Tag: Creative agency

India – Dentsu Creative India has announced the appointment of Benny Augustine as its new chief operating officer, where he will oversee the agency’s operations in India. He will be reporting to Amit Wadhwa, chief executive officer at Dentsu Creative India.

His objective will be to build various frameworks, platforms, and business processes that promote efficiency and effectiveness for clients using modern creativity. 

Furthermore, he will aim to foster the company culture by leading internal initiatives and implementing training programs to help develop talent.

Augustine will be also working closely with the global operations team at Dentsu Creative led by its global chief operating officer Andrea Terrassa.

Prior to his new role, he was with the senior management team at Dentsu Webchutney as chief financial officer (CFO). During that time, he played a key role in establishing the agency as one of the largest digital creative agencies in India.

Speaking on his new role, Augustine said, “I am super thrilled to take up this new assignment. It would be both challenging and exciting to be the COO of one of the most creative networks globally. I am thankful to Amit and the dentsu senior management for considering me for this critical role.”

Meanwhile, Wadhwa commented, “While we move into this new era of a strong brand like Dentsu Creative in India, it is important to have someone to spearhead the operational transformation who understands people as well as the business. To be honest, I don’t think I could have asked for a better person than Benny to do this.”

Augustine’s appointment follows a slew of local appointments, including Bhasker Jaiswal as new COO of media and Arjuna Gaur as new chief creative officer. The appointments follow their recent wins at the Cannes Lions Festival for their campaign with media company VICE.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Creative agency FCB Shout has listed around eight new business wins over the course of eight months, which included several high-profile Malaysian, regional and global brands.

Leading the list is Resorts World Genting, where the agency is appointed as the resort’s agency of record. They will be responsible for strategic and creative duties for Malaysia’s premier integrated resort, including Resorts World Awana and Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park.

In addition, some of the other duties include branding and strategic work for Touch n’ Go; campaign conceptualisation for a number of key projects for Sun Life Malaysia; creative implementation for Drypers; and brand launches for healthy snack brand Allswell Frutara.

Other companies that FCB Shout have been working on include Portuguese luxury fashion retailer Sacoor Brother’s Sacoor Blue label; new product launches for multi-level marketing company Amway in Malaysia; and a key regional assignment for McCain KSEAT, a frozen food company.

When asked about the agency’s winning new business approach, FCB SHOUT’s General Manager, Syahriza Badon, said, Accelerating growth via new client acquisitions was a key priority for 2022. Thanks to our earlier investments in talent and our collaborative business approach with key business partners – which allowed us to diversify our capabilities to include media, PR and activation – we were able to hit the ground running once Covid-19 restrictions eased and new opportunities emerged. We’re now well ahead of new business targets.”

Meanwhile, Shaun Tay, co-owner and CEO of FCB SHOUT and The Shout Group, commented, “2021 was one of our best performing years but this year is projected to beat that. Full credit to our leadership team and all the incredible talents within the agency who’ve worked tirelessly to make success happen.”

Australia – Independent creative, design and media agency Enigma has announced its relaunch with a new brand proposition, coinciding with bolstered capabilities in data, tech and performance of the agency.

The new brand architecture includes a new logo, colour palette and brand voice, as it further integrates its services to deliver a seamless output across the full customer journey. As part of its business transformation, Enigma commissioned independent research in consultation with renowned scientist Dr Shane Moon and global neuroscientist group, Neurons to learn more about the relationship between people and brands, specifically chemistry between people and brands.

The recent investment across Enigma’s business sees the brand evolve to offer expanded performance capability in SEO, CX, CRM, audience analytics, technology, and measurement, plus build a content hub specifically for digital and social creative.

John Gutteridge, national CEO at Enigma, said, “Enigma already has an iconic reputation across regional Australia and has built strong foundations to begin this next chapter. We’ve set ourselves some exciting goals with a clear roadmap in place, making the necessary investment in capabilities and talent, along with a restructure of how we operate to ensure a seamless integration of all the new and existing services.”

He added, “The new brand identity and proposition effortlessly emerged from the work we’ve done and the discussions we’ve had as a group.”

Meanwhile, Enigma Founder and Director, Lisa Sutton Gardner, commented, “Working alongside John to refresh the brand’s offering is exactly where we need to be to meet our ambitious growth plans. Our new proposition supports our mandate to be able to learn, flex and adapt our output to help our client’s growth ambitions and become an agency built for the immediate future and beyond.”

She added, “In this past year, we have bolstered our Australian footprint opening a Brisbane office and expanding the Sydney team, this compliments our Newcastle team – which includes a 40-strong media team – plus making strategic investments and adding specialist capabilities focussed on our data, tech and performance offerings.”

Singapore – VJ Anand, current head of creative for VaynerMedia APAC, will be promoted to executive creative director of EMEA. As part of the promotion, Anand will relocate to London to perform his role. The new role takes effect in November this year.

During his previous APAC role, he managed creative teams across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and India, leading projects for PepsiCo and Prudential.

Speaking on his new appointment, he said, “I will really miss the APAC team, but I leave immensely proud that they are all rocketships and working with some of the world’s best brands. We have such a unique approach to creative and marketing and I am excited to scale it and bring my experience and a fresh perspective from APAC. Here’s to exploring and building original, cutting-edge models of creativity with Daisy and the rest of the team in EMEA.”

Meanwhile, as part of EMEA leadership appointments, current head of client partnership Daisy Domenghini is promoted to the role of managing director for EMEA. During her previous role, she led the addition of Durex, Zalando, and Indeed as clients. Prior to VaynerMedia, Daisy was global client MD at The Engine Group. 

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, At VaynerMedia, we take great pride in promoting and relocating talent. Since joining last year, Daisy has demonstrated exceptional qualities of being a great leader, truly understanding our integrated model of having creative and media working seamlessly together.” 

He added, “VJ joined VaynerMedia APAC at its inception in 2019 and has helped grow the office to over 250 people strong. I am confident that their partnership will propel our rapidly expanding presence in EMEA.”

Mumbai, India – Global cosmetic retail giant Sephora has appointed Mumbai-based creative agency Yellow to be its creative agency partner in India.

As part of the remit, Yellow will be responsible for Sephora India’s online and offline communications, including social media, celebrity campaigns, and e-commerce. 

Moreover, the partnership will help Sephora bring the global experience to Indian consumers across all touchpoints. The chief prerequisite for the brand’s new agency will be to navigate the burgeoning Indian market while keeping intact its core values and global identity.

Sephora is a luxury beauty retailer that offers a well-curated selection of makeup, skincare, and fragrance brands. Its India business is helmed by Arvind Lifestyle Brands in India. 

Shrey Doshi, Yellow’s creative director and founder, shared that Sephora is the go-to source for all things beauty and skincare across the world and they are looking forward to working with such an illustrious brand and growing it across India. 

“Over the years, we’ve worked extensively with D2C beauty and skincare brands, and are excited about merging our local know-how with the global expertise that Sephora brings to the table,” said Doshi.

Singapore – The Singaporean arm of insurance company Sun Life has appointed VCCP Singapore as its creative agency partner to craft a brand strategy and narrative that resonates with the targeted ‘High Net Worth’ and ‘Ultra High Net Worth’ client segments of Sun Life in Singapore. 

VCCP Singapore will, amongst other things, assist Sun Life Singapore to increase brand awareness and build a premium and highly differentiated brand identity for Sun Life, which is a new entrant into Singapore’s highly competitive and matured financial services industry. 

In addition, as Sun Life Singapore’s full-service partner agency, VCCP will be responsible for brand and marketing campaign development and amplification under the global brand tagline ‘Life is brighter under the sun’, brand strategy, digital communications and customer experience. 

Work commenced immediately and the first campaign work was launched in March 2022. More brand creation works are in the pipeline as of this writing.

Michael Wei, chief partnership and marketing officer at Sun Life Singapore said, “We were impressed with the breadth of financial services experience from the team at VCCP, their understanding of the emerging needs and ambitions of our audience as well as the creativity behind their many works. We’re pleased to have a strong partner in VCCP to help us establish Sun Life brand in Singapore and challenge our competitors in the market.”

Meanwhile, Craig Mapleston, CEO at VCCP Singapore, commented, “Sun Life has a rich and successful history across many markets, and we’re excited to be working with the Singapore team to replicate that success here. It’s such a competitive category, but also one that needs to move much more at the speed of culture. We’re looking forward to providing a differentiated and relevant choice for modern Singaporeans.”

Australia — For the first time since its inception 30 years ago, Enigma has decided to create a new leadership role to help drive the expansion and growth of the agency with John Gutteridge’s appointment as CEO. He also becomes an equity partner in Enigma and will work closely with Lisa Sutton Gardner, founder and director of Enigma, to realise the agency’s ambitions to grow its services, capabilities, and clients.

Gutteridge brings 25 years of global marketing communications experience to the new role, with extensive experience in leadership, digital transformation, mergers, and acquisitions across APAC. He began his career in London before moving to Australia where he became CEO of JWT Australia and NZ. In 2016 Gutteridge became CEO of JWT and Mirum APAC, bringing together the creative and digital services under one cohesive vision across 17 diverse markets.

In 2019, he returned to Australia to lead the merger between JWT and Wunderman across five offices in Australia and NZ. He briefly left the industry to launch MAWDE, a D2C purpose-driven ecommerce clothing brand manufactures in Australia using sustainable materials.

Gardner, said, “We have run a healthy but understated business for three decades now and have been planning the next chapter for Enigma for more than a year. It’s rare that an agency with its roots in the regional centre of Newcastle, which has an incredible talent bed, has successfully expanded to Sydney and Brisbane – it’s a key differentiator for our agency and I like to say we were ahead of the curve of the ‘work from anywhere’ phenomenon.”

“Gutteridge brings to the CEO role all the skills, experience, energy, and passion I have been rigorously searching for. We found instant chemistry, he and I are both entrepreneurs, and he a great fit for our humble and approachable culture. I’m incredibly excited to work with John to realise our growth ambitions and expanded services,” Gardner added.

Commenting on his new role, Gutteridge said, “I felt inspired at the prospect of returning to the industry for the right opportunity, and this is exactly that. It was apparent very quickly that Garder and the Enigma team have created a fantastic business. Above all, it’s clear there’s a genuine ambition and commitment to take the business to another level and create a truly iconic and distinctive agency for the future”.

Enigma houses creative, media, brand strategy and design, with offices in Sydney, Newcastle, and Brisbane.

India – Former Webchutney c-suite leaders – ex-CEO and ex-CCO Gautam Reghunath & PG Aditiya – has launched the new creative agency Talented. 

Reghunath & Aditiya were both homegrown leaders at dentsu webchutney, and together they’ve spent a combined 20 years at the agency. In their official launch release, the duo promises to build a creative agency that returns the advertising industry’s focus back to its talent. 

The duo said that they have radical ideas they believe can fundamentally alter the agency business – including employee ownership and stronger skin in the game relationships with clients. 

“We want to build a workplace where what every member of the leadership & its youngest colleagues think and say about the company, are the exact same. Where our actions and policies back up our words and press releases,” the duo said.

The duo emphasised, “When a client chooses us, we want them to know that we’re committed to putting the sharpest, most motivated talent in front of them. How we operate internally is going to play a huge role in making that happen. And at the end of all of this, we just want to do great advertising.”

Australia — Creative agency It’s Friday has been appointed by Colonial First State (CFS) to deliver its new brand platform and first advertising campaign since becoming a standalone business in December last year. 

The appointment will see It’s Friday develop a new campaign and brand platform to leverage Colonial First State’s strengths as one of the established retail superannuation and investment businesses in Australia and prominent payer of pensions in Australia after the federal government.

The relationship has been forged as Colonial First State embarks on a new phase as a standalone business with around US$150b of funds under management following the Commonwealth Bank’s sale of a 55 per cent stake in the group to global investment firm KKR. 

Pete Bosilkovski, CEO and founder of It’s Friday, welcomed the opportunity to reengage Australians with one of Australia’s leading wealth management companies. 

“We are delighted to partner with Colonial First State. It’s a real privilege. Colonial First State is an iconic Australian brand that has helped more than three million Australians plan for their future and realise their retirement ambitions to date. The team have huge ambitions for growth, and we are excited by the opportunity to differentiate the brand by charging it with a new kind of energy in this category,” Bosilkovski said. 

Meanwhile, Todd Stevenson, chief customer officer of Colonial First State, said that they are investing more than US$430m into the business over the next four years. Stevenson added that the investment they are putting into their brand is another way CFS is working to power the growth of the almost one million members who trust them to help with their retirement savings and investments. 

“We want Australians to know that CFS and the financial advisers we work with can help them build their super savings and navigate the complexities of the retirement system and we’re absolutely delighted to be working with It’s Friday,” Stevenson said.

The appointments continues It’s Friday’s growth trajectory following the agency’s launch in January with founding client Domino’s, which was followed by the appointment of Cate Mathers as head of strategy.

Shenzen, China — New York-based creative advertising and digital experience company Stink Studios has opened its second office in China following a period of sustained growth. Located in Shenzhen, the office will be overseen by Ramzi Chaabane, managing director of the company’s Chinese headquarters in Shanghai.

The expansion is due to a deepening commitment to the innovative-focused nature offered by the China market, and the strengthening demand from Chinese tech companies for world-class creative campaigns, design and digital experiences. In addition, Stink Studios also has several high-value clients who have headquarters in Shenzhen, including Tencent, Oppo, and Oneplus.

Being based in New York, the company was early to the Chinese market, first opening its doors in Shanghai in 2015. The creative output of the Shenzhen office will be overseen by Addie Hao, senior creative veteran at Stink Studios, who has relocated to Shenzhen from Shanghai.

Commenting on the opening of the second office in Shenzhen, Stink Studios veteran Hao shared that she’s very happy to bring the good energy from their Shanghai office over to the new location in Shenzhen.

“Being closer to our clients and in the heart of one of the technology capitals of the world is truly amazing. We have been blessed to receive many applications from young designers and developers who were happily surprised to see a leading international creative agency opening in their city,” Hao said.