, Peter Finn stated, “The growth that we’ve achieved in Asia thus far wouldn’t be possible without the amazing leadership we have in the region. Cathy and Annouchka along with our other Asia Pacific leads know the market well and bring a level of excellence and client service that is second to none. Given our expansive footprint, unrivalled depth and breadth of sector expertise, and flexible ONE FINN model that allows us to offer clients best-in-class, full-service capabilities within a nimble collaborative model, I believe FINN is best positioned to be the go-to agency for clients in need of integrated marketing and communications services.” 

Singapore – OCBC has announced that it is offering a S$1.4 billion voluntary unconditional general offer for the 11.56% stake in Great Eastern that it does not currently own. For the bank, this move is aimed at strengthening OCBC’s business pillars of banking, wealth management and insurance, and optimising its capital to enhance shareholder returns.

With the Offer, OCBC intends to increase its investment in Great Eastern beyond its current stake of 88.44%, with a view to delisting the insurer from the SGX-ST.

OCBC’s corporate strategy gained strong momentum in 2023, leveraging OCBC’s strengths to capitalise on the vast opportunities in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions. The offer is therefore in line with OCBC’s strategy to solidify its wealth management leadership position to drive growth by capturing rising Asian wealth.

Helen Wong, chief executive officer at OCBC Group, said, “The offer is a natural progression of OCBC’s strategy. We have moved intentionally to build up a strong wealth management franchise by hiring the best people and instituting best practices and processes, and raising our investment in Great Eastern. We have been looking at opportunities to best use our capital and believe the Offer allows us to deploy our resources into a key business that is expected to be earnings accretive to OCBC.”

The offer is expected to be earnings accretive to OCBC. Great Eastern provides diversification to OCBC’s earnings base to deliver balanced earnings growth through economic cycles. Great Eastern has contributed an average of about S$700m annually in net profit to OCBC over the past 10 years, which translates to an average of about 15% of OCBC’s annual net profit over this period.

Wong added, “This is not the first time that we are making an offer to increase our investment in Great Eastern – first in 2004, followed by 2006. As OCBC has been the majority shareholder of Great Eastern for the past 20 years, the Group has entrenched institutional knowledge and expertise to manage the insurance business. We are confident this exercise complements our One Group, One Brand strategy. This will further accelerate our ambitious wealth management plans and build even tighter bonds and synergies across all our business pillars and key markets.”

Singapore – Digital entertainment and media platform Azerion has recently unveiled its latest suite of video solutions, designed to drive consideration and engagement across JAPAC.

These new video formats leverage proprietary technology and seamless integrations into a curated network of premium sites across APAC to deliver extraordinary advertising experiences on every screen.

Furthermore, Azerion promises versatility in presenting advertisers with connections to diverse audiences through new and exciting combinations of ad formats to make campaigns more effective.

Going into detail with this initiative, Azerion offers viewers seamless navigation through video content using familiar gestures such as hovering, swiping, and clicking, while also having the option to embed interactive elements in videos, direct shopping from the video interface, personalised video experiences, and rewarded video experiences through engagement incentives. 

Talking about these integrations, Lizzie Grant, director of operations & partnerships JAPAC at Azerion, said, “Applying strategic targeting to video campaigns has never been more accessible, with key data integrations to access broadcast audiences such as Samba TV audience behaviour, TV synch, through to lower funnel curated audiences based on user browse behaviour via our proprietary DMP, we have the power to make brand videos work smarter and harder.”

Meanwhile, Jay McCalla, creative director at Azerion, commented, “We have always prided ourselves on our creative expertise, we know what works and how to ensure maximum user engagement. Video is a natural space for us to bring our creativity to life and work with brands in a way that suits their needs to drive strong results.”

Singapore – BCW and Hill & Knowlton, which will merge as of July 1 to form Burson, has announced that Adrian Warr has been named its new CEO of South Asia-Pacific, covering the agency’s business in India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. He will join Burson as of September 16. 

Warr has spent more than two decades at top global agencies counseling clients across industries, disciplines and geographies; managing eight-figure P&Ls with meticulous operational oversight; and building diverse, award-winning teams.

He has also served as a close adviser to the leaders of some of the world’s most high-profile institutions, helping them deploy multi-channel communications to address complex commercial threats and opportunities. 

Before joining BCW, Warr spent the last 10 years with Edelman in variety of roles in the Asia-Pacific region, serving multiple leadership roles. Prior to it, he spent 12 years in London, as a partner with Portland, an associate board director with Freuds Communications, and in a variety of roles in his seven years with Hill & Knowlton. 

Speaking on his new role, he said, “Burson is the talk of the town and rightly so, it’s changing the face of the industry, who wouldn’t want a piece of that action?From the complexities of going global to geopolitical upheaval to the challenges of innovating at scale, clients increasingly need the unbridled creative thinking that this agency brings to every brief. The team in South APAC is brimming with world-class talent and I’m honored to be the Burson person leading them.” 

Meanwhile, Corey duBrowa, global CEO at BCW, commented, “The myriad challenges and opportunities facing clients today could not be more foundational. Adrian has considerable experience pairing creativity with innovation to help clients navigate ambiguity and overcome obstacles, all while building their reputations amid extreme geopolitical, social and commercial complexity. This expertise, coupled with his rigorous advocacy for teams and talent, make him exceptionally well-suited to lead our South APAC business.” 

Singapore – More than half of APAC businesses (55%) see artificial intelligence as important to their social media programme – a notably higher percentage than their global counterparts (44%), according to a report by social and media intelligence firm Meltwater. 

Data from Meltwater’s study also suggests that with the prominence of AI usage in marketing, 64% of the respondents in APAC leverage AI tools to save time on writing, with 36% utilising it to improve their copy.

However, though almost half (48%) of APAC teams surveyed said that social media will play a more important role in their company this year, many teams are struggling to maximise their social programs due to reduced resources.

The survey showed that even respondents from large companies with more than 1,000 employees operate in small social media teams of 2 to 5 members. Additionally, many social media teams find strategy and execution a challenge, with 34% of respondents saying that they are still working on defining a strategy, whilst a quarter are in a tougher spot of having a strategy but lacking the resources to execute it.

For other notable findings from the report, it stated that Instagram is the highest channel of interest (45%) for APAC teams, closely followed by TikTok (43%). Additionally, teams in APAC are more likely to dedicate the same budget to social media that they did in 2023, unlike teams globally who are increasing social media budgets. Lastly, 64% of respondents in APAC agree that social listening is a key component in strategic planning.

Talking about the findings, Mimrah Mahmood, vice president – enterprise (APAC) and partner at Meltwater Asia-Pacific, said,  “Social media teams are in an unenviable position of doing a lot more for their organisations this year with limited resources and budget. Concerningly, not having a defined social media strategy is a more prominent challenge in APAC than other regions.”

“With the typical social media user using 6.7 platforms each month, brands need to understand the usage intent of their target audience for their platform of choice. With bandwidth being a major concern, it is crucial that teams identify which are priority channels and customise content accordingly,” he added.

Singapore – VaynerMedia has announced the appointment of Melanie Cook as its new head of strategy and insights for the Asia Pacific region.

In her new role, Cook will be leveraging her extensive expertise to spearhead the regional strategy team, drawing on cultural insights, emerging trends, and evolving formats to help brands shape their narrative in a way that connects with audiences.

Cook joins with a deep, intuitive understanding of VaynerMedia’s approach, marking a pivotal moment in its commitment to helping clients find and build relevance in today’s rapidly changing advertising landscape, and guiding brands through dynamic “consumer-up” strategies that prioritise relevance and business outcomes over the traditional “brand-down” approach.

Prior to her appointment, Cook was the regional head of strategy at MRM MENAT, where she led her team to drive some of the most significant marketing transformations in the region, working at the intersection of brand, digital technology, and customer experience.

She has also worked with leading agencies such as Saatchi& Saatchi, Publicis Sapient and BBDO Proximity across Europe, MENAT and APAC markets, working with clients across several industries including L’Oreal, Unilever, Visa, Neom and LVMH.

Beyond traditional agency roles, Melanie has driven numerous consulting engagements with diverse clients from MetLife to Jardine Matheson, driving programmes that deliver real business outcomes.

Speaking on her own appointment, Cook said, “In the age of generative AI and gate-keeping algorithms, brands risk commoditising creativity and losing the relevance and ingenuity that sets them apart. I want to work with and learn from a disruptive team that values human insight and creativity as critical to a brand’s distinction, and I found this with VaynerMedia.”

“By leveraging human insight, AI and scaled data, we can evolve the art and science of storytelling in underpriced attention channels so we move closer to a consumer’s interests and needs,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Tim Lindley, managing director at VaynerMedia Asia Pacific, commented, “Melanie had an affinity to our mission from the very first conversation; the world needs to change and she’s clearly up for the challenge. She brings a depth of strategic, creative and media experience that is hard to find. Her track record of building high-performing teams that are equally obsessed with consumers as they are with their own internal culture fills me with confidence. Melanie brings an energy that exudes curiosity, courage, and kindness, and we can’t ask for much more than that.”

Singapore – After serving as the chief marketing officer of HSBC’s PayMe for three years, Jaslin Goh announced her transition into a new industry as she was appointed as the new vice president of marketing at foodpanda. The move, which officially took effect in March this year, saw her heading the regional marketing function for foodpanda and will be working closely with local marketing directors to drive growth and brand love across Asia.

For our next Top Story of the year, we spoke with Goh a month into her new role to learn more about her marketing goals with foodpanda, how she managed to shift to a new industry, and what q-commerce marketing capabilities the industry can expect more from one of the region’s largest food delivery companies.

Putting an emphasis on marketing growth

One of the key points Goh noted was that her varied marketing background across multiple marketing specialisations had enabled her a big-picture approach in marketing and that her detailed knowledge into the various disciplines helped to drive topline growth and bottom-line success.

She also highlighted that marketing for her requires right brain and left brain thinking, noting that in foodpanda, marketing is a science. 

“We put a lot of emphasis on driving growth through moving levers around multiple variables to enable us to gain market share. Left-brain attributes like having quantitative and strong analytical skills is an important skill set in any tech role. Complementing this with right-brain specialisation in creative thinking would enable a marketing individual to thrive,” she explained.

Goh added, “By combining the two, we can drive stronger emotional bonding with our various marketing and campaign initiatives while achieving our growth targets, as we work to bring the foodpanda Asia brand to the next level.”

She also notes that while her previous role was in fintech and foodpanda is in the space of food delivery and quick commerce (q-commerce), she sees both having similarities in terms of being the conduit between demand and supply in the market. Goh also added that what makes foodpanda unique is the added element of more players in the ecosystem: customers, riders, and merchant partners.

“Customer and merchant partner acquisitions, and moving them through the lifecycle is evidently important to growing the business. In foodpanda, my scope covers performance marketing, growth marketing, brand marketing, media, research CRM, pricing and incentives with a strong regional and local marketing team. I work closely with the team to continually find efficient methods to acquire new customers and move them through the lifecycle. This includes activating, retaining, and reactivating customers through in-app, CRM, EDM and other owned channels. My varied marketing background across multiple marketing specialisations enables a big-picture approach and my detailed knowledge into the various disciplines helps to drive topline growth and bottomline success.”

Pushing forward amidst q-commerce competition, drastic consumer behaviour changes

Goh understands that q-commerce continues to grow post-Covid, as consumers have gotten used to the convenience and access to quality and value items from the comfort of their couch. With this, more players will emerge and there will naturally be increasing competition for better products and ordering experience.

“Consumers have also become more savvy and price conscious. With inflationary rises, they are willing to put in extra effort to get products at cheaper prices, such as Hong Kong consumers going into mainland China for grocery purchases. We can observe a similar phenomenon in Singapore where consumers head into Johor Bahru to buy household items,” she explained.

With these drastic changes, she advises retailers to take into consideration external factors such as price differential, the overall retail experience and preferred social activities in their marketing plans.

“There will also be an added focus on reliability, speed, and customer service – as well as ensuring a wide range of variety for customers. E-commerce and q-commerce will need to continue optimising their business through big data user analysis, psychological pricing, product assortment to ensure the best mix that helps achieve the business KPIs,” she added.

In terms of what foodpanda is targeting next year, Goh hints of more strategic partnerships this year, where its collaborations with big grocery chains and mass brands were launched with great success. She also added that in lieu of riding on consumers’ habits of going to their preferred grocery and personal care brands, they have made it even more convenient for consumers to do such thing by providing quick delivery services.

“This creates a win-win situation where grocery and personal care partners can rely on a stable fleet of delivery partners whilst focusing on what they do best, while boosting the variety of retailers that consumers can shop from on the foodpanda platform. We have also seen a strong demand for fresh produce in some of our markets – with many appreciating the service that pandamart offers: hyperfast, hyperfresh produce delivered conveniently at any time of the day. We will continue to optimise our business strategies to keep abreast of market needs as they evolve,” she concluded.

Singapore – Carro, an AI-driven used car marketplace based in Singapore, has announced the promotion of Katherine Teo as its new chief marketing officer, moving beyond her recent role as the regional head of marketing for the company and its subsidiaries across Asia-Pacific.

In an exclusive conversation with MARKETECH APAC, Teo shared her continued plans for the marketing and branding efforts for the company.

“I will continue to drive strategic marketing and branding efforts for the Carro Group, with a focus on strengthening synergy across our ancillary businesses, such as for insurance, our after sales arm Carro Care, and Genie Financial Services,”

She also added, “We are prioritising new, emerging markets such as Japan and Hong Kong, and our ancillary businesses in finance, insurance, and after sales. “

It is worth noting that Carro had recently acquired Beyond Cars, a Hong Kong-based user cars buying and selling platform; as well as marking its expansion into Japan with a partnership with SoftBank back in 2022. Moreover, Carro had also announced an investment with production house Driven Communications, and even received funding from DRB-HICOM for its Genie Financial Services.

When asked about her learnings that she will bring to her senior role, Teo said, “Continue to foster a culture of creativity. 
It’s really simple: we want to make great ads that people want to see. We want to continue to put out quality campaigns that are rooted in strong consumer insights. And to do so, I believe in cultivating an honest, open team that can sprout radical, refreshing, and fun ideas. After all, our marketing campaigns are a culmination of many minds put together.”

Under her recent marketing role at Carro, the company has seen multiple marketing campaigns that she oversaw, including its first regional brand film alongside TBWA\Singapore, as well as the launch of multiple short drama series in its regional markets to celebrate Carro’s eighth anniversary.

Teo also added, “We should be marching to the beat of our own drum. 
Trends come and go, especially in the digital space and social media. As APAC’s largest online used car ecosystem and market leader, I believe we should always explore and do what works for us.”

When asked about the particular marketing challenges for the used car industry in the region, she explained that with more platforms bringing more unique selling points (USPs), there is a challenge for brands in the space to come up with new ways to stand out from diverse markets.

“More and more used car marketplaces are starting to communicate the same USPs. Soon, there will appear to have no clear point of differentiation to the consumers. This is a unique challenge because we’ll need to find a way to stand out and help customers know us, like us, and choose us,” she stated.

Part of Carro’s selling point is the assurance to its customers that the pre-owned cars are certified by the company’s in-house inspectors, making sure that the cars pass up as good as new.

“We’ll start to see more offering of certified pre-owned cars. As the industry leader, our focus remains on offering Carro Certified cars that are as good as new. As trust and transparency continue to be the main thrust of the industry, we will continue to ensure that our customers’ trust sit at the heart of all that we do. Beyond just Marketing, the company will continue to invest in technology, data, and talent that go into building quality products and a Carro Certified car that is as good as new,” she concluded.

Singapore – Open web technology platform Outbrain has appointed Chris Oxley to the newly created role of country manager for Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, wherein he will lead the charge in driving the expansion of Outbrain’s advertising business. 

In his new role, Oxley will oversee the development and implementation of Outbrain’s commercial strategy along with driving new business opportunities to accelerate revenue growth across the region. His responsibilities include building and maintaining strategic partnerships, amplifying Outbrain’s value proposition, and managing the Outbrain sales teams.

Most recently, Oxley was the national head of digital sales for Foxtel Media, where he launched programmatic TV and led the team to commercialise advertising on the streaming platform Binge. Prior to that, he had successful tenures at Yahoo and BSkyB, which have contributed to Oxley’s deep understanding of ad tech platforms, programmatic advertising and data-driven marketing.

Speaking on his appointment, Oxley said, “Outbrain has quickly become a leader in digital media, connecting advertisers with premium audiences in contextually relevant environments. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to lead the ANZ and Singapore teams, solidifying our role as the primary engagement partner for some of the world’s top digital media companies.”

Meanwhile, Amrita de la Peña, APAC managing director at Outbrain commented, “Chris is a best-in-class sales leader. He leads from the front and has a remarkable track record of empowering sales teams to surpass their targets. He possesses extensive expertise with a passion in digital media and he strives to build an incredible sales team who are just as passionate as he is.”

“Chris was selected for his visionary mindset, strong relationships in-market, and successful track record of leading high performing teams. We are thrilled to welcome Chris to Outbrain at this exciting time of growth,” she added.