Tag: Media.Monks

Singapore – Monks has named a new Southeast Asia leadership team, helmed by Munas van Boonstra as managing director for the Southeast Asia offices.

Following the launch of the Indonesia office, Monks has elevated core talent from its team to take the business into a new era of strategic growth. The new roles represent a commitment to SEA as a growth market, with offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the importance of leading with world-class local talent. 

Munas van Boonstra has been promoted to the role of MD, Southeast Asia, after leading the Malaysia office and taking regional operational leadership responsibility since joining in 2022. Prior to Monks, van Boonstra had leadership roles at Publicis Malaysia, MYTV Broadcasting and GroupM. 

Meanwhile, Saufi Salleh has stepped into the role of head of clients of marketing services for Southeast Asia, a newly created position that pulls client leadership across all SEA markets under his mandate. Clients in Southeast Asia include PayPal, Google, M1, and ABC. Salleh has almost two decades of experience leading clients through digital-first thinking at businesses across agencies. He has been with Monks since 2021, when he joined as regional business director. 

Lastly, Monks has also given Kryse Ynieto a broader remit, as he will now lead strategy for the region as head of strategy, Southeast Asia. Ynieto has been at Monks since 2021, when he was brought on to work with local and regional clients. He has worked in senior strategy positions at companies including Landor, TSLA, and JWT.

Van Boonstra, Salleh and Ynieto are part of a wider management team for the Southeast Asia region, which also includes SEA Regional Executive Creative Director Anam AS, Yasmine Mansour Head of Growth SEA and Executive Producer Lee Kwok Leong.

Speaking about the new leadership updates, van Boonstra said, “Bringing the Southeast Asian perspective to Monks’ global portfolio of marketing and technology services allows us to impact clients on a large scale. By combining cultural insights and data-driven media strategies, powered with AI, we strive to lead creative disruption that truly makes a difference. Together with my SEA colleagues, we are dedicated to delivering innovative solutions that shape our clients’ present and future success.”

Meanwhile, Matthew Godfrey, EVP at Monks APAC, said, “Our new SEA leadership team has deep professional and cultural experience across the diverse region. This is fundamental to Monks’ growth strategy. While the business model and our focus on AI-driven workflows deliver the promise of faster, better, cheaper, more, our team’s connection to the market allows us to achieve this while driving culturally rich, digital-first work for brands.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – S4 Capital’s operating brand Media.Monks has opened an office in Indonesia, adding a strategic location and local talent to its Asia Pacific business. The Indonesian office will service both local and regional client business, as Indonesia continues to be a growth market for brands.

As part of the office opening, Media.Monks has appointed Masayu Difa as its business director, who brings over 15 years of client leadership in Indonesia and experience across both local and international brands. She previously held senior client roles at Lion & Lion, Grey, McCann and Geometry.

In addition, Media.Monks has also formed a partnership with a new client, one of the largest Indonesian food brand leaders, ABC which named Media.Monks as its creative agency of record for ABC Soy and Chilli, becoming the founding client for the new office.

“I am thrilled to join Media.Monks, a forward-thinking agency that is setting the tone for how to deliver digital solutions through innovation and lead our efforts in Indonesia. Our new office will leverage local insights combined with global expertise that resonate with Indonesian consumers and drive business growth for our clients. I am excited to work with our talented team and esteemed clients like Kraft Heinz ABC to make a significant impact in this dynamic market,” Difa said.

The Indonesia office is the ninth local office in the APAC region, enlarging its footprint to Southeast Asia offices in Singapore and Malaysia.

Speaking about the office opening, Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman of S4 Capital, said, “I am excited to add the 34th country to the uni-branded Media.Monks network, especially a market so significant, with 300 million consumers and over 167 million active on social media, the third largest in Asia. Indonesia’s GDP is forecast to be in the top five countries worldwide by 2050. Brands across the Country are looking for partners to help build progressive digital consumer connections to drive their business and we are excited to be part of that.”

Meanwhile, Munas Van Boonstra, managing director for Southeast Asia at Media.Monks, commented, “I believe the integrated brand, digital, data and social capabilities that Media.Monks can bring can make an impact in the market and I am proud to launch the newest part of the global monk family to help brands succeed in Indonesia and help Indonesian brands scale around Asia and the world.”

California, USA – S4Capital’s operating brand Media.Monks, a digital-first, data-led advertising and marketing services company, has launched ‘Persona.Flow,’ a professional managed service that gives brand marketers the ability to talk to their data. According to the agency, said solution addresses a unique need within enterprise AI workflows by converting owned customer data into dynamic consumer personas. Said transformation then allows marketers to interact in real-time, significantly augmenting their speed to market.

The ‘Persona.Flow’ solution offers a user-friendly interface to help brands streamline strategy workflows, increase their precision, and democratise deep data insights. Its core technology is driven by a robust retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) framework that synergises brand-owned data and factual data from extensive consumer and market research libraries provided in partnership with data-driven marketing firm Claritas. 

Moreover, the solution negates the need for the weeks of planning and deliberation that are commonly associated with building consumer intelligence. The service amplifies speed to market by delivering detailed, granular insights in real-time and in natural language, making it easier than ever to respond to market trends as they emerge.

According to Media.Monks, owning a comprehensive dataset is crucial for brands to future-proof themselves and stay competitive in today’s data-intensive and AI-dominated creative landscape, and with ‘Persona.Flow’, it serves as a reliable, single source of truth for all of a brand’s marketing data, fostering the discovery of new creative concepts that may in turn generate further data based on their performance with real audiences.

“As a consultative AI partner, Media.Monks aids brands in leading the new economy and becoming AI-first through the deployment of customised solutions. Unhindered by traditional agency compartmentalisation, Media.Monks’ in-house team of data scientists, machine learning engineers, and creatives boast profound expertise in AI and machine learning technologies. Consistently at the forefront of integrating and applying these technologies, Media.Monks is pioneering a revolutionary commercial model for the marketing and advertising industry that addresses brands’ most urgent commercial requirements,” the agency stated.

Singapore – As a key to further advancing the leadership across the region, S4Capital’s digital operating arm, Media.Monks, has appointed Matthew Godfrey as the new executive vice president and head of content for the APAC region.

Having more than 15 years of experience, Godfrey has an extensive background in innovation and creative business management, bringing together the company’s entrepreneurial drive as well as the capacity to develop its aspirations.

For this role, he aspires to position the company towards a new era, introducing “We Are Now” mission, an initiative aimed at driving industries forward, charting a course toward ambitious outcomes, and enabling clients and individuals to unlock their complete growth potential.

He also intends to leverage creative innovation and cutting-edge technology for a more efficient delivery scale, impact, and among APAC’s leading and fast-moving brands. 

Initial plans for his term include the company’s expansion into key markets such as China, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, which will be supported by content excellence hub offices in Malaysia and India.

Following this remarkable feat, Matthew shared his enthusiasm about this role, stating, “The content industry is now at a very dynamic time. As global leaders in AI, social media, and all digital platforms, Media.Monks is ideally placed to help APAC brands create and orchestrate powerful and efficient communication solutions. The opportunity for innovation has never been greater, and I’m excited to help APAC clients gain a competitive advantage by accessing our incredible talent.”

On the other hand, Bruno Lambertini, co-CEO, content, at Media.Monks, also stressed the importance of Matthew’s appointment, saying, “Matt has everything we are looking for as we reshape our leadership structure at Media.Monks in APAC. With an extensive background in the region and a wealth of knowledge based on his experience in the market, we are confident Matt is the right person to drive the business forward, fostering our client relations.

“He will add a lot of value to our vision, especially when it comes to the single P&L and single brand, along with our mission to shift industries forward by reshaping how businesses interact with the world,” Lambertini concluded.

With this appointment, Godfrey will work with Kenny Griffiths, the managing director of APAC of data, digital, and media, in which they will connect a single global P&L model to the next level in APAC.

Shanghai, China – Media.Monks, the digital-first creative company, has announced the promotion of Darren Crawforth to executive creative director of Media.Monks China, effective immediately. In his new role, Darren will work with Rogier Bikker, the office’s Managing Director to fulfill Media.Monks’ FutureProofed business vision in China.

With over 20 years in design and technology, the former group creative director, with stints that spanned London, New York, Boston, LA and Beijing, spent the past 10 years living and working in China to help brands in the country connect with global audiences whilst enabling international brands to nestle into China. He has created award-winning work for the world’s most prestigious brands such as Nike, Google, Puma, Riot Games, OPPO, HP, Golden Goose, to name a recent few.

In the past two years, Crawforth has been building a team that brings the talent and perspective needed to challenge the industry status quo and build the unique creative culture in Media.Monks China.

Commenting on his appointment, Crawforth said, “It’s an epic journey to establish what a creative agency from the future looks like and how it behaves. Can’t wait to see what’s next as we continue to build Media.Monks in China together with our teams and client partners.” 

Rogier Bikker, managing director at Media.Monks China, shared, “Darren has been instrumental in bringing our FutureProofed vision to life, attracting the best talent and consistently delivering industry-beating pitch wins. I’m excited for Darren to further build out our digital-first creative capabilities, advocate our FutureProofed vision, train the next generation of creative monks and guide our 40+ Shanghai creatives towards even more award-winning creative work”

Meanwhile, Joao Flores, regional executive creative director at Media.Monks APAC, commented, “Darren represents the very best of a new way of thinking, from a media-driven approach to a more experience-driven approach. He’s a Monk at heart and a key part of our creative collaborative process. We are extremely excited to have him leading the way for growth and extraordinary creativity with our China Team,”