Tag: Marketing

Australia – The Australian Professional Leagues (APL), a soccer league agency in Australia, has recently appointed three new senior executives to put in place the league’s commercial and marketing functions, which is part of APL’s growth strategy.

The new appointees are Ryan Sandilands, the first commercial director of APL; Rob Nolan, the new head of marketing and data operations function, and Stacey Knox, the new executive member of the marketing team.

Sandilands brings his 20 years of experience in the sports and entertainment industry to the agency. He previously led commercial growth and strategic planning for companies such as Cirque du Soleil, Women’s Tennis Association, and City Football Group, as well as AEG. Sandilands will now be responsible for supercharging the commercial and operational capabilities of APL and club commercial teams.

Meanwhile, Nolan comes with 20 years of global marketing experience, working with companies such as Kayo Sports, News Corp, and iflix. He previously built data capability with data agency Digital Alchemy to fuel growth, done in collaboration with various telcos, such as Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, and O2. Nolan will now lead the marketing and data operations function of APL, and will attempt to engage football fans on a one-to-one basis. 

Along with Sandilands and Nolan, Knox also joins the APL marketing team. She will be responsible for transforming the agency’s operational capability to ready the execution of APL’s direct-to-consumer strategy. Knox brings with her over two decades of experience in global marketing organizations and agencies, previously working with Coca-Cola, News Limited, and Inchcape, as well as a coach and mentor to industry bodies and not-for-profit organizations.

According to Ant Hearne, the chief commercial officer of APL, “This team is here to innovate and supercharge the commercial and marketing capabilities of the APL, as we realize our reinvention as a leading football entertainment company. We’re seeing the most entertaining football on the pitch and it’s our job to take that directly to fans with a world-class fan experience and content offering.”

The agency has also announced other new hires, namely Danny Townsend, the new managing director, and Michael Tange, the new digital director, as well as Tracey Scott, the new deputy commissioner in the APL leadership group.

Manila, Philippines – Philippine telco Globe, in a bid to add value and “peace of mind” to customers amid the ongoing pandemic, is now entitling its Globe at Home (GAH) Prepaid WiFi users to a ₱140.5K in free medical coverage services.

Through the offering, GAH aims to move beyond just providing connectivity and coverage to Filipino households but also to grant ‘extra care’ through GInsure. Powered by SingLife and GCash, GInsure provides free medical insurance for three months to prepaid subscribers against COVID-19 and dengue. 

GAH users can avail of the free medical coverage offering when they register to GAH promos HomeSURF99 and up, SURF4ALL99 or HomeWATCH199 and up.

With HomeSURF99, users get 10GB worth of data for five days at ₱99. With its free 1GB data per day refreshed and replenished daily for five days, users can send messages through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Viber, stream YouTube videos, and shop online via Lazada and Shopee on top of the remaining 5GB open access data allocation. In addition, HomeSurf99 can support as many as four to six mobile devices or gadgets all at the same time. 

“Due to the pandemic, security, safety, health, and peace of mind are the top priorities of most Filipino families. People now are extra careful and concerned for the health and safety of their loved ones. With these in mind, Globe At Home is doing its part to help our prepaid customers have one less worry by giving them free health insurance for three months,” said Darius Delgado, Globe head for broadband business. 

He added, “We believe that the free insurance protection will go a long way in helping families during these times when their means of livelihood are particularly challenged.”

Hanoi, Vietnam – Global automotive brand Porsche has launched its newest retail concept, Porsche Studio, an open concept store, in Hanoi, Vietnam aimed at bringing contemporary ‘taste’ to its brand.

Veering away from the proverbial physical exhibits of the cars, the newly launched Porsche Studio exercised an innovation strategy in showcasing the brand’s products, adding art exhibitions and installations by local artists inside the store. The new concept store will also feature a configuration table – for individuals wishing to work through the list of vehicle options themselves, which can be used as a projection surface for viewing a configured vehicle in augmented reality. 

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One of the interior feature of Porsche Studio in Hanoi, Vietnam

Furthermore, the studio will also be used as an event space. The Porsche Destination Charging, a global charging network with AC-charging points installed at exclusive lifestyle locations, is also set to become part of the facility.

“The new Porsche Studio concept offers an easy way to immerse yourself in the Porsche brand. With these attractive touchpoints, visitors experience what Porsche is all about in relaxing and inviting surroundings. Within the next months and years, we will roll-out the thinking behind this concept across all our retail locations,” said Deniz Keskin, head of brand management and partnerships at Porsche.

Porsche-Studio-Concept-Branch-Tainan-City-Taiwan
The Porsche Studio branch in Taiwan

The Hanoi branch of the Porsche Studio was initially based on the recent launch of the same studio in Tainan City, Taiwan which featured the same ‘boutique-like’ experience Porsche Studio aims to portray to its customers. It is part of the automotive brand’s ‘Future Retail Strategy’, which aims to provide “hospitality and inspiration.” The stores have also been strategically located in city centres to be within convenient reach of customers and new target groups. 

Islamabad, Pakistan – Short video platform SnackVideo has announced that it is entering an exclusive partnership agreement with two of Pakistan’s known cricket teams namely Islamabad United and Multan Sultans.

Through the agreement, Islamabad United is bound to endorse SnackVideo as one of its partners during the sixth season of the Pakistan Super League this year, while Multan Sultans are set to endorse the app through its member players across fans of said cricket team.

“Partners like SnackVideo form an essential part of the sporting scene here in Pakistan, and we are happy to support partners who invest and develop our business and sporting industries together,” said Mohammad Rizwan, captain of Multan Sultans.

Through the exclusive sponsorship agreement, SnackVideo will be featured across ad slots in the nation’s print, television and radio spaces.

Shadab Khan, captain of Islamabad United also announced that part of the exclusive sponsorship agreement is that fans get the chance to win signed team merchandise via SnackVideo.

“Islamabad United is proud to align ourselves with a rising platform such as SnackVideo. SnackVideo aims to give a voice to every person so that they can express themselves, which is what our team has done for our fans in the league.’ Fans of both teams are not going to leave empty-handed as well,” Khan said.

Shanghai, China – Advertising network Grey Group in China has appointed former Proximity China CEO Sharlene Wu as its new CEO, in an aim to build better connections with Chinese Grey clients. 

The new CEO will work with the Global COO & President for International of Grey Group Nirvik Singh and will lead the Grey Advertising. She will also be responsible for the integration of Grey DPI, Grey Star Echo, and Grey Easycom.

Leveraging on her experience in the Chinese market, Wu will be responsible for driving the agency’s overall strategic vision and growth plan, furthering business transformation, and providing oversight across key clients and businesses. With Grey, she will continue to enhance and deliver Grey’s marketing services & integrated solutions to clients.

Sharlene Wu is an accomplished advertising veteran. Her career began in 2000 with WPP’s JWT Wings Taiwan and then Ogilvy. Following a short stint with JWT Shanghai in 2006, she then joined as Business Director of BBDO Shanghai in 2007, which marked the beginning of her career with Omnicom Group as Proximity Shanghai’s general manager.

She instantly progressed through the ranks and was named Managing Director (MD) for both BBDO and Proximity Shanghai in 2015, creating specialty teams across Digital Planning, Data Analytics, Social Media, and Digital Production while managing client accounts such as Adidas, Visa, Master Kong, Tencent, and Alibaba; and in May 2020, Wu was finally named CEO following the merger of Proximity and RAPP in China.

Grey Group’s Global COO & President for International Nirvik Singh commented that Wu is a dynamic, results-oriented leader who has extensive knowledge of our industry.

“Her appointment is a clear signal of our ambition to aggressively pursue growth and digital transformation in China. She is a seasoned professional with experience across many industries and categories and I am certain, along with our existing China Leadership team, will create a powerhouse offering for our clients,” said Singh.

Meanwhile, Wu expressed excitement in leading a “strategic and digital-focused” Grey Group in China, believing that she and the agency share the same belief that creativity can solve business problems.

“We have a great team in place to deliver innovative and creative work that will drive the growth of our clients’ brands and businesses,” said Wu.

Singapore – Data and artificial intelligence company ADA has announced the launch of its new martech-as-a-service offering across Asia-Pacific to help clients optimize end-to-end sales and marketing efforts.

Through the new service, users can analyze a client’s business operations across the sales and marketing funnel by consulting and matching with ADA’s existing expertise to grow and scale. The new service can also help clients choose the right Martech solutions that match the business maturity level and to optimize current stacks.

“ADA has continuously evolved to create new ways for businesses to adopt data-driven marketing. We are excited to offer these new MarTech services that complete the circle for our clients by allowing them to look at their full sales and marketing funnel with an always-on approach,” said Srinivas Gattamneni, CEO of ADA.

Furthermore, ADA’s new solution can act as an extended arm of the client to enable, train, and scale in-house talent to ensure continuity of strategy and execution. Clients will benefit from this new addition to the current suite of products and services, as ADA continues to use existing data analytics skill sets to drive impactful business outcomes.

The new martech solution responds to the greater need of businesses for updated marketing measures. According to Gartner, some 80% of organizations feel they are sitting on an outdated MarTech roadmap, and 67% think their existing technology is not useful. Meanwhile, a study by Harvard Business Review found that 80% of marketers want better tools to measure return on investment.

“ADA’s MarTech services exist to support businesses in unlocking the full potential of their MarTech investments and to drive growth across all their sales and marketing channels. We believe business growth is not driven by one solution, but many tactics and approaches. We want to be there to collaborate with our clients through the entire journey and to grow together,” said Chris Wiseman, head of marketing technology at ADA.

Sydney, Australia – The Australian arm of Delacon, a global marketing specialist that provides a platform for brands in call analytics, has signed in three new accounts namely auto parts brand Bridgestone Australia, energy retailer Simple Energy, and payment terminal Smart Pay.

The three are the latest brands to engage Delacon to measure advertising campaign performance and ensure optimization. . Delacon shared that it has added more than 40 new clients over the past six months, which it sees as a result of the new working from home culture leading to a surge in calls with consumers preferring voice-to-voice exchanges over online exchanges.

Michael Center, CEO at Delacon said, “We’re delighted to be working with leading brands such as Bridgestone Australia, Simply Energy, and Smart Pay to help maximize their marketing investment and provide granular call tracking data to inform future media planning.”

Through the new partnerships, the three companies will be utilizing Delacon’s call tracking solution to help determine which marketing channels are producing the most calls, to achieve optimization, and to aim for a return on advertising spend. 

“Delacon has seen huge growth from organizations wanting to better track inbound calls from consumers during the pandemic as marketers re-evaluate ad spend across all channels, including phone calls. With more calls coming in, it has never been more important for companies to ensure they are able to provide excellent customer service over the phone and track where these calls are coming from,” Center added.

The agency notes that between June and August last year, phone call volumes have doubled when compared to the total call time minutes from the same period in 2019. These call surges are seen in health and general insurance, banking, telcos, home improvement, and B2B products and services.

London, United Kingdom – Global remote work solution BeeRemote enters the Asian market and offers companies access to hundreds of co-working spaces in Asia including prime locations in Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.

The Asian expansion will primarily target startups as well as larger companies, which will give companies support for their employees working remotely anywhere in the world.

BeeRemote gives companies their own lifestyle benefits marketplace, customized to their own needs and budget and complete with experiences, services and hundreds of global brands such as Apple, Amazon and Uber Eats in addition to local businesses such as yoga studios, gyms, restaurants, among others. . 

Furthermore, companies are given their own branded form of ‘currency’ on the platform, which they can give as an allowance to their staff. The employees can then choose the benefits they want to spend it on, based on their preference and where they are in the world. This means wherever a business’ employees may be, they are able to claim their benefits, without the need for additional admin. 

“BeeRemote gives a company’s employees access to more than 1000 state-of-the-art offices in the best locations across the world, from London to New York, to Tokyo, Bali, Singapore and beyond. Employees can book their working space in any of them, so, whether living there or traveling, they’ll always have a perfect base,” the company said in a press release.

Singapore – Insider, a growth management platform, has announced the launch of a new design system that aims to deliver a consistent experience for enterprise marketers building cross-channel experiences.

Through the new user experience (UX), marketers can now find and use products based on use cases and goals such as product discovery, as well as easily understand all their cross-channel marketing efforts and monitor ROI metrics closely in a single dashboard.

Furthermore, the new UX can help create streamlined campaigns and delivery across channels like website, email, and push notifications to speed up execution, as well as easy tagging and filtering to organize campaigns, streamlined reports for faster insight discovery, and time-saving features to boost marketers’ productivity.

According to Muharrem Derinkok, co-founder and VP of product at Insider, the new UX responds to the major concern of marketers mulling whether they should invest in upgrading their UX, specifically for an enterprise setting. Insider hopes to break the impression among marketers that enterprise UX is “clunky, slow-to-load platforms that require significant training.”

“The underwhelming experience is precisely the ceiling we wanted to shatter with our fresh and thoughtful approach to designing our new platform. With over 25% of our 2020 roadmap invested in our design system – we’re thrilled to bring a breakthrough experience to enterprise marketers,” Derinkok said.

Another feature in the new UX is creating cross-channel journeys easier with another Insider product, Architect. Architect is an Insider product that helps marketers develop individual online channel journeys for consumers online to get them to buy a product by means of various online advertising platforms such as email marketing and Facebook ads.

“The new experience is further enabling brands to accelerate their time to market, leading to bigger, better, and faster results. Our clients have always looked up to us for taking bold steps in solving some of the most pressing problems of experience disruptors who are behind the growth of top global brands,” said Hande Cilingir, co-founder and CEO at Insider.

Clinger added, “We have helped our customers to deliver hyper-personalized and delightful experiences to their customers. It’s now their turn to experience the same intuitive experience in their daily workflows as we redefine what’s possible for enterprise marketing technology.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Utility giant in Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), has recently launched its Chinese New Year film centered around the folklore behind the festivities of the occasion. 

The film features the fictional recount of scared villagers who are protecting themselves against Nian, a mythical beast terrorizing the village. After seeking help from an old master they chased Nian away from the village, thanks to displays of red colors, loud sounds, and bright lights.

The film shows the importance of unity in the mid of hardships. In it, villagers realized that as a community, they ultimately hold the power to defeat Nian with a joyful spirit and positive energy. The film brings the message that finding joy is the key to unlocking prosperity and moving forward.

TNB-Entropia-Chinese-New-Year-Film-Snapshot

“Many are looking to make a new start in 2021, especially on the back of the multitude of challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Offering an age-old wisdom and timeless folklore, this short film weaves the legend of Nian with a slight twist, and we hope it inspires people to embrace the new year with the spirit of joy and unity that underlies Chinese New Year traditions,” said Mohamad Ariff Zainol, TNB’s chief corporate services officer.

The film was created in collaboration with marketing consultancy Entropia, and directed by award-winning director Quek Shio Chuan.

For April Toh, principal at Entropia, the film speaks to a greater need to join forces and rise in the mid of adversity, as Chinese New Year itself symbolizes new hope and prosperity.

“There’s no better time to re-tell the tale of Nian, as it metaphorically explains the situation we are currently in. We’re facing a common enemy that requires us to join forces to rise above adversity. And that’s precisely what this TNB film wanted to remind us of: together we can conquer anything,” Toh commented.

Meanwhile, Zaheer Kaisar, creative director at Entropia, commented that the film itself is heavily inspired by old Chinese comedy action films, and with a twist of modern-day elements.

“Legend has it, an old wise man got the villagers together to defeat the monster Nian by beating drums and gongs, and lighting fireworks with bright red decorations and clothes. When we dug deeper, we realized it was not so much the actions that chased the Nian away, but it was all about joy and good energy. We retold this story in the most entertaining, action-packed, and cinematic way,” Kaisar stated.

Currently, the film has garnered more than 4 million views on YouTube, and has been shared across TNB’s socials. Viewers can also interact with an alternative personality from the film, the master, on his Instagram account.