Tag: Iris Singapore

Singapore – Creative agency Iris Singapore has appointed Paolo Agulto as executive creative director (ECD) to boost its creative output for clients.

The appointment is part of the agency’s strategy of gathering the best talents for creative, innovative, and original outputs. In his new role, Agulto will be working with Iris Singapore’s global chief creative officer Menno Kluin and creative chairman Eduardo Maruri, who also recently joined the agency. 

Agulto joins Iris Singapore with over 17 years of experience in the creative industry. He was formerly a creative director at Accenture Song, having held the role for two years. He also held the same position at The Secret Little Agency. Prior to that, he was the creative group head at BLK J Havas and DDB Group Singapore, and he worked with Saatchi & Saatchi as a copywriter.

As the ECD, Agulto will collaborate with Shea Warnes, who was recently appointed as chief strategy officer.

Meanwhile, Iris Singapore has also promoted Yingting Low as head of content to lead media planning, content creation, and dissemination. 

“Paolo is an incredibly sharp, modern creative stepping into this role with hunger and ambition. We needed someone who shared Iris’ ‘participants not passengers’ mentality, not just in the kind of work we create, but also in how we work and the culture we create at Iris,” Rebecca Nadilo, managing director of Iris, said.

“As community and culture become integral to buying decisions, Iris is focused on ideas that earn attention rather than just paying for it. With Paolo, Shea, and Yingting leading the charge, we are ready to deliver work that both excites clients and resonates with audiences,” Nadilo added.

“Participation has always been at the heart of my work. I couldn’t be more excited to join a creative community where participation is not just another buzzword, but the driving force of everything that we do. Now that audiences have a myriad of ways to avoid brands, it’s more important than ever to create work that people actually want in their lives. And I’m confident that the talent around me can do exactly that,” Agulto commented.

“Paolo’s impressive experience means we have a leader calibrated to create value and earn attention. That’s exciting to me, broadening our aperture to more different shaped solutions. That’s the type of work that excites me, but more importantly our clients are asking for,” Warnes said.

Singapore – Singapore’s first digitally-native bank Trust Bank has recently launched its second credit card: the all-new Trust Cashback card, with S$1m up for grabs for one lucky customer and a campaign full of exciting promotions.

The campaign, created by the participation agency Iris Singapore in partnership with Havas Media Singapore, amplifies the launch of the Trust Cashback card which offers an experience of ease and transparency. 

Bringing this to life meant that Iris needed to channel million-dollar vibes through imaginative and striking visuals and powerful calls to action. To amplify this, Havas Media Singapore strategically deployed a mix of offline and online channels across out-of-home, radio, digital, and social platforms to ensure maximum reach and impact.

Moreover, the campaign casts two main questions in its messaging: ‘Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire? (Everyone does!)’ and second, ‘What would you do if you had a million dollars?’ By posing these questions in fun and cheeky ways, the campaign aims to delight Trust customers and drive the brand’s commitment to be an easy and rewarding banking experience for everyone.

Leading the campaign is a film entitled “If Only” and directed by Tanya Kneale (Atypicalfilms). It leans in on humour and levity by asking the main characters a question that most people would undoubtedly have asked themselves: “What would you do if you won a million dollars?”

In addition, from bus stops to MRT thoroughfares to in-train displays, the campaign covers Singapore in joyous, cash-filled key visuals. These placements also set the scene for a scavenger hunt in which all Trust Cashback card customers are invited to participate. Part of the campaign’s outreach as well to social media personalities is a press kit in the form of a ubiquitous pop culture trope: the nondescript silver briefcase. Though it contains no actual cash (merely references to cash, including a cash-themed blanket), the press kit means to convey that same million-dollar vibe with a wink and a nudge.

Lastly, the campaign invites Trust Cashback card customers to physically experience what could feel more like a million bucks than stepping into a wind chamber to catch some cash through an on-ground activation that will run for a total of four days at prime locations in Singapore.

Mira Bharin, chief marketing officer of Trust Bank, said, “The Trust Cashback card is innovative and differentiated through an experience which is instant, transparent and flexible. We believe that customers will love how it offers instant cashback credit and real-time tracking of earnings – which no other cashback card in the market offers. We are thrilled to partner with Iris and Havas Media for this campaign to perfectly encapsulate the excitement and potential of our latest offering.”

Meanwhile, Rebecca Nadilo, managing director of Iris Singapore, commented, “The chance for Everyday Singaporeans to win a million dollars needed to be launched in an equally big, joyful, surprising way that gets Singaporeans excited and participating. “We’re delighted to paint the town blue and do what Trust does best: give back to Everyday Singaporeans”.

Lastly, Kelvin Goh, media director at Havas Media Singapore, stated, “Having laid a strong foundation for our collaboration with Trust’s highly successful launch in 2022, we are excited to embark on another exciting launch and invite Singaporeans to experience Trust’s latest offering.”

This cashback card provides instant cashback credit, and real-time tracking of earnings and allows customers to pay a consolidated credit card bill with both the Trust Link card and the Cashback card. This is coupled with a market-leading quarterly bonus rate of up to 15% on a preferred spend category and unlimited cashback rate of 1.5% on other categories for new Trust customers, while existing Trust customers get 1%.

Singapore – Iris, a global creative network, has appointed Shea Warnes as the new chief strategy officer of Iris Singapore. In the new role he will report to Rebecca Nadilo, managing director of Iris Singapore, responsible for leading integrated strategy and further propelling Iris’ social and content product, Iris Inc–which stands for Igniting New Creators.

Warnes joins from Dentsu Creative, where he was head of strategy based in Singapore, working across key clients that included Activision Blizzard, Amex, Toyota, Manulife and the Singapore government. 

He has worked in New York, London, Australia and Singapore, and brings unique experience that bridges tech, social and brand from over 15 years in senior roles at companies such as Meta, BBH London and Havas, as well as launching Media.Monks for ANZ in 2020.

Speaking on his new role, Warnes said, “What I’ve found in Iris is an agency committed to the simple and powerful idea of building brands people want to talk about. I’m in awe of the talent, skillsets and agility here to get to different shaped ideas that work, which is critical when so much of what our industry pumps out is wallpaper and noise.”

He added, “I’m looking forward to working with Becs and the teams here to refine the inputs and outputs to get to culturally-fit creative. That requires a new creative OS that better marries fame with performance, and I’m excited to partner with our clients to deliver growth and value.”

Meanwhile, Nadilo commented, “When there’s a cost of media crisis going on, and 4 out of 5 people are more influenced by people than ads, we need someone who thinks about the conversations we want people to be having and then marry audacious creative ideas with social, content and creators, and Shea does exactly that.”

She added, “I’m beyond excited to welcome Shea to the Iris Singapore team. Not only does he have great creative instinct and a way to reduce problems into one line, or deliver simple truth bombs, but he is also a great human who will lead with empathy, collaborate brilliantly and continue to shape Iris Singapore into a place where people do and feel their best.”

Singapore – The Singaporean government has announced a S$1b investment plan on AI in five years, a move that was announced as part of the nation’s Singapore Budget 2024 presented by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong

“Part of the investment will be used to ensure that Singapore can secure access to the advanced chips that are so crucial to AI development and deployment. We will also work with leading companies in Singapore and around the world to set up their AI Centres of Excellence here. We want these Centres to spur industry collaboration and innovation, and drive greater value creation across the whole economy,” he explained.

In the budget, Wong stressed how Singapore is already recognised as a serious player in AI development. Furthermore, he noted that they aim to go further–to build new peaks of excellence, and crowd in private sector investments.

Following this, MARKETECH APAC sought insights from various marketing industry leaders to learn more about their perspectives on this recent government move, and how the industry can use this to move forward.

Dan Bognar, Vice President & Managing Director, JAPAC, HubSpot

It is encouraging to see Budget 2024 committing more than S$1 billion over the next five years to accelerate Singapore’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption and innovation. We have arrived at a fascinating intersection where technologies like AI have the potential to play a pivotal role in nation-building and in helping to catalyse economic resilience. 

The reality is that AI provides an opportunity to enhance the future-readiness of Singapore’s growing digital economy. With its ability to improve productivity, AI represents a long-term, sustainable solution for firms to deal with ongoing economic challenges such as rising costs and increased complexities as the business grows. This will be especially relevant for SMEs, where technology can empower them with the means to compete with larger industry counterparts.

As the adoption of AI tools grows, organisations will also require targeted guidance to streamline their technology platforms and data sources. As many business leaders can attest to, a fragmented set of technology platforms, often a result of adopting multiple point solutions alongside legacy platforms, leads to disconnected systems that impede data, productivity and workflows. These shortcomings will likely increase overall operating costs, compromise the customer experience, and negatively impact business outcomes.

Continuous learning has become essential in ensuring that Singapore’s workforce remains in step with technological changes. As the digital economy grows, enterprises who are well-equipped to understand AI’s potential, and able to move quickly to lay a robust foundation for its adoption, will stand to reap the most benefits. These programmes will enhance businesses ability to reinvest in their employees as they capitalise on this change.

Mao Gen Foo, Head of Southeast Asia, Qualtrics

It’s pleasing to see Singapore’s continued commitment to upskilling initiatives, as highlighted in this year’s Budget, along with a significant investment in local AI capabilities and skills.

The newly announced SkillsFuture Level-Up initiative, aimed at supporting mid-career workers in acquiring new skills and competencies, is particularly encouraging. Programmes like this recognise the crucial role this demographic plays in our economy and the need for support in helping our nation’s workers adapt to evolving demands and technological advancements.

The increased focus and investment in AI capabilities, talent, and industry development is also exciting and important for Singapore to strengthen its position as a business and innovation hub. Singapore boasts one of the highest global acceptance rates for AI in the workplace, which supported by the government’s ambitions to set up new AI centres of excellence and investments in upskilling programmes, will empower a new cohort of talent and create high demand for skilled professionals.

Moreover, to ensure Singapore can attract and retain the talent needed in the future, this investment and focus on skills must be complemented by ensuring workers are provided with employee experiences that enable them to do their best work and create high-performing, highly productive teams.

Organisations that embrace this people-centric approach and empower their teams to excel in a period of technological and societal change will be the true standouts, propelling the nation towards a prosperous and competitive future.

Smith Leong, Havas Play Lead at Havas Singapore

Like any other industries, there are 3 things that matter to clients in advertising – Speed, cost, and quality. Based on the trends and what we have observed over the last few months, we can safely say that AI tools have shown us the possibilities of answering all 3 factors when used right. We have already started using some of these tools and they have definitely improved our quality of work at Havas.

We welcome the investment by the government in training as we can foresee the potential increase in productivity and quality of jobs. Talents will be able to do more, and better within a shorter time. That also means the potential increase of profit in relation. The challenge for such transition has always been due to the initiation cost and resources involved for both businesses and individuals.

With the initial investment by the government on AI, we can see the potential of Singapore being at the forefront of things which will help us attract both overseas talents and businesses trusting us with their investment, and that will continue to fuel the industry which higher interest and demand.

Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President, APAC, Confluent

I am glad to see the increasing local investments and upskilling support for Singaporeans and businesses to train and make the best of AI innovations. We live in an incredible time for innovation today where AI is driving significant productivity improvements for businesses in Singapore. While AI can’t replace the intentionality, creativity, or awareness of a human, it can automate the menial day-to-day, allowing employees and companies to focus on the most valuable tasks.

As consumers, we have already tasted the convenience of mobile apps that can process requests immediately, reducing waiting time from days to seconds. With AI, we can also expect businesses to operate closer to the speed of life, that is, in real time. Minister Wong aptly reflected that emerging technologies will change the way expertise is defined and how value is created. One good example is in customer engagements. The ability to access data in real time, supported by AI to analyse previous interactions, individual preferences and behaviours, will help to make the business feel more human. Other possibilities can also include preventing fraud for a fintech app or handling an online retail order and marking out the most efficient delivery route.

Such value of AI is deeply dependent on having clean, trustworthy, up-to-date data. Organisations can tap on real-time streams of accurate data to keep up with AI-driven change. For this, companies in Singapore (small or big) should actively help employees to retrain and upskill in data management with the SkillsFuture Level-Up programme and new grants, especially as we see more AI centres of excellence open up here. 

Eileen Chua, Managing Director of SAP Singapore

The increasing need for employees’ training in AI, reflects on Singapore’s Budget 2024 focus and anticipates an ever-evolving business landscape. With the rising demand for AI expertise in this digital economy, building skills-centric organizations where expertise and know-how take precedence over roles and titles will improve business agility and employee experience. In order to achieve this, companies must have a holistic view of their workforce and ignite potential by providing opportunities for growth and development. 

In line with the Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0, SAP has also named SAP Labs Singapore as a global AI hub, with the aim of developing reliable, relevant and responsible business AI applications for customers and partners globally, while fostering innovation through a private, public partnership approach.

Sanchit Mendiratta, Managing Director, Merkle, CXM Group, dentsu Singapore

Over the past six decades, Singapore has consistently positioned itself at the forefront of global innovation and economic growth. From capitalising on its strategic geographic location to foster trade to diversifying its economy from manufacturing to cutting-edge fintech, Singapore’s journey is a testament to foresight, adaptability, and relentless pursuit of excellence.

In the last 14 months alone, the world has witnessed unparalleled advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), signalling a pivot that promises to redefine our way of life, work, and interaction with technology. This era of rapid technological evolution underscores the power of individual creativity and potential to generate significant impact. In light of emerging narratives about the possibility of ‘one-person unicorns’, it is clear that the ability to drive change is increasingly democratised, residing not only within VC-funded start-ups, big tech, or established multinational corporations but also within the reach of every individual connected to the internet.

The Singapore government recognizes the transformative potential of AI and is committed to ensuring its benefits are accessible to all. By empowering Singaporeans with SkillsFuture credits and monthly training allowances, alongside initiatives designed to encourage companies to adopt AI, the government is fostering a dual approach to innovation. This strategy ensures a comprehensive understanding and application of AI across all levels of society and the workforce, from the ground up by the people and from the top down by companies.

We are on the cusp of a new era where AI is not just a tool for operational efficiency but a catalyst for societal advancement and the empowerment of every individual. The government’s efforts to evangelize AI capabilities reflect our dedication to preparing Singaporeans for the future, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to navigate and shape the emerging new world order.

Thus, the future Singapore envisions is not merely a forecast, but a reality Singaporeans will actively create.

Rebecca Nadilo, Managing Director – Iris Singapore

There’s still so much to learn about the applications of AI – and most importantly – there’s much to teach about it. Singapore’s investment in tech, training and infrastructure means we’re in the best position to beta test its application and understand where, how and who is best to use it.

Tin Sanchez, Executive Creative Director – Iris Singapore

Change is scary – and AI marks a change in the way we do and make things. The budget can allow mastery of AI and overcoming our unease around it. My hope is that it boosts human creativity even more.

A while ago, an ex-client approached, seeking assistance with their organisation’s marketing data strategy. What began as a routine data audit turned into a thrilling journey through a labyrinth of data chaos. Each team had a tech solution for practically ‘everything,’ resulting in a heavily siloed data landscape. Despite having an abundance of data, they couldn’t leverage it. They were bloated!

The martech bloat

Gartner research tells us that martech investment takes up 25% of marketing budgets but just 33% of features and capabilities are actually utilised. Now, assessing utilisation objectively and realistically is a challenge but it paints a picture of brands being over-sold to by vendors, making buying decisions without really understanding the customers experience they want to deliver, and propagating siloes and operational inefficiency.

With predictions that CMOs will continue to increase their martech investments in 2024, this problem will likely only get worse.

What causes MarTech bloat at organisations?

Reasons aplenty, but it mostly boils down to 3 things:

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  1. Strategic goals and martech misalignment a.k.a Did not need this tool:
  • Poor martech investment decisions are often driven by “love this cool feature” rather than strategic objectives. The investment decision rarely involves taking a step back and assessing if the feature or capability aligns with their customer experience goals, or with the stated business and marketing objectives. Reality catches up in a few quarters when it’s time to demonstrate ROI from the investment.
  • Marketers could perceive martech as a silver bullet that can solve marketing and growth problems. A prevalent example is solving for poor lead conversion rates by onboarding a leads management platform, while the real solution could be fixing the quality of leads generated.
  1. Lack of a framework to evaluate, compare and select the right martech:
  • The proliferation of martech tools and solutions brings with it the problem of too many choices for marketers. Finding the needle in the haystack is already quite challenging but finding the ‘right’ needle is exponentially more complicated. Without a solid evaluation and governance framework, it can go awry.
  • Lack of a framework lets subjectivity creep in. Choosing a martech platform because the person selling it was nicer and amicable sounds trivial, but it happens more often than most people think. There’s a reason why sales and account managers form a majority of the workforce at martech companies.
  1. Internal integration and adoption challenges: 
  • Lack of an organisation-wide tech governance strategy looping in cross-functional stakeholders – Without cross-functional buy-in or visibility, every team tries to solve their problems their own way leading to redundancy.
  • Incompatibility with internal systems and data architecture because the IT team was not in the loop or was brought in too late.
  • Lack of enthusiasm from other functions because they had very little say in the choice of platform.
  • Lack of expertise to drive adoption and usage or attrition.

How could CMOs leverage their martech for better customer & brand outcomes in 2024?

Simon Spyer, CEO – Data Driven Marketing at Iris says, “We’re now in the Post martech era – brands have made choices on their tech stack and, with the sector increasingly commoditised, now is the time to double down on building audience participation through compelling customer experiences enabled by martech. Setting this as the north star will help brands shorten the path to value on their tech investments and most importantly deliver brand-led experiences that get their customers doing their marketing.”

Here are 5 things CMOs and marketers should do to make the right martech choices:

  1. Envision a 3-year marketing roadmap, set high-level goals to be attained by the end of each year, and identify capabilities needed to achieve those goals. Evaluate every martech choice in the context of these identified capabilities. The three-year view forces long-term thinking, helps commit resources, while allowing enough time to measure ROI at scale. Importantly, percolate the process down to your team at different levels.
  1. Develop a unified Customer Experience and Marketing data strategy encompassing the views and needs of stakeholders across the organisation. Map out the customer journey, identify internal (Ex: Customer support, Account management) and customer-facing touchpoints where martech is expected to play a role. Having this worked out drastically reduces the time for new platform adoption and utilisation.
  1. Devise a framework to measure success and ROI – Create your own heuristic. Share them with the martech vendor to set expectations and understand what it takes to achieve the outcome. Set up a governance process to review progress monthly during the early stages and every quarter once things stabilise. Some key questions you might want to ask yourself:
  1. What’s the capability or key decision enabled by this martech solution?
  2. Does it work well with current tools and systems? 
  3. Do any of the current tools offer the same capability?
  4. What are the expected outcomes if this were to be successful?
  5. What KPIs are expected to improve? By how much? In what time frame?
  6. Projected ROI in terms of money, productivity, and opportunity cost?
  1. Engage with key cross-functional stakeholders at every step. Involve them early. These stakeholders could be the ones contributing to the platform (Ex, data team), the ones supporting the implementation and integration of the platform (Ex, IT team), or the team that’s ultimately going to be using the platform and be responsible for outcomes (Ex: Creative team or Customer Support). While a user-friendly interface might be necessary for one stakeholder, performance and latency might be critical factors for the other. The earlier these priorities are identified, the better.
  1. And finally, resist the urge to go after the latest in town. Encourage team members to think of What-if scenarios or the next best alternative.

2024 is going to be a year of reckoning for martech. To leverage its full potential and demonstrate value, CMOs and marketing leaders must step back, create a martech framework that works for them and be the person to champion it at their organisation.

This article is written by Sathya Anand, Digital Strategy Director at Iris Singapore.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023-2024. What’s NEXT 2023-2024 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

Manila, Philippines – In a world where businesses always think of going ‘digital’ is the best way to move forward, how do customers even know if the person they are talking to has the human touch? This was the overarching question GoTyme Bank aims to answer in its latest campaign film titled ‘The Lonely Bot’, conceptualised alongside Iris Singapore.

The campaign film, produced by Directors Think Tank and directed by Rajay Singh, features an emotional story that underscores the value of human connection, especially in a world of relentless technological advancement. 

For GoTyme Bank, the campaign shines a spotlight on its own brand of customer service, which unlike competitors, does not use automated responses and chatbots. When users ask for help, they can expect to speak to a real person, who will cater to their needs with human intuition and empathy.

Raymund Villanueva, chief marketing officer at GoTyme Bank, said, “The integrated brand campaign launched GoTyme Bank’s proposition as a human digital bank which will allows to deliver the best customer service in the country. Through the insight of Iris Singapore, we were able to communicate to Filipinos that GoTyme is a bank that brings warmth, empathy, and understanding of human interaction into the digital realm.”

He added, “That in a world of automation and digitalization, our customers can call, chat with, or email human personal bankers who are available to assist them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

Meanwhile, Cristina ‘Tin’ Sanchez, executive creative director at Iris Singapore, commented, “One of the ways that humans connect with each other is through a love for stories. Stories have the power to link minds and tribes. So, we created a series of stories rich in humanity, truth and emotion, to highlight not only the offers, but the main promise of GoTyme Bank: its human-centredness. Something that is even more precious in the midst of constant AI evolution.”

‘The Lonely Bot’ is flanked by four individual 20-second short films: Gimme Five, Cupcake, Promotion, and Bot World, which will be released over the next few weeks. Each focus on a value proposition or product of GoTyme Bank. 

Singapore – Iris Singapore secured the contract to serve as GoTyme Bank‘s agency of record (AOR) for all creative and customer relationship management (CRM) duties. GoTyme Bank seeks to transform the banking experience for Filipinos by placing an emphasis on customer service and accessibility.

Iris Singapore will introduce the brand positioning in the coming months, brand, and then the bank’s initial multi-touchpoint integrated campaign in Philippine Islands.

GoTyme Bank started a multi-agency pitch earlier this year to recruit potential partners. Amongst the competitors, Iris Singapore demonstrated its dedication to assisting GoTyme Bank in maximising Filipinos’ financial potential. In order to define and actualize the bank’s brand positioning and bring it to life in a compelling way, Iris Singapore has been given this task.

Priya Kalidas, head of growth at Iris Singapore, commented, “We are thrilled by this new partnership. It was great chemistry from the get-go. We are really looking forward to helping the bank unlock its enormous potential and charting the next chapter of success for GoTyme. Full credit to the Iris Singapore team who worked on this pitch with so much passion and conviction.”

According to Cristina ‘Tin’ Sanchez, executive creative director at Iris Singapore, “In a growing digital landscape, what can set a brand apart? Sometimes, it’s the fundamentals, such as true human centeredness. A brand that seeks to uplift the lives of people is deeply inspiring to work on. We are delighted to be the new partners of GoTyme Bank in the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, Raymund Villanueva, chief marketing officer at GoTyme Bank, expressed, “We are excited to work with Iris Singapore. The agency really impressed us with their ideas during the pitching process. We are hopeful that when these ideas are executed, it would help us unlock the financial potential of every Filipino through a human-led campaign.”