Tag: Dentsu International

London, United Kingdom – Dentsu International has announced the appointment of Fred Levron, former worldwide creative partner at advertising agency FCB, to be its new global chief creative officer.

Levron brings with him over two decades of experience in the creative industry. Aside from previously working at FCB, Levron also worked as the global executive creative director at entertainment agency CAA Marketing, and the executive director and creative director at creative firm Ogilvy Paris.

According to dentsu, Levron’s appointment would be helping accelerate the company’s creative ambitions across its agencies and for its clients, who make up 95 of the top 100 advertisers globally. 

As part of his new role, Levron will be leading the network’s holistic creative agenda and its portfolio of creative agencies worldwide. He will also be building on dentsu international’s current capabilities and storied Japanese creative roots. In addition, Levron will be responsible for the network’s creative product and for accelerating creativity across the entirety of dentsu international’s creative, media, and CXM agency brands.

“I’m so excited to start this new transformation journey. We have the opportunity to build a unique creative company that brings creativity, tech, data, media, entertainment, and commerce together to become the most attractive place for talents out there and the most relevant partner for the biggest brands,” said Levron, regarding his appointment.

Meanwhile, Wendy Clark, the global CEO of dentsu international, commented, “Fred has one of the most lauded portfolios and creative reputations in the business. His appointment accelerates and emphasizes the importance of creativity as the hallmark of everything we do. I’m counting down the days until he joins.”

This new leadership appointment will take effect in November 2021.

Singapore – Global media company dentsu international has appointed former global co-president at dentsumcgarrybowen, Merlee Jayme, to now assume the role of chief creative officer for the APAC region.

Jayme will have the new appointment as an additional role, continuing as part of the core team in the global creative experience council at dentsu and sponsor of the region’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) program.

Jayme first joined the group through dentsu’s acquisition of her creative agency, bringing with her extensive experience in the creative sector. She is also known as a passionate advocate for the power of ideas in changing the world and DEI.

As part of her new role, Jayme will be responsible for creative excellence across dentsu’s creative and experience agencies in the region. These agencies include Isobar, dentsumcgarrybowen, and creative agencies under the house of dentsu, such as dentsu One, dentsu Webchutney, and Taproot dentsu.

Commenting on her new role, Jayme said that she is excited to be back in her home region, working hand-in-hand with their amazing colleagues in APAC to create great work that matters for the clients.

“My global role at dentsumcgarrybowen has opened my eyes to the integrated opportunities we can create to push creativity and innovation, solving our client’s problems with all creative capabilities across dentsu,” said Jayme.

Meanwhile, Jean Lin, the global CEO of creative at dentsu international, commented, “Merlee’s inclusive creative leadership, Asian roots, and global experience work brilliantly to deliver idea-led transformation in APAC, one of the most vibrant playgrounds for business creativity. We have an ambitious plan for APAC and are thrilled to have Merlee focus on the region she calls home.”

Dentsu APAC’s CEO Ashish Bhasin shared that Jayme’s creative ability speaks for itself and her entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, and innate ability to get the best out of the people she works with make her truly unique. 

“I am excited to see her instill further excellence across our agencies and unleash the potential of our creative business, driving deeper connections with our clients and the consumers they’re talking with,” said Bhasin.

Global – Global media company dentsu international has officially launched anew iProspect, a game-changing digital-first end-to-end media agency.

As part of the improved iProspect, the agency will adopt the ‘Brands Accelerated’ tagline with a reimagined logo coinciding with a new brand identity and website, which was designed with “diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind,” according to the company. 

The new agency will fuse existing capabilities, such as brand building, strategic planning, business intelligence, marketing activation, and performance optimization, as well as the capabilities of scaled services within dentsu international.

The teams for the new iProspect in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, in partnership with over 90 other markets, will be the first agency to offer performance-driven brand building at a global scale.

The company said the new iProspect will focus on how consumers behave in the digital world and apply strategies to real-world scenarios “through a highly connected and creative use of media.” 

The agency’s evolved capabilities will see the merged efforts of 8,000 specialists, operating across borders and in 93 markets worldwide.

Amanda Morrissey, global president of iProspect, commented that they are a new force in the industry, one that draws on decades of expertise carefully brought together to create an agile, scaled, digital-first organization built for the future and delivering today.

“With precision and pace, the new iProspect is able to learn, flex and scale its output to transform a brands’ performance and provide effective business growth; immediately and in the future,” added Morrissey.

Meanwhile, Prerna Mehrotra, CEO of dentsu Media APAC and managing director of Media Group, dentsu Singapore, said that iProspect combines the science behind performance marketing with the art of brand building, saying that growth today lies at the intersection of brand and performance, these two areas are no longer mutually exclusive in the digital era but instead, a necessity. 

“This unrivaled perspective, grounded in deep digital specialism and married with brand-building strategy, gives us the firepower to accelerate brand growth in the short and long term at scale. Having been part of this development, we know that the new iProspect proposition, one that is digital-first end-to-end that offers performance-driven brand building at a global scale, is one that will accelerate growth for our clients in the Asia Pacific region,” said Mehrotra.

California, USA – Customer engagement platform MoEngage and dentsu’s India-based customer experience management (CXM) agency, Merkle Sokrati, have entered into a new partnership, which combines MoEngage’s insights-led customer engagement platform with Merkle Sokrati’s enterprise delivery services to grow data-driven solutions for enterprise brands across Asia Pacific.

The combined value package offered by MoEngage-Merkle partnership will enable consumer brands to devise and execute a hyper-personalized experience for their users. 

“Our partnership with Merkle Sokrati is a significant step in this direction. Merkle’s understanding of strategic digital interactions and expertise in enterprise solution delivery is uniquely complementary to MoEngage’s data-driven and AI-enabled marketing automation platform. We believe that both of us make a truly customer-obsessed team,” said Sanjay Kupae, head of global alliances at MoEngage.

Kupae also noted that through this new partnership, they will be able to drive far more business impact for its clients in India, South East Asia, and Australia.

MoEngage and Merkle’s partnership is in response to the constant struggle that marketing and product teams often face, as most of the available tools lack one or more of requisite capabilities or the solution is not implemented to the best of its potential. Furthermore, the modern aspect of mobile-first customers expects a personalized experience. This requires brands to build a 360-degree view of their users, analyze the data and deliver the right message at the right time through the right channel.

“It’s exciting news to partner with MoEngage in today’s times where hyper-personalized engagement with audiences has become imperative. Coupling this with our more than a decade-long focus on building audience-first and data-driven marketing strategies will surely be beneficial for our clients across verticals and industries. We all have seen trying times for consumers and brands alike, and I’m happy to see synergies being developed here in our ecosystem to help businesses bounce back from the year that’s been,” said Sampath Rengachari, chief business officer for martech at Merkle-Sokrati.

India – India’s healthcare retail chain Zeno Health has awarded its mainline and digital creative duties to Dentsu Impact India, the creative agency from the India division of dentsu international. Dentsu Impact won the account following a multi-agency pitch that involved several other leading agencies. 

Zeno Health, which was formerly Generico is one of the fastest-growing pharmacy chain brands in India that focuses on generic medicines and is available across more than 80 stores in Mumbai alone. With this win, Dentsu Impact aims to build a strong foothold for Zeno Health in the progressively growing retail and online pharmacy space across the country. The agency will kickstart the association with the launch of a massive campaign for Zeno Health in Mumbai. 

Both Dentsu Impact’s president Amit Wadhwa and Managing Partner and National Creative Director, Anupama Ramaswamy, expressed excitement for the partnership. 

“The rise of online pharmacies in the healthcare segment has been phenomenal. We are excited to partner with Zeno Health, an omnichannel player in this segment whose focus is to build a holistic healthcare environment that is accessible and affordable to all. We are looking forward to creating some great work, together,” said Wadhwa. 

Meanwhile, Zeno Health’s Founder Siddharth Gadia, commented, “We are beginning the brand creation journey for Zeno Health and we cannot imagine a better partner than Dentsu Impact to unveil this journey to the world. We look forward to creating an impeccable consumer healthcare brand, together.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – As global media and digital marketing communications network dentsu evolves its organization into three lines of business, namely Creative, Media, and CRM, the company has been moving and nabbing executives to officially set its leadership lineup. 

Just very recently, dentsu announced Prerna Mehrotra as its new CEO for Media, and this time, dentsu in Malaysia has also done its share of reorganization, unveiling its new CEO for Media, Dheeraj Raina. 

Prior to joining dentsu, Raina is global media agency network Mindshare’s managing director in Malaysia. 

Nicky Lim, CEO of dentsu Malaysia, said, “It’s fantastic to welcome Dheeraj as our new Media CEO and drive our ambitious business growth plans forward. With his impressive track record of growth, I have no doubt he will accelerate dentsu international onto an exciting path and ultimately, help us deliver on our business objectives.” 

Raina is recognized for his proprietary IP’s for retail, telecom, and travel industries in marketing planning and for his contributions as a mentor to SMEs and start-ups in Malaysia.

He brings with him more than 16 years of experience in marketing and business strategy, having worked with leading brands such as telecom Celcom, dairy brand Friesland-Campina, and telecom Digi, as well as hypermarket Tesco, Malaysia conglomerate Sunway, and personal care Kimberly-Clark. Prior to his directorial position at GroupM’s Mindshare, he was also managing director at digital, analytics, and marketing solutions ADA, running the country business for Malaysia and other emerging markets. 

Commenting on his appointment, Raina said, “I’m thrilled to have this exciting opportunity to lead all the media brands at dentsu malaysia –  Consider iProspect, Vizeum, Carat, dentsu X, Amplifi, Posterscope, and Amnet – towards being more solutions-oriented, integrated and leading the industry. Today, media agencies sit at the center of unlocking growth for clients, and with such power brands at dentsu, I am looking forward to building cutting-edge solutions and teams.” 

Singapore – Dentsu International APAC welcomes the new year with a bang by unveiling its new CEO for its media relations, Prerna Mehrotra.

Mehrotra is currently the managing director of the network’s Media Group at Singapore and will be taking on the new role alongside her existing position.

Prerna will be responsible for driving Dentsu’s global media strategy and delivery in APAC, ensuring its alignment and relevance in the market with “client-centricity at the core,” to develop an integrated portfolio of tools and capabilities aimed at maximizing the effectiveness, relevance, and performance of clients’ media.

For the new role, she will be reporting to Ashish Bhasin, CEO of Dentsu APAC, and Peter Huijboom, global CEO of Media & Global Clients.

Bhasin shared in a press release that Mehrotra was a clear candidate for the role, having joined the business in 2016.

“She has gone from strength to strength excelling in roles across investment and media. This integrated view across our media portfolio and her acumen of over 20 years set her apart from the rest,” he said.

Meanwhile, Huijboom commented, “I am delighted to have Prerna join my leadership team and drive Dentsu’s media strategy in this critical region. Her experience in key markets including India and China and her long-standing client relationships will ensure we continue to drive value, and excellence in everything we do.”

On her appointment, Mehrotra said, “The media landscape in this region has never been more complex. Over the past eight months, consumers’ expectations of what brands produce and how they behave have changed rapidly, and it will only continue. I am excited to be working with top talents from across our markets to create growth opportunities and long-term value for our clients.”

Singapore – Dentsu’s B2B creative agency Gyro has announced a new managing director, promoting its regional head of strategy Rhys Taylor to the position.

The new leadership comes as Gyro’s B2B capabilities are merged into the recently announced B2B powerhouse of Dentsu’s data-driven marketing agency Merkle, with four more other B2B companies roped in into the collective.

Taylor was Gyro’s head of strategy for two years since 2018 where he lead the agency’s internal transformation and oversaw its client-facing strategy practice from Singapore. For the new role, he will be reporting to Gyro’s Asia-Pacific CEO Kieran Vye.

Vye said, “Coming into 2020, we were fortunate to have built a stellar team who worked tirelessly to develop new services to ensure our clients were armed with actionable plans, and access to practical resources, keeping them relevant during what turned out to be a year of unprecedented disruptions due to the pandemic.”

In his new role, Taylor will work closely with the existing leadership team which includes Yasmine Mansour, regional head of growth; Rimi Sweis, regional head of media; Francesca Babet, who heads up Singapore operations, and Christine Mills who helms ANZ operations. Together, the team will be at pole position to set the future direction of the business, and further evolve how Gyro value-adds to its client offerings.

Meanwhile, the agency’s strategy practice will be led by Uzma Atcha who joined the business earlier in the year from Singapore-based digital marketing agency Bonsey Jaden.

The new managing director said, “Uzma joined us seven days before our world plunged into lockdown due to the pandemic. Despite the challenges of remote working and isolation, [she] has won the trust of key clients and the camaraderie of her colleagues. I’m excited to see how Uzma brings her experience and ideas to lead the roll-out of Gyro’s Ignition process and Merkle B2B’s LEN5 framework.”

The Ignition Process refers to Gyros’ unique global process which is building strategy around human relevance.

Vye said that amid COVID-19 restrictions, digital adoption, or even the generational changes in the workplace, the agency was able to help clients adjust to such challenges.

“With the leadership team in place, coupled with the launch of Merkle B2B, we are set on redefining what modern marketing looks like in 2021 and beyond,” he said.

The latest to join Gyro’s client roll is global network infrastructure provider CommScope with recent projects for clients Mastercard, Magento Commerce, and Marketo Engage, among others.

Singapore – Dentsu International has launched Dentsu Commerce in Singapore to deliver to brands an integrated end-to-end commerce solutions, which is said to be specially crafted to bring unique consumer experiences.

The launch comes as the communications network recently bagged a number of commerce wins such as for Singapore-based fintech startup Hoolah, and Dentsu’s interactive agency Isobar’s extended partnership with electric brand Panasonic. 

Dentsu Commerce brings together its best-in-class commerce capabilities from across the network in Singapore, as well as globally through its cross-functional ‘Teaming Platforms,’ and will be amplified by Dentsu’s strong global partnerships in technology, media, and e-commerce. 

Through its ‘Total Commerce’ framework, Dentsu Commerce will make available to brands Dentsu’s years of experience in delivering customer data and intelligence, commerce strategy and consulting, last-mile optimized creative and content, and world-class technology development and integration.

Dentsu Singapore CEO Prakash Kamdar believes the move from an offline to an online economy has accelerated much faster than anyone expected, where brands will need to rapidly transform to adapt to changes. 

“Dentsu’s commerce capabilities run deep as we harvest from our years of investments in commerce capabilities, and experience in helping brands of all sizes enhance commerce experiences for its customers from the top of the funnel to the last mile. What we are bringing to the table with Dentsu Commerce is the best of our people and the breadth of our commerce capabilities into one joined-up team in Singapore,” said Kantar.

Dentsu shared the focus areas of its ‘Total Commerce’ approach:

  • Commerce Intelligence: Discover and define commerce strategy with market intelligence
  • Commerce Transformation: Developing solutions to optimize commerce experiences
  • Commerce Excellence: Deploying superior commerce performance and measurable ROI Transformation and Excellence

Meanwhile, Dentsu also laid out the different areas that Dentsu Commerce’s end-to-end offering aims to boost for brands:

  • Desirability (Brand equity)
  • Availability (Distribution strategy)
  • Findability (Position Optimisation)
  • Buyability (Content Effectiveness)
  • Repeatability (Purchase Experience)

Brands in Singapore can also tap on a number of the firm’s proprietary products and solutions:

  • Total Commerce Analytics
  • B2B Commerce Transformation
  • Commerce Intelligence
  • 020 Commerce Framework
  • eCommerce Enablement
  • Loyalty & Customer Lifetime Value Optimisation
  • Dentsu Tracking
  • Fast Track Commerce
  • Symphony Product Merchandising
  • Marketplace Consulting
  • eRetail & Performance Activation
  • Marketplace Optimisation

The Singaporean arm will be led by Guillaume Legond, client director & commerce lead for media group; Vivekanand Salunke, regional strategy partner; and Anil Dabhi, project director of Isobar Commerce.

In a joint statement, they said, “Having celebrated many successful commerce journeys for our partners, commerce is not new to us. What does set us apart with Dentsu Commerce is our ability to deliver fully-integrated solutions for true end-to-end management of the commerce roadmap. Our promise is for a frictionless commerce journey that will support product excellence and ultimately, real business performances.”