Tag: initiative

Sydney, Australia – Rufus, the dedicated media and communications agency by Initiative for Amazon’s range of services, has announced new senior leadership appointments namely Sarah O’Leary as managing director and Tom Cumberworth as head of partnerships.

O’Leary has a strong media investment background garnered from 15-years in senior management and director roles both agency and marketing-side. 

Previously with Atomic 212 as Head of Client Service and Planning, O’Leary’s strengths lie in her leadership qualities and deep understanding of how media agencies operate within the ANZ landscape.

Meanwhile, with nearly 15-years of global and local experience, Cumberworth was previously group trading director at OMD Sydney where he led the Suncorp Group business, overseeing the investment strategy and decisioning for the entire portfolio across all media. 

Previously he was with Mindshare and MEC in the UK commencing in 2008 as a TV buyer and moving to an account director role working on clients such as Nike, News Corp, 3 Mobile and Kimberly Clark to name a few.

Melissa Fein, CEO at Initiative Australia said after a robust search and selection process she was delighted to welcome both Sarah and Tom to Rufus, who together bring specialist skills to the table and are charged with delivering high performance outcomes for Amazon.

“Sarah has a proven track record of leading senior stakeholder relationships and delivering business growth in today’s complex and fast-moving market. We’re delighted she has accepted the opportunity to lead Rufus at a pivotal time in the agency’s growth and momentum,” she said.

Fein added, “Tom is an outstanding team leader with a raft of global and local experience managing and leading specialist buying teams across all media platforms, inclusive of TV, VOD, OOH, Radio and more. He will play a leading role in Rufus, Amazon and our media partners’ future successes.”

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – As the saying goes, not all superheroes wear capes, and this holds true for this year’s superhero search by Grab Malaysia. This annual initiative called ‘Grab Lejen’ looks to honour and reward exceptional driver and delivery partners who have gone above and beyond their call of duty to serve Malaysians. 

In conjunction with Grab’s 10-year anniversary, the initiative seeks to find an everyday superhero amongst its community of partners that will be entirely crowdsourced, which means that Grab users will be able to submit their heartwarming stories of choice as nominations.

Until 30 September 2022, Grab users will be able to submit their heartwarming stories of choice as nominations at https://grb.to/grablejen2022. They will then be able to vote for their favourite ‘lejens’ who won the hearts of Malaysians beginning 15 October until 15 November 2022.

Rashid Shukor, director of country operations and mobility at Grab Malaysia, shared that since its inauguration last year, they’ve seen incredible acts of kindness from their driver and delivery partners, and heartwarming and compassionate stories like these are a breath of fresh air and a true testament to the incredible selfless nature of their partners, who despite enduring hardships in their everyday lives, still find it in themselves to be unselfishly kind to those around them. 

“As a homegrown company striving for positive social impact, we are encouraged by our partners and want to continue to recognise and further enable these exemplary acts of service for many more years to come,” said Shukor.

Grab Lejen is part of Grab’s commitment to positive social impact. In addition to honouring exemplary partners who have shown extraordinary acts of service, Grab continuously finds ways to help all partners to save and grow through the platform with the GrabBenefits programme. GrabBenefits is a programme aimed at enriching the lives of Grab’s partners through three main categories; protection, savings, and academy. Together, these benefits such as petrol rebates, vehicle maintenance discounts, insurance coverage, and upskilling programmes allow them to save on everyday expenses, get the necessary protection and equip themselves with knowledge while they earn. 

Shukor added. “For the past 10 years, our community of partners has been the heart of everything Grab does and we are committed to continue supporting them as they persevere to earn on the Grab platform. GrabBenefits is one of our ways of supporting our dedicated partners and empowering them with resources to hopefully make their lives a little easier. And through Grab Lejen, we aim to honour the real-life superheroes that deserve recognition. We hope to continue building a healthy partner community that touches the lives of people around them, and by doing so, empower them to become an enabler of positive social impact. This is truly how legends are made.”

Singapore – To celebrate foodpanda’s 10 years of operations in Asia, the q-commerce platform has launched its new regional headquarters in Singapore. This new headquarters houses 1,200 employees from its regional and local operational teams, plus the company’s global tech hub.

foodpanda said that Singapore has always been a base and test market for innovation and new product development. Amongst the features beta-launched in Singapore were foodpanda’s cloud store network pandamart and on-demand retail marketplace foodpanda shops – leading Asia’s push into q-commerce, as early as 2019. Singapore was also the first market to roll out proof-of-concept drone deliveries in partnership with ST Engineering, as well as foodpanda’s Logistics-as-a-Service feature, pandago in 2020, offering express doorstep deliveries to customers.

Moreover, the platform has launched its ‘PowerUp! Tech Academy’, which aims to enable the next decade of growth, building up a strong tech core. Unlike a localised R&D facility, the foodpanda PowerUp! Tech Academy will use Delivery Hero’s global knowledge base in Singapore to power the tech and innovation ecosystem. It comprises programmes and partnerships to grow the local tech talent pool, upskill riders, and help merchants digitalise.

foodpanda, together with its parent company Delivery Hero’s Delivery Hero Ventures, has also invested more than SG$120m in Singapore-based regional tech start-ups including Toku, Flash Coffee, and Omnistream.

Jakob Angele, CEO of foodpanda, said that Singapore has proven to be a dynamic hub for foodpanda’s operations in the region, and they expect to see more innovations to be launched from Singapore into the regional markets.

“Initiatives like our foodpanda PowerUp! Tech Academy is essential to our long-term plans, as we nurture more of Asia’s tech talent, build the ecosystem and grow Asia’s digital economy,” added Angele.

Singapore – As part of foodpanda’s efforts in supporting the fight against global hunger, the delivery platform has launched its new meal donation initiative in Asia. With a new micro-donation feature built into the foodpanda app, customers can now easily donate to those in need by selecting the ‘Donate’ button after checking out orders.

The feature will go live in Malaysia and Singapore this week, ahead of World Hunger Day on 28 May 2022. Beneficiaries of foodpanda’s meal donation initiative will vary by market. In Malaysia, foodpanda and ShareTheMeal have been working closely together to make it easy for customers to give back to their communities. ShareTheMeal is a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) initiative and app through which people are encouraged to make meal donations to help feed hungry families around the world. 

The donation function integrated into the foodpanda app allows for a seamless donation process for customers. All donations via the foodpanda app will be channelled to WFP’s food assistance projects and emergency programmes across SEA. Malaysians now have the option to donate between RM2.50 to RM17.50 to feed a child for up to seven days.

Meanwhile, in Singapore, foodpanda will collaborate with The Food Bank Singapore (FBSG). Customers in Singapore can choose to donate one, two, or three meals – at a rate of SG$2 per meal – that will go towards funding meals for FBSG beneficiaries. 

For interested users, The ‘Donate a Meal/ Share the Meal’ tab will be displayed on the order tracking page, and upon clicking it, they will be shown the donation options available. Once a user selects their donation, they will be directed to the payment page, and when the donation is confirmed, the user will be returned to the order tracking page.

foodpanda said that this meal donation initiative is an extension of the global partnership launched by parent company Delivery Hero SE with the WFP in September 2020, with the goal for Delivery Hero to donate 10 million meals globally by the end of 2022. 

Jakob Sebastian Angele, foodpanda’s CEO, said, “Food and groceries are at the core of our business, so we need to make food accessible to as many people as possible. By integrating meal donations onto our platform, we are encouraging our riders, merchants and customers to give back to society through using everyday technologies.” 

Elsewhere in Asia, foodpanda is also an active participant in programmes that address hunger and tackle food insecurity and wastage. In Singapore, foodpanda partners with OLIO to redistribute surplus food from pandamarts, while in Bangladesh, foodpanda partners with the Bidyanodo Foundation, donating unsold fresh produce from pandamarts and food from cancelled orders to vulnerable communities. Moreover, in Hong Kong, foodpanda has introduced a ‘Less Rice/Noodles’ option to decrease food waste.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – As Bangladesh has been hit by a dengue epidemic within a pandemic, Akash Digital TV, the country’s direct-to-home (DTH) service provider, has launched a new unique mosquito repellent curtain called ‘MosBlock’, aimed at providing uninterrupted entertainment in a safe and healthy environment.

Several reasons why the number of dengue victims is rising are that low-income people living in slum communities partake extensively in communal social practices, as well as many mosquito repellents are not approved by the health board, and their ingredients can pose a severe health threat. Therefore the only safe defence is a mosquito net which is often impractical as you need to stay indoors throughout the day. 

According to research done by the Aichi Agricultural Research Center, it has been found that in the animal planet, Zebras get less attacked by mosquitoes because of their black and white pattern. The pattern creates an illusion in the compound of the eyes of mosquitos, which derails their landing. Mosquitoes avoid journeying in the direction of this unique pattern.

With this insight, an initiative was started as a pilot project in Dhaka’s largest slum – korail slum. The program began with an awareness and activation campaign throughout the slums, followed by the distribution of MosBlock curtains amongst households- all free of cost. The curtains were put on the doors and windows of homes as well as on the boundary walls – thereby deterring mosquitoes from this area.

Sydney, Australia – Media agency Initiative has appointed Daniela Rocchi to the new role of head of partnership for the Sydney team, and Justin ArIt to the new role of head of partnership for the Melbourne team. The move comes after Initiative restructured its partnerships department, aimed at bolstering its leadership team.

Rocchi’s immediate remit in Initiative is to lead the investment and partnerships across the Sydney market, bringing a genuine passion for investment to deliver the best results for clients. Having spent a decade at Initiative, Rocchi has been a stalwart in the agency’s transformation diving into every aspect of the business and proving herself to be a brilliant client adviser and an important partner to media vendors.

Meanwhile, Arlt brings his leadership skills to the Melbourne business. Up to date, he has been intimately involved in numerous Melbourne pitch wins and instrumental in rolling out several key internal processes.

Both will report directly to Simon Reid, Initiative’s national head of partnerships.

Commenting on her new role, Rocchi said, “I could not be happier to be moving into a role that I am extremely passionate about. What I love most about this role is that I will be building my industry relationships into strong partnerships and training our workforce whilst keeping the Initiative culture at the forefront of everything I do.”

Meanwhile, Arlt also commented: “I’m particularly excited to be working through the next evolution of our partnerships learning and development program which will help our teams build stronger relationships with our partners to deliver more meaningful results for our clients.”

Reid shared that given Initiative’s current rapid growth rate, now is the perfect time to restructure their partnerships team, providing huge benefits to their existing clients and allowing for continued agency growth.

“I am extremely proud of both Daniela and Justin and the fact we can promote within is a testament to the tremendous talent we have at Initiative. Both are masters of their craft, high-level negotiators, have built strong senior relationships in their respective markets and have been delivering year on year results for our clients. They both have extensive experience on a broad range of categories and will build formidable teams to benefit our clients,” he said.

Hong Kong – Fintech platform Airwallex has launched an SME support initiative worth HK$2.5m, where they will provide a series of exclusive offers to help businesses recover and reopen from the pandemic while managing costs.

Through this initiative, SMEs can open an Airwallex business account for free, and also enjoy HK$0 transfer fees for international payments to 60 destinations. Customers will also be able to enjoy exclusive subscription fee discounts, rebates and other perks through Airwallex’s local partners including Boutir, Bowtie, GOGOX, Google Ads, Google Workspace, SleekFlow, Xero and YOOV. 

Arnold Chan, head of SME for Hong Kong and Singapore at Airwallex, said, “SMEs are the backbone of Hong Kong’s economy, and in the months ahead, many of these businesses will continue to face challenges in managing their financials and cash flows.”

He added, “As the pandemic situation continues to impact local businesses, we hope that by doing our small part, we can help local businesses power through these difficult times and facilitate their path to recovery. With support from our partners, our offers aim to provide a more convenient and cost-efficient solution for making cross-border payments.”

The initiative comes as Hong Kong SMEs continue to combat the coronavirus related economic disruptions, and are experiencing numerous hurdles as they try to recover and rebuild in the wake of the pandemic. With over 340,000 SMEs operating in Hong Kong today, these businesses serve as vital economic engines for the city.
Airwallex had recently partnered with Hong Kong-based investment company Choco Up to support the future growth of cross-border e-commerce in the region, as well as expanding its services in Singapore.

Sydney, Australia – Sydney-based digital agency Switch has partnered with digital experience management software Sitecore to launch a new composable digital experience initiative, aimed at helping companies align and accelerate their transformation agenda.

With this new initiative, Switch will now be providing companies with the opportunity to implement composable solution architecture and software in a planning framework, which is designed to drive ROI on business plans, target operating models, and effective data architecture.

Moreover, Switch will be offering the latest platform components from Sitecore, including customer data management, content management, e-commerce, and marketing automation.

As part of the initiative, Switch has also developed a free workshop for organisations seeking to implement SaaS initiatives, helping companies understand their required digital experience strategy. 

Andrew Davenport, Switch’s managing director, shared that the nature of a composable DXP means that components can be smaller and quicker to implement.

“It also means customers can focus on key issues and key technical choices across multiple vendors which allows an organisation to keep evolving to meet its customer expectations without wholesale re-investment across its tech stack. We see this composability as critical to continued customer transformation,” said Davenport.

Perth, Australia – West Australian energy provider Kleenheat has appointed Initiative Perth to be its new media agency partner. This partnership will see Initiative providing services for Kleenheat’s media requirements including strategy and buying across non-digital media, digital, search, social, and programmatic, as well as analytics.

The mandate, which will commence on 1 May 2022, will also see Initiative leveraging its media landscape to deliver positive results for Kleenheat.

David Burger, Initiative’s managing director for Perth, said that the brief was very specific requiring a holistic approach to the integration and use of digital and non-digital media to showcase Initiative’s capabilities.

He further shared that they are thrilled Kleenheat chose Initiative from a strong media agency pitch roster, and it’s a great privilege to work with a brand that is synonymous with providing local support and ongoing value for WA households and businesses.

“We felt we were a perfect match to fulfil Kleenheat’s brief and we’re excited to be part of the team to drive success by integrating the use of digital and non-digital media and build a powerful, long-term partnership with Deb and her team. We can’t wait to get started; it’s an exciting time to help deliver Kleenheat’s vision and be part of the brand’s growth journey,” added Burger.

Meanwhile, Debra Packer, Kleenheat’s marketing manager, said, “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Initiative to further strengthen our brand position and bring awareness to our goal of making life easier for our customers.”

Earlier this month, Initiative has launched a new national program called ‘Maternity Masterclass’, to help parents return to work with more experience than when they left for parental leave.

Australia – To-be mothers are putting on a lot of sacrifices for their upcoming families, and media agency in Australia, Initiative, aims to make this a lot more bearable by enhancing the time these women take away during maternity leaves. In honour of the upcoming International Women’s Day, Initiative has launched a new national program called ‘Maternity Masterclass’, to help parents return to work with more experience than when they left for parental leave. 

The program, which will start ahead of the International Women’s Day celebration, was developed after benchmarking Australian industry standards and having a close examination of what Initiative staff needed and wanted. Through this, Initiative will be funding accredited and remote learning programs for mums or dads on parental leave who choose to opt-in and enrol in courses such as a Mini MBA, a Behavioural Science course, or a mentorship training program, to enhance their skills and capabilities. 

‘Maternity Masterclass’ will be available to all employees taking primary parental leave for longer than six months and have been an employee of Initiative for more than 12 months. Financial contribution is also capped per year, and course options are limitless but must be accredited and relevant to enhancing the skills and capabilities of the individual, taken while the employee is on parental leave.

Erin Jakubans, Initiative’s chief people officer for Australia, noted that many parents feel an extended period of time away from the office can stall their careers, and while ‘Maternity Masterclass’ is definitely not for everyone, they want those who have the desire to study to be encouraged and helped to do so.

She further shared that innovative programs like ‘Maternity Masterclass’ are a wonderful way for employees taking parental leave to build their CVs and add additional skills to their repertoire.

“At Initiative, our parental leave policy and program like ‘Maternity Masterclass’ make us ‘amongst the best in the industry’ and are part of our commitment to ensure everyone has the chance to balance work and family life. Ultimately, we hope talent will see Initiative as a long-term career option that is supportive through all different phases of life. Maternity Masterclass helps revamp our talent retention and attraction goals,” said Jakubans.

Meanwhile, Melissa Fein, Initiative’s CEO for Australia, said that they are proud to support their employees through every phase of their careers, and they want to ensure that their people have every opportunity to balance work, family, and other responsibilities and have the option to increase their skillset even when on extended leave.

“‘Maternity Masterclass’ program is a welcome addition to Initiative’s industry-leading parental leave policy and is designed to help parents grow and thrive in their careers,” added Fein.

Just recently, Initiative has also launched its inaugural Marketing Multi for industry experts to test their marketing acumen against this year’s Super Bowl, a platform that encapsulates the zeitgeist of sports and popular culture.