Tag: Marketing

Singapore – TikTok has announced the debut of its leadership development programme, ‘TikTok Academy: Elevate’ across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

This program marks the first edition of TikTok Academy’s strategic initiatives in Southeast Asia for agency partners, emphasising their commitment to the media industry and nurturing future leaders within the industry.

Themed ‘Nature Meets Nurture: Through the Lens of the Future’, the programme will see TikTok working in close collaboration with a cohort of 350 emerging agency leaders with 5 to 8 years of experience.

These leaders will be nominated by their agencies and will fall under the categories of a “Changemaker” who takes creative action to solve a problem and spark transformative change, a “Storyteller” who is devoted to producing a compelling narrative using words, art, and science to share experiences and ideas, and a “Playmaker” who raises the standard of play within the team and puts others in a position to score.

Going into more detail, TikTok Academy: Elevate will comprise three bi-weekly virtual workshop sessions from 21 March until 18 April 2024. Each workshop session will present challenges for participants to take part in, which aims to either encapsulate the session’s theme or leverage the strengths of participants, enhancing their understanding of the evolving marketing landscape, emerging platforms like TikTok for advertising and marketing, and giving them space to self-reflect on their career growth.

Talking about this initiative, Matty Lin, general manager, global business solutions, TikTok Southeast Asia, said, “We are always on the lookout for how we can support our agency partners with the right resources to guide them in their endeavours. As we strive to be their trusted destination for creative marketing solutions, we hope that our leadership programme will significantly enhance the capabilities of next-generation talent to be self-aware future leaders of the industry. Together, we are committed to cultivating a partnership that propels their industry prominence to new heights.”

Sydney, Australia – StackAdapt, a multi-channel programmatic advertising platform, has announced the availability of Chinese language contextual advertising.

This program is aimed at marketers looking to engage with global audiences by browsing Chinese content.

Advertisers looking to target Chinese-language audiences in the US, UK, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and New Zealand will be able to take advantage of StackAdapt’s offering.

Three essential aspects for which the company has created Chinese-language advertising solutions are page context AI, keyword rule targeting, and browsing audiences. Advertisers will be able to tailor their messages to consumers who interact with material in Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as traditional and simplified Chinese. 

The Page Context AI technology enables advertisers to show native, display, and video adverts to people browsing websites that are related to a brand’s products. This patented technology works independently of cookies or other identifiers, providing an efficient targeting technique to engage relevant customers without requiring the processing of user data. 

Advertisers can target certain keywords and phrases that are relevant to their campaigns with the company’s keyword rule targeting service. With the help of this feature, advertisers may establish guidelines that guarantee their ads are paired with relevant content. Furthermore, marketers may focus their efforts on the audiences that are engaged with the help of the browsing audiences tool. 

Speaking about the launch, Liam McCarten, VP of sales APAC at StackAdapt, said, “We have widened the scope for audience targeting across the global web by creating a Chinese language contextual advertising offering. Our patented algorithm will automatically detect if you’ve input Traditional or Simplified Chinese, and will use the appropriate option for targeting. There is a major advantage for advertisers looking to target audiences consuming content in another language. Placing ads in the right context can drive a big boost in performance.” 

He added, “Our contextual products have reached a very high level of maturity, and we are pushing them even further to make our machine learning models even more powerful and predictive. The ability to offer Chinese language contextual advertising solutions will dramatically increase the consumer base for brands around the world. Contextual targeting is important as part of a toolkit of future-proofed marketing strategies.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Dentsu Indonesia has announced the appointment of Anwesh Bose as chief growth officer, effective immediately.

In his new role, Bose will spearhead growth initiatives and foster collaboration across units to identify market opportunities that will propel dentsu Indonesia and its clients to achieve the next phase of growth.

Bose brings over a wealth of experience as an advertising veteran, with a proven track record of growing brands in Indonesia and India. His extensive background includes serving as president director at Havas Group Indonesia, senior vice president at DDB India, and chief growth officer – media at dentsu media India.

He has also held leadership positions at ad-tech companies, such as Supermom Business and Whisper Media. Prior to rejoining dentsu, Bose also served as president director at The Academy Consulting.

Talking about his own appointment, Bose said, “It is an honor for me to return to dentsu, where we are committed to driving growth and innovation for marketers in Indonesia. I’m in awe of the talents and capabilities across Creative, Media, CXM that dentsu has, as well as the impressive achievements that the dentsu team have brought. I eagerly anticipate unlocking new possibilities with our expertise in data, commerce, content, and influencer marketing.”

Meanwhile, Elvira Jakub, CEO of dentsu Indonesia, commented, “We have made steady progress thus far, and by strategically appointing a senior leader with extensive experience like Anwesh, we are charting our path forward to continue helping marketers unlock new opportunities and navigate the evolving marketing landscape. Anwesh will also be instrumental in leading dentsu Indonesia’s growth through transformation and integration of our emerging service lines. I’m brimming with excitement and optimism for the incredible phase that lies ahead.”

Notably, this appointment comes after Elvira Jakub’s appointment as dentsu Indonesia’s new CEO.

Malaysia – Puratos Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei have recently engaged Aforemention by FOREFRONT to handle their 2024 social media content and performance marketing reach.

The contract was signed following the formal launch of the new brand identity for Belcolade, Puratos’ premium Belgian chocolate brand. This program offered an afternoon of culinary exploration across continents.

Aforemention by FOREFRONT’s main function will be to find global insights that the local market may relate to. They will also create performance plans and materials with the goal of raising awareness and bolstering Puratos’ premium positioning.

Belcolade creates goods that bring customer satisfaction and guarantee a sustainable future for future generations by fusing sensory knowledge with sustainability principles. Decades of research discoveries form the foundation of these endeavours.

Sandy Shiek, marketing director, Puratos Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, said, “While taste remains the primary purchasing criterion for consumers, the sustainability of the chocolate is a key consideration factor for their purchase decisions – with 68% of respondents interested in food products coming from sustainable farming methods. The Cacao-Trace Sustainable Programme is a testament to our commitment towards taste and sustainability.” 

She added, “Tapping into Aforemention’s key strength in digital storytelling, we immediately saw an opportunity to deploy a multi-screen, multi-moment communication framework that helps us to better deliver our messages to address the pain points of our users and decision makers.”

Meanwhile, Sylvester Hiew, chief marketing officer, FOREFRONT, expressed, “We are excited to find out how we can help a premium brand like Puratos communicate effectively in an emerging market like Malaysia. Staying true to our mission of igniting brands, we make it our business to understand consumer behaviours across different industries, and we have been successful in helping many clients tell their brand stories for almost two decades now.”

Singapore – The Carousell Group, a multi-category secondhand goods marketplace in Greater Southeast Asia, has completed the acquisition of LuxLexicon, a Singapore-based luxury bag reseller and accredited luxury consignment platform. This effort intends to strengthen the group’s luxury category by pursuing an omnichannel approach and expanding its premium luxury goods. 

The Carousell Group has purchased LuxLexicon’s company and assets in order to add LuxLexicon’s brand, large inventory of premium luxury bags for consignment and resale, and knowledge of offline retail to its portfolio. With this acquisition, LuxLexicon will be able to take advantage of Carousell Group’s expertise in international expansion and online recommerce, which will lead to further growth. Under Florence Low’s direction, LuxLexicon will continue to exist as a stand-alone business, keeping its name, staff, and retail location.

To encourage more consumers to use secondhand choices, the group launched initiatives in 2023 to improve convenience and trust in the purchase and sale of authenticated luxury bags. Carousell Certified Luxury is one such program that gives customers the assurance to buy verified luxury handbags. Since its launch, leads from the Sell to Carousell Luxury program—which allows users to sell or consign their bags directly to Carousell—have increased , more than doubling. 

Speaking about the acquisition, Marcus Tan, co-founder of Carousell Group, expressed, “We are excited to partner with Florence and the LuxLexicon team to accelerate our ambition of creating the largest managed marketplace for authenticated second hand luxury bags where users can buy and sell with trust and convenience. We originally met Florence to partner with LuxLexicon for our Carousell Certified Luxury programme. After conversations, we realised that we had a similar vision, and by joining forces with LuxLexicon’s expertise, we could help each other supercharge our luxury bag business in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan over the next few years.” 

He added, “We have been strengthening our recommerce foundations to drive our multi-category approach on our top growth categories. Part of these efforts were acquisitions for fashion, mobiles and autos over the years, and we are thankful to have these founders not only continue to partner with us to drive our mission, but also lend their expertise to the wider Carousell Group’s businesses over the years. Beyond growing organically as a top priority, we will continue to seek acquisition opportunities with the right partners across our focus categories and markets to accelerate the future of secondhand in Greater Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Florence Low, founder of LuxLexicon, said, “LuxLexicon and Carousell Group share a common goal of providing a trusted and accessible platform for buying and selling authenticated luxury bags. Additionally, we both see similar strong consumer demand for popular brands such as Hermès, CHANEL and Louis Vuitton. This acquisition allows us to offer more variety of bags and recommend interested consumers to each other. I am excited to further grow the brand with Carousell Group’s scale, investment and regional expertise in the coming years and beyond.”

Australia – Full-service integrated agency Think HQ, alongside its multicultural communications arm, CultureVerse, has announced its new strategic positioning as ‘The Positive Change Agency’, which cements the agency’s core purpose.

Along with the positioning, Think HQ has unveiled a refreshed brand and visual identity designed and implemented by Think HQ’s in-house creative, design, production, and technology teams.

Talking about the refresh, Jen Sharpe, managing director and founder of Think HQ, said, “This refresh tells our story and shows our dedication to actively listening and involving the community in all of our work. It also means we are not defined by one particular service offering. We have spent years building up our in-house integrated capabilities, so rather than the market thinking of us as a creative, PR, events, multicultural, language services, First Nations, technology, or production agency, we have defined ourselves by what brings it all together – positive social change.”

“This is a significant step change for the agency as we enter our next phase—it perfectly captures Think HQ and CultureVerse and reflects our dynamic, diverse, and authentic people who are the driving force of everything we do. We know that while competitors will flirt with the idea of ‘purpose’ or social impact, no one else in the market comes close to who we are and what we do,” she added.
 
Meanwhile, Andy Lima, chief creative officer at Think HQ, added, “The refreshed Think HQ and CultureVerse brands reflect our unwavering vision of delivering communications that support the change needed to create a more equitable, healthy, and sustainable future for everybody. The brief was simple yet challenging to realise: We required ease of application by the whole group while representing our diverse service offerings.”

United Kingdom – The commissioning team at BBC Studios Social is inviting independent producers of all sizes and backgrounds to propose unique short-form proposals. These concepts strive to broaden and improve existing intellectual properties (IP), captivate devoted fans, and capture the attention of new audiences across digital channels. 

The available production opportunities currently span multiple key brands in the BBC Studios Social portfolio and are available online. Regarding Kids & Family, commissioners are actively looking for fun activity-based material for the hit show Hey Duggee, as well as engaging concepts focused around cuisine and family-oriented entertainment for the internationally recognized Bluey franchise. Furthermore, suggestions targeting a younger demographic are welcomed for the digital-only humour program Funny Parts and the automotive Top Gear.

Regarding factual and unscripted programming, BBC Earth is actively looking for ideas that capture the wonders of nature in appealing ways that work for its new vertical channels. For BBC Earth Science, a wide range of concepts covering subjects including sustainability, space exploration, and the complexities of the human body are also being sought out. 

Chris Allen, director, digital content development at BBC, said, “In an increasingly competitive and fast maturing digital-first market, BBC Studios Social are committed to finding, developing, and partnering with the best independent producers and new talent globally. We love our world-class brands, and we’re super excited to share them with you to deliver new formats, new talent, and new ideas that are critical and commercial successes. Whether silly comedy sketches, or a mind-bending science documentary, we hope this will be the start of some beautiful creative partnerships.”

Australia – Amplify, the creator economy agency, is expanding its Australian staff. They have promoted Sonja Stindl to the new position of general manager and appointed Ben Somers as partnerships director, among other new personnel. 

In order to further the goal within the Australian team, Stindl will work closely with co-founders Alex Reid and Tom Maynard to supervise people, finances, and legal matters.

After holding the role of head of talent, Stindl is now general manager for Australia. She joins Amplify with three years of experience, having held senior talent management positions at MaxConnectors before.

Somers will now oversee the newly formed partnerships division, focusing on generating new business prospects and building strong relationships with clients across many business teams. 

Somers, who was briefly employed at TikTok, has returned to Amplify in the role of partnerships director. He brings with him previous campaign team knowledge from his stint at Amplify. 

To further strengthen the expanding Australian office, Jess Hill, a longtime Universal Music employee who formerly worked across Jean Paul Gaultier and Carolina Herrera at Puig, has joined as senior campaign manager. Ryan Paturzo, a Buzzfeed employee of six years, has been named account director for the production group. The last of the recent hires, Jyothi Krithivasan, assumes the position of coordinator for partnerships and marketing. 

Speaking about her appointment, Stindl expressed, “It’s truly an exciting time to be part of the creator industry, and Amplify is leading the charge with the best content creators and clients in the business as well as our passionate team driving it all behind the scenes. I look forward to working with Alex and Tom to solidify our offering in Australia and prepare for our next growth phase.”

Meanwhile, Somers stated, “Returning to Amplify and leading this new Partnerships division is a really exciting move for me. As a business we’re growing from strength to strength and the aim of this new team is to drive connections – internally and externally – to meet the needs of our clients beyond traditional campaign structures.”

Furthermore, Alex Reid, co-founder of Amplify, said, “It’s taken a while, but we are starting to see mass adoption of creators into existing marketing mixes, using creators’ audiences to connect with relevant brands and their messages. With that comes the need for a bigger team and our approach has always been to hire people smarter than us, which hasn’t been difficult.” 

He added, “Amplify’s growth is also demonstrated with our expanding talent pool. We’ve grown from having eight creators and producing live shows when we started the business in 2015, to having a roster of 50 creators and a team of over 80 across Australia, Southeast Asia and all the way north to Japan and Korea. We’re proud of the business’s growth and our ability to promote internally. Cultivating a thriving culture and fostering growth are important to us as business owners and we strive to ensure that our team feels this positive impact, even if we’ve run out of desks in the office.”

Hong Kong – Sheung Yan Lo, most recently the chief creative officer for Asia-Pacific at Wunderman Thompson, has announced that he is leaving the marketing industry after over three decades of service. In his announcement, he notes that in the next chapter, he plans to spend more time with his family, while continuing to explore his creative passions, including writing for musical theatre and studying.

Lo, aptly named ‘Ma Yan’ by his colleagues, started his career in 1996, joining China’s advertising industry as a copywriter for JWT Shanghai. An illustrious career saw him quickly shooting up the ranks, eventually becoming the Chairman of JWT’s Asia-Pacific Creative Council in 2013, before being appointed chief creative officer for APAC for Wunderman Thompson in 2019.

A well-rounded creative, Ma Yan has also more than 15 years’ experience writing, directing and acting in stage plays, and writing lyrics for Asian pop songs and musicals, as an active member of the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong. In 2009 the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce also honoured him as one of the Outstanding Hong Kong People in Shanghai.

Speaking on this move, he said, “As I retire from this thrilling 36-year journey, I reflect with profound gratitude on all my years of creativity, growth, and camaraderie. I am reminded of the wise words of Mao Zedong “The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours.” To the fearless, passionate souls who now carry the torch, I offer my sincerest blessings.”

Meanwhile, Audrey Kuah, co-CEO for APAC at VML, commented, “Today, we bid farewell to a creative visionary whose impact on the APAC advertising industry is immeasurable. Ma Yan’s innovative spirit, dedication, and unwavering passion have left an indelible mark on us and the entire industry. As he embarks on this new exciting chapter, we wish him a retirement as vibrant and inspiring as his career has been.”