Tag: Hong Kong

Seoul, South Korea – Dable, content discovery and native advertising platform based in South Korea, has named its new head of business development for Hong Kong – seasoned media and adtech executive Jan Cheng. 

Cheng brings with him 13 years of experience working in the media and adtech industry. Cheng developed key accounts to explore incremental investment opportunities via digital media planning and buying on different channels which led to monetizing the unsold inventory programmatically for the press such as the Asia City Media Group and the New York Times. In addition, he established a tailor-made programmatic solution and designed commitment packages for clients to secure sales volume and develop sustainable business relationships at Vpon Big Data Group, a leading big data company in Asia.

“Our business is based on monetizing inventories of publishers as well as contributing to the advertiser’s profit through planning strategies. I will use my all-round business development and operational experience with solid digital knowledge to contribute to clients’ growth by driving revenue and productivity.” said Cheng. 

Dable is a media-tech company that provides a personalized content recommendation solution and native ad platform to 11 markets, and is currently securing leadership in the markets Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Cheng’s appointment is part of Dable’s acceleration plans in Greater China, where the company has also named its new head of business development for mainland China, Tianxi Sun, who has been working in the advertising industry for over 12 years. 

“Tianxi Sun and Jan Cheng are top experts who are recognized in the industry. I trust that their experience, insight, and global business experience will play a major role in helping Dable establish and solidify its business in Greater China,” said Chaehyun Lee, Dable’s CEO. 

At the end of 2021, Dable announced that media company Matichon Group in Thailand has partnered with them to drive monetization across its news sites in the country.

Singapore – Global communications firm Edelman has appointed John Koay, former executive creative director of creative agency Ogilvy, to be its new regional executive creative director (ECD) for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. 

Koay brings over 17 years of experience. He has worked at several of the large creative networks and produced award-winning disruptive campaigns that have resulted in business growth for brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Nike, Toyota, Panasonic, Air New Zealand, Qantas, Nestle, and Kellogg’s, as well as Johnson & Johnson, and Heineken.

In his new role, Koay will leverage his integrated thinking and channel-agnostic creativity to further enhance Edelman’s ability to deliver work that is rooted in culture. He will also be tasked with leading the firm’s creative team, as they develop earned creative for clients across its offerings.

Commenting on his new role, Koay said, “By embedding creativity and other integrated solutions into the core of its offerings, the agency’s work truly stands out in resonating with local audiences. I am looking forward to partnering with the talented team to continue pushing the envelope for what clients can achieve with the power of creativity.” 

Meanwhile, Tim Green, Edelman’s chief creative officer for APAC, shared Koay is an industry renowned creative maverick with an impeccable track record of delivering disruptive work.

“He joins us at a time when more and more clients are turning to us for creative solutions that swiftly respond to their business challenges and resonate with their consumers or audiences in a digital age. John is the epitome of multiculturalism and global thinking, while being fluent in the language of CMOs,” said Green.

Most recently, Edelman has also announced the appointment of Jamshed Wadia as its newest vice chair for digital in APAC, where he will be responsible for overseeing the firm’s growing digital practice and Edelman Studios’ operations in the region.

Hong Kong – The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has announced new enhancements to its SME Financing Guarantee Scheme, where the application period for the 80% Guarantee Product, the 90% Guarantee Product and the Special 100% Loan Guarantee will be extended to 30 June, 2023.

The maximum loan amount per enterprise under the Special 100% Loan Guarantee will be raised from the total amount of employee wages and rents for 18 months to that for 27 months, subject to a ceiling of HK$9m, originally HK$6m, and the maximum repayment period will be extended from eight years to ten years.

In addition, HKMC Insurance Limited (HKMCI) will also extend the principal moratorium arrangement under the SFGS by six months to a total of 30 months, and the application period for principal moratorium will be extended to end-December 2022.

“An option for borrowers to resume making partial principal repayment for one year will be provided, allowing borrowers to resume normal repayment gradually if they are willing and capable. Whether a borrower chooses the principal moratorium arrangement or the partial principal repayment option, the loan tenor and the guarantee period will generally be extended accordingly,” the authority said.

Hong Kong – Hong Kong’s online collectables and artwork e-commerce service provider Oriental Culture Holding (Oriental Culture) and tech company Heng Well Information Technology Co. (Heng Well) have signed a strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding (MOU), aimed at launching comprehensive cooperation on blockchain-based digital cultural and artwork products service business.

As part of the MOU, both companies will be developing blockchain+ and NFT related services and business for cultural and artwork products to take the advantage of Heng Well’s experience and strength in the areas of blockchain and NFT, and Oriental Culture’s experience and connections in the cultural and artwork market. 

Moreover, Oriental Culture will be drawing on its extensive knowledge and experience in the existing and traditional cultural and artwork products market to build up an ecological service networking for the blockchain-based digital cultural and artwork business by working together with Heng Well to expand the trade in cultural and artworks and engage a wide range of the population in the collection, trade, and communication of cultural and artwork products in different forms.

The parties have also agreed to hold regular meetings between their senior management to provide guidance, support, and supervision of the development of new business, and to coordinate and resolve major issues arising in the business practice.

Mun Wah Wan, Oriental Culture’s chairman, noted that the market size of cultural and artwork products is increasing quickly, and the market demand for cultural and artwork trade platforms and related services presents a diversified trend with the recent development of blockchain technology and NFT. 

“Heng Well is a company that has advanced blockchain+ technology and rich experience in related areas, and the cooperation between our two companies will help us to offer blockchain-based services for the digital cultural and artwork products, marking another milestone of the Company in its efforts to create a full-service and new technology-driven platform for cultural and artwork products,” said Wan.

Hong Kong – Hong Kong-based game software and venture capital company Animoca Brands and South Korean entertainment company Cube Entertainment have announced the official establishment of their latest venture called AniCube Entertainment, which aims to build a music metaverse, and issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and ecosystem tokens based on the intellectual property rights of Cube Ent’s globally popular K-pop music artists and actors.

The partnership was first announced in November 2021, and also entails AniCube bringing Cube Ent’s artists to The Sandbox, a decentralised gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said, “As a fan of K-pop and Korean culture, I am thrilled to contribute to AniCube, a JV that will guide K-pop music creators and fans in the open music metaverse and help them to enjoy true digital property rights and the other benefits of blockchain and NFTs.”

Meanwhile, Woohyung Ahn, CEO of Cube Entertainment, commented, “With the support of Animoca Brands, the music metaverse created by AniCube will be global and open, and will play a leading role in the global music industry to protect the rights of IP holders and content creators related to music sources. We look forward to the ways in which Cube Ent’s highly talented artists will help to build the open metaverse.”

Hong Kong – On-demand delivery platform Lalamove in Hong Kong has launched a new series of initiatives this February, aimed at helping the community in fighting against the pandemic.

The initiatives include the ‘Support Our SMEs’ campaign, which was launched last 14 February 2022. It seeks to support more than 150 SMEs by providing them with exclusive promotion opportunities. 

With this initiative, Lalamove has been leveraging its own and other promotional platforms to help SMEs promote their exclusive offers. These SME partners span across a wide range of sectors such as F&B, catering, lifestyle products, sporting equipment, and electronic products, as well as apparel. 

Shing Chow, Lalamove’s founder and CEO, shared that they have been inspired by the many unsung heroes working diligently to serve the community amidst a challenging situation. 

“Our team at Lalamove has focused on leveraging our strength and strong network in the instant delivery landscape, to help non-profit organizations and SMEs affected by the pandemic moving things that matter on their behalf. We hope to extend our support to grassroots families so that we can overcome this adversity together,” said Chow.

Meanwhile, another initiative is free logistics support for non-profit organizations, which was launched last 18 February 2022. Through this, Lalamove has received more than 50 requests from NGOs for logistics support, delivering epidemic supplies such as rapid test kits, medical supplies, disinfectants, and masks, as well as food.

And lastly, the initiatives also include the donation of 10,000 rapid test kits to help grassroots families who are dealing with the pandemic. To date, Lalamove has donated 10,000 sets of rapid testing kits to various non-profit organizations that have then distributed them to the homeless, as well as grassroots families and workers, hoping to lessen their burdens in searching for the precaution item.

Hong Kong – Around 57% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong have reported that they have accelerated their digitalisation efforts for the past 12 months, new survey from insurance company QBE shows.

According to the survey, 21% of the respondents say that growing sales amid reduced consumer spending became a key priority for SME digitalisation, followed by customer acquisition and retention (18%). In addition, SMEs are concerned about staff acquisition, training and retention, as well as logistical and export-import issues, reflecting that maintaining sales performance and ensuring business continuity are critical.

The survey also noted that 88% of the respondents said they currently use digital technologies or intend to invest in them, continuing the upward trend seen in 2020 (75%) and 2019 (73%). 

At present, the three top investment areas are collaborative software for staff (40%), marketing through social or online media (40%) and e-commerce (38%).

Despite the strong outlook, SMEs cited greater competition, data security threats and rising customer expectations as the main challenges for e-commerce. As a result, there is a surge in cyber risk awareness among SMEs, which jumped to 43% from 24% in 2020. SMEs took protection against cyber risk in several different forms, including software solutions and staff training, but particularly, 39% used insurance as a form of protection.

Lei Yu, CEO for North Asia and regional head of distribution at QBE Asia, said that the survey provided useful insights on the challenges that SMEs in Hong Kong are facing, and showed that SMEs are catching up quickly in utilising digital technologies to help achieve their evolving business goals.

“Our annual survey shows that awareness of and appetite for insurance keeps changing, however the underlying trend of insurance and risk management awareness is upwards. This is important because it is in everyone’s interests for them to be adequately protected. SMEs need flexible insurance products that allow them to choose insurance types and coverage according to their own needs,” Yu said.

Shanghai, China, — Porsche, the German automobile manufacturer specializing in sports cars, has announced the appointment of Michael Kirsch, current CEO of Porsche Japan, as the new president and CEO of Porsche China, Hongkong and Macao effective on June 1, 2022.

Kirsch holds extensive leadership experience in the automotive manufacturing industry. He has held the position of CEO of Porsche Japan since 2019. Prior to that, he previously held the same position at Porsche Korea for three years. Between 2012 and 2016, he gained a detailed insight into Porsche China in his role as chief operating officer. His other notable employments were holding senior management positions at BMW and at an international hotel chain.

Detlev von Platen, member of the executive board responsible for sales and marketing at Porsche AG, commented, “In his various roles, Michael Kirsch has contributed to successfully develop Porsche in Asia and he is the ideal choice as CEO of Porsche China – one of our most important markets worldwide. Michael has been very successful, especially when dealing with customer satisfaction and service quality. I am confident that he will set further strong impulses with plenty of valuable initiatives for the Chinese market and will continue to increase the impact of our brand there.”

Kirsch takes over following the departure of Jens Puttfarcken, who is moving to Audi AG to take on the role of head of sales for Europe. Puttfarcken held the president and CEO positions for Porsche China, Hongkong and Macao since 2018.

“Jens Puttfarcken has excellently positioned our brand in China and successfully expanded both the customer base and the dealer network. He has been leading a dedicated and strong team in China which keeps Porsche always connected and engaged in this dynamic market. We thank him for his great commitment and wish him all the best for his new responsibilities,” Platen said.

During the tenure of Puttfarcken, China continued to be Porsche’s largest single market since 2015. The market is strategically important to the brand with its size, great dynamics and innovation strength. Under the previous leadership of Puttfarcken, Porsche continuously expanded its business footprint and invested in terms of electrification, innovation and digitalization. In addition, Porsche Digital China was founded in 2019 and spun off at the beginning of 2021. Moreover, the foundation stone was laid for the establishment of a research and development satellite location in Shanghai, which is due to open in 2022.

Hong Kong – China-based social commerce solution provider Azoya has announced the launch of its turnkey social commerce suite to assist retail brand K11 to amplify its digital presence in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), including in Hong Kong.

As part of the solution, Azoya assisted K11 to launch the K11 Go HK WeChat mini-program using proprietary technology of Azoya SaaS, and fully integrating with WeChat Work, where customers can interact directly with tenants and smart sales consultants. 

The mini-program leverages K11’s strong portfolio of tenants and capacity of acquiring customer traffic both offline and online to increase overall brand awareness, customer loyalty and revenues for tenants, including Beyorg, Carbali, Champion, Kids 21, L’Occitane, Penhaligon’s, Thann and a dozen more brands who are also available on the physical premises.

“The escalating COVID-19 situation continues to affect Hong Kong retailers. Shopping malls, pharmacies and duty-free businesses cannot get access to foreign customers and tourists, while local customers must continue to comply with social distancing. In response, retailers are turning to digital methods to continue their operations and serve customers whose demand for merchandise remains strong,” the company said in a statement.

In addition, one of the key features of the mini-program launched by Azoya is to integrate deeply with K11 membership system KLUB11. The fully-customised solution allows K11’s private domain customers to earn and burn points in the same mechanism as in offline stores.

Davy Huang, director of business development at Azoya said, “Consumers want to form a closer relationship with brands in WeChat according to our study and practice. Our data shows over 34% of customers that participated in group chats have made at least 1 purchase in the past year, and we think the number will continue to increase.”

He added, “We are working with our retail partners to transform a large amount of idle sales reps into smart digital beauty advisors, who can interact with customers in WeChat groups, and convert interpersonal connections into deeper customer relationships.”

Hong Kong — Capssion, an all-in-one influencer marketing platform based in Singapore and Hong Kong and founded by two ex-Lazada executives Thibault Couperie Eiffel and Koussey Goupil, has announced that their software now integrates TikTok on its platform to allow e-commerce brands in the region to find, manage, and monitor performance with TikTok influencers.

With influencer marketing campaigns becoming increasingly complex to manage, and in the bid to streamline the over-abundance of tools and social media platforms marketers have to cope with, Capssion has been aiming to innovate through choice integrations with best-in-class software to become the all-in-one influencer marketing platform for e-commerce brands in the Asia Pacific region. Historically, Capssion allowed brands to run campaigns on popular platforms namely Instagram and YouTube.

Thibault Couperie Eiffel, CEO and co-founder of Capssion, says, “More than 50 percent of the brands operating on Capssion have dedicated budgets for TikTok in 2022. Four in 10 of our influencers creating content on Instagram are now also creating content on TikTok.”

With the successful integrations of Shopify and Aftership that saw significant results, Capssion plans to grow its integrations and partnerships even further. The platform aims to be a facilitator for brands to find, manage and compensate influencers, as well as monitor their performance at scale, all in one place.