Singapore – Tech giant Google has teamed up with the statutory board Enterprise Singapore and tech trade association SGTech to offer 15,000 Google Career Certificate (GCC) scholarships to 300 local small and medium enterprises in the country.
The GCC scholarships will provide SMEs with free access to flexible online training programmes to upskill in areas such as digital marketing, e-commerce, data analytics, IT support, and more. No prior experience is needed, and learners will earn an industry-recognised credential in three to six months of part-time studies.
Said scholarships were given out at the first Grow with Google for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) event, which was graced by Alvin Tan, Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.
Google will also expand its GCC and scholarship offerings to include advanced Certificates in these areas. Designed and taught by Google experts, the Certificates provide participants with hands-on experience with tools such as BigQuery, Python, and Tableau.
Ben King, country managing director at Google Singapore, said, “To fully unlock the potential of Singapore’s economy, we must ensure that SMEs and their employees have a chance to pick up new skills and knowledge to stay relevant in a fast-changing landscape. A recent Google study found that workplace training and online learning are major sources of skills attainment among Singapore employees, and 6 in 10 rely on government awareness programmes as their primary source of information.”
He added, “Strategic public-private initiatives can help cultivate greater awareness and provide more learning opportunities for SMEs to pursue their growth ambitions locally, regionally and globally.”
Google has helped over 9,400 local SMEs since 2020 advance their business with digital tools and training, including through the Digital Practitioner Programme (DPP), developed in partnership with EnterpriseSG. This helps SMEs and heartland enterprises deepen their in-house capabilities in digital marketing and basic data analytics, through a two-month training programme and a three-to-six-month practicum with dedicated Google Specialists.
Malaysia – The Malaysian body of The Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As) has announced that it will be holding the ‘4As Consumer Insights Workshop’ on 16 June, a one-day masterclass about insight training.
The workshop is an independent initiative of the industry body in Malaysia with the goal of raising industry standards and fostering continuous professional development for agency talent.
‘4As Consumer Insights Workshop’ is intended to provide account planners, account managers, and creatives with key skills in three areas – Understanding insights to a deeper level than others in the industry; Learning how to uncover, hone, and write more compelling insights that will catapult brand relevancy; Understanding what not an insight is and why data is different from insight.
“If marketing is about meeting customer needs profitably, then insight is the key tool that drives marketing. Products deliver functional needs. Brands also deliver emotional needs. The very best marketers and marketing companies invest in trying to understand their customers better than their competition. If you can uncover and tap into an enduring insight, you have created a sustainable brand. Thus, insight is the backbone of all marketing,” said Khairudin Rahim, 4As CEO.
The workshop will be conducted by Paul Arnold, an IPA UK-endorsed trainer with extensive experience in account management and planning for Saatchi’s and Grey for over 30 years, working across a large range of international brands, and winning five EuroEffies for Campaign Effectiveness. A
In addition, Arnold is also a trained Psychologist, with an MBA, an MSc in Organisational Change, as well as being a certified coach.
“Once again, the 4As is striving to provide our industry professionals with access to leading edge, bespoke and highly relevant training that’s not available anywhere else,” said Khairudin.
“Additionally, we have sought out people like Paul Arnold and other IPA (UK) certified trainers who are the ‘cream of the crop’ to conduct this training, with the goal of raising the standard of competency across the industry,” he concluded.
Just this April, the organisation has elected its council office bearers who will serve the body for the next two years. Havas Group’s group managing director Andrew Lee has been re-elected as president whilst Ryusuke Oda, managing director of Hakuhodo Malaysia, has been named as new vice president.
Singapore – Ogilvy PR has named Q Akashah as its new managing director for Singapore and Malaysia. Amidst the new appointment, she will be retaining her portfolio as executive director for Islamic Marketing in Southeast Asia.
As part of Ogilvy’s Singapore and Malaysia integrated leadership team, Q will oversee and manage the PR offices across both markets, pursuing innovations in areas such as AI, influencer engagement, creative and content creation, and employee engagement, amongst others.
“It is a privilege to be in the Company of Giants to bring forward our ambition of driving creative and impactful PR-led and social-first integrated work. The communications industry is changing rapidly, and my priority is to ensure Ogilvy PR remains at the forefront of propelling the success of our clients’ brands and businesses,” said Akashah.
With more than 15 years of strategic communications experience and stints in Ogilvy Malaysia and Indonesia under her belt, Akashah joined Ogilvy PR in 2008 and has steadily climbed the ranks through the years. She was recognised with the SEA Young Professional of the Year in 2014 and has worked on numerous award-winning campaigns locally and regionally.
She will continue with her second portfolio of spearheading Islamic marketing and communications efforts across the region, working with international brands to engage with Muslim consumers as well as Muslim-centric industries to appeal to a larger non-Muslim audience.
The agency said the appointment is part of its commitment to talent development and succession planning and follows Emily Poon taking on the regional leadership of Ogilvy PR in 2021.
“We are delighted to announce Q’s appointment,” said Emily Poon, president of Ogilvy PR in Asia Pacific. “As a values-driven leader that always seeks to do right by our people, clients, and business, I cannot think of a better successor to take on the leadership of our Singapore and Malaysia PR offices. At a time where we are seeing a rapid pace of change in AI, media and technology platforms, I am excited to work alongside Q and our network colleagues for our next phase of growth in Singapore, Malaysia, the region and beyond. At Ogilvy PR, we believe it is vital to continually invest in the growth of our next generation leaders, cultivate a diverse leadership bench and nurture an inclusive workplace for our network’s continued success.”
Ogilvy PR was recently re-appointed as AIA Singapore’s PR agency of record, extending it to a 13-year partnership following a competitive pitch. The agency will also be serving as AIA Singapore’s social agency of record.
Singapore – To commemorate the company’s 50th anniversary, FairPrice Group has penned down a love letter that honours the country’s frontliners, and how the company played a key role in securing the nation’s food supply through thick and thin in the midst of a pandemic.
The love letter, running under the company’s ‘Always, FairPrice’ campaign, was conceptualised by The Secret Little Agency (TSLA). The love letter, which ran across all four languages of Singapore Press Holding’s main vernacular dailies, promises to safeguard its customers’ way of life in Singapore.
Alvin Neo, chief customer and marketing officer at FairPrice Group said that the campaign was developed at a time where Singapore is facing its highest rate of inflation in 14 years.
“Our love letter to all in Singapore aims to assure customers that through economic highs and lows, good times and tough ones; FPG will remain focused on moderating the cost of living by setting the benchmark for prices of daily staples, so as to keep food and essentials within reach and readily available. The word ‘always’ in ‘Always, FairPrice’ represents that long term commitment,” he added.
With its 50th anniversary celebrations, the public can also look forward to the launch of a nationwide ‘behind-the-scenes’ video quiz series which features real life stories of frontliners working around the clock to deliver daily essentials to all in Singapore.
Moreover, the brand campaign’s creative direction also features re-created miniatures of FairPrice Group employees visually representing every little effort that the FairPrice takes to ensure that it stays true to the promise of safeguarding the way of life, where essential products such as eggs take centre stage.
Singapore – Popular pizza chain Pizza Hut Singapore has teamed up with recently-appointed integrated communications agency TEAM LEWIS in launching a new campaign that uses generative AI to produce visuals depicting Pizza Hut’s price promos.
Titled ‘Takeaway Pocket Pleasers’, the key visual highlights the brand’s commitment to deliver simple, delicious pizzas that continue to be accessible for everyone.
By prompting the AI program, Midjourney, to create a visual that showcases the unmistakable DNA of the Pizza Hut brand, the campaign reduces advertising and creative costs to ultimately pass on more value to their customers — with pocket pleaser pizzas starting from SG$3.
Some of the flavours being offered include ‘Very Beefy’, ‘Cheese ‘N’ Chic’, ‘Just Cheese’, and ‘Chicky Ham ‘N’ Corn’.
In addition, the campaign will also represent a new category of different value deals that customers can look out for in the coming months to take even more advantage of Pizza Hut Singapore’s offerings.
Jayss Rajoo, director of marketing and food innovation at Pizza Hut Singapore said, “We are always thinking of new, creative ways to bring more value to our customers, while ensuring they get the same delicious product no matter the occasion. As a customer-first brand, this AI-driven campaign allows us to disrupt the way we present our offerings and drive more savings for our customers. As a brand many people have grown up with, such campaigns allows us to demonstrate our growth with our customers in terms of progressive, tech-driven ideas.”
Singapore– Food and grocery delivery platform foodpanda have entered into a strategic partnership with TADA, the blockchain-based ride-hailing platform, to introduce new user benefits for customers in Asia, starting with Singapore and Cambodia.
As part of the partnership, both foodpanda and TADA users can enjoy savings, discounted fares and loyalty programme subscriptions across both quick-commerce and ride-hailing platforms.
According to the release, up to 30,000 TADA users in Singapore can opt-in to receive a complimentary pandapro subscription which gives them easy access and cost savings to on-demand deliveries under the partnership
In addition, corporate customers of either foodpanda or TADA in Singapore can also utilise the combined food delivery and ride-hailing benefits through joint corporate bundles via foodpanda’s exclusive service for corporate customers, foodpanda for Business.
“On-demand deliveries and [ride-hailing] have become a big part of our daily routines, so we’re constantly thinking of ways to make these conveniences more accessible and affordable for customers,” said Jakob Angele, CEO of foodpanda, APAC.
He added, “Joining hands and offering even more customer benefits with TADA is a natural next step to bring more choices and greater value for customers who use these services every day.”
Meanwhile, Sean Kim, CEO of TADA Mobility, said, “Partnering with foodpanda marks another exciting phase for TADA’s growth across the region. After seeing a rapidly growing user base in Singapore, and being one of the most downloaded apps in Cambodia..”
Kim also added that the partnership will introduce TADA to a larger community relying on ride-hailing and food delivery.
Angele concluded, “We expect that our partnership will only grow stronger as we continue to tap on each other’s networks and leverage our complementary services, offering customers the added convenience for all our customers across Asia Pacific.”
Singapore – Cryptocurrency firm Luno has announced that it is exiting the Singaporean market, with its services no longer available by June 20 this year. According to the company, the market exit is part of Luno’s evaluation of their global strategy and presence.
Luno also added that they have also informed the Monetary Authority of Singapore of their intention to withdraw their license application to operate in the country.
In a statement published in their website, the company expressed that while the announcement may come as a shock to their local customers, the decision to exit the market wasn’t taken lightly considering the rising cryptocurrency market in Singapore.
“As a key financial hub in the region and an innovator in financial technology, Singapore has the potential to lead the way in using crypto to build a fair and robust financial system. We can’t wait to watch its journey and are proud to have been a part of it,” they stated.
Moreover, they have expressed their gratitude to the thousands of Singaporeans who have supported them on their crypto journey, ever since they first entered the market in 2016.
Luno has asked its Singaporean customers to withdraw all of their local currency and cryptocurrency by June 19.
The exit also comes after Luno announced that is laying off around 35% of its workforce globally in January this year.
Singapore – The industry had a roller coaster ride in 2022. We have witnessed numerous incidents of layoffs from brands in the region and companies that suffered financial losses. However, amidst these challenges, brands still emerged to lock in successes that serve as an inspiration to the industry in transforming uncertainties into strategic opportunities.
In light with this, MARKETECH APAC invited Singapore-based industry leaders to come together for a CMO roundtable to share how they weathered market shifts and industry changes to remain solidified as a brand and as a business. Ultimately, the event aimed to serve as a platform for industry leaders to share their unique experiences and learn from one another.
Said roundtable hosted around 16 marketing leaders across some of the top brands in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region.
Marketing leaders who attended the event include: [Some attendees are not listed here as requested by them]
Rilla Roesell, vice president of marketing at Cialfo
Kean Yew Li, global director and head of Asia Pacific social media and consumer engagement at The Coca-Cola Company
Dawn Lee, director of corporate marketing division at Health Promotion Board
David Harling, managing directorat MoneySmart Group
Lavina Tauro, vice president for marketing and country manager at Viu
Kaushal Pilikuli, vice president of ShopCash and loyalty at Wego
Vivek Kumar, chief marketing officer at WWF Singapore
Devendra Shivhare, head of martech for APAC at The Coca-Cola Company
Katharina Pohl, marketing director for e-commerce at Disney
Jason Huan, chief marketing officer at Endowus
Roberta Biandolino, head of brand at foodpanda
Caitlin Nguyen, head of digital and e-commerce at Philips APAC
Emily Ong, head of loyalty at Razer
Triveni Rajagopal, senior director, personal care, and global digital marketing experiences at Unilever.
The session started with Danielle Ong, Head of APAC at MessageBird sharing her perspective on how we all as consumers live in the world of now. Everything we need is available at our fingertips. From food, grocery, transportation, travel and tourism, to financial services and many more. This access to “in-the-now” is transforming every industry and impacts businesses of all sizes. She then shared ideas on how brands can keep up tp this constantly changing customer and the expectations that come with this dynamism. Examples from Grab, Uber, Guzman Y Gomez, Booking.com, Glovo were just some of the many that triggered ideas for CMOs to learn from.
Industry leaders were eager to share how they managed to lock in growth even amidst a downward business climate. For instance, MoneySmart’s Managing Director, David Harling explained how they were able to grow their group business last year, and have now kicked off a process to list at the Singapore Exchange (SGX) through a US$161m reverse IPO deal.
Meanwhile, college application platform Cialfo had a focus on growth and brand awareness in the higher education space in the United States in 2022. Rilla Roessel revealed that they were excited by the awareness gained from the target audience.
Meanwhile, for WWF-Singapore’s Vivek Kumar, the challenges that his organisation faced in 2022 included raising awareness around the rapid degradation of nature and biodiversity. For example, he shared that since the last lunar year of the tiger in 2010 three countries in the ASEAN region have lost all their tigers in the wild. As the apex predator, protecting tigers means protecting the whole natural habitat with its biodiversity. With this pressing challenge, the WWF team came-up with a novel initiative to combine art and conservation to raise awareness on the plight of tigers in the wild and to raise critical resources to protect them. Tiger Trail brought together renowned artists from around the world, leveraging both physical and AR arts, and generated the highest PR values ever achieved by the office.
In terms of his priority for this year, Vivek said that he will be focused on climate change, as one of the most pressing issues facing mankind today. Vivek and his team conceived and launched the first-of-its-kind WWF Earth Hour Summit on 2 March 2023, which brings together the science, policy, and practice of climate change to discuss how society can together move forward to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions. It is an uphill task, but Vivek believes that we must build a shared learning curve towards it since achieving Net Zero is only possible if we act together.
This event was made possible alongside omnichannel communications platform MessageBird and Escomedia.
Singapore– WPP’s media investment group, GroupM, has announced the launch of its advanced digital out-of-home (DOOH) solutions and technology suite Sightline in Singapore.
Developed by GroupM Nexus, Sightline enables advertisers to take advantage of intelligent data-driven DOOH planning capabilities and an in-house studio that delivers ‘highly impactful’ programmatic creatives.
With Sightline, GroupM Nexus aims to help brands harness data insights such as audience movement patterns to create targeted campaigns that reach ‘the right audiences at the right time’. The end-to-end DOOH suite also allows brands to measure and optimise their campaigns in real-time and at scale to make it easier to adjust ads, creatives, and targeting as needed.
In Singapore, Sightline has also recently supported StarHub to raise awareness of their live cricket offering amongst cricket fans through cost-efficient DOOH that avoided wastage. Relevant screens were precisely activated which resulted in an optimised campaign that yielded a higher target audience reach.
“We’re thrilled to officially launch our innovative DOOH technology to serve businesses across Singapore,” said Josh Quek, managing director of Sightline Singapore at GroupM Nexus.
He added, “Our proprietary technology is designed to help brands make the most of their advertising budget by providing them with the insights they need to create cost-efficient and impactful campaigns that drive tangible results.”
This follows GroupM’s launch of its addressable TV solution, Finecast, in the Philippines.
Singapore –InMobi, a leading provider of content, marketing, and monetization technologies, has announced the appointment of Susannah Llewellyn as its vice president of agency partnerships for Asia Pacific to drive its strategic growth with key media agency partners whilst holding companies in the region.
Llewellyn brings with her an experience working across media, technology and digital space. Before joining InMobi, she worked as business agency director at Google. She has also served as international and regional business director at media agency MEC.
Rishi Bedi, managing director for Asia Pacific at InMobi, said that Llewellyn is appropriate for the role due to her adtech and agency background, which is an advantage to drive their growth in APAC through localised go-to-market strategies across our global platforms.
“My depth of experience across the various facets of the media industry including AdTech, agency, and digital marketing will bring valuable insight to my new role at InMobi,” Llewellyn added.
Last month, InMobi also named Aditya Varadarajan as its regional head of the newly expanded Microsoft business in Southeast Asia.
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