Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Digital-first agency Lion & Lion has announced the next stage of its transformation after a successful turnaround delivering outstanding financial results for the last three years. This new growth strategy will be pursued by strengthening core capabilities, and delivering impact through the integration of data and creativity.

There are two specific areas of strategic significance in relation to Lion & Lion’s growth plan – ‘Better’ by adding on even more specialised data capabilities, an in-house content production studio and by investing in growing our regional hub in Singapore; and ‘Bigger’, relates to the reach of Lion & Lion’s product as the agency over time, develops more specific ways to apply what they do today within e-commerce and B2B. This refers to both product innovation and dedicated teams.

In addition to its new data and analytics team, Lion & Lion will also launch an in-house content production studio in Kuala Lumpur to expand its integrated creative offerings, optimising growth opportunities with brands who require full creative to digital-film content production services.

Fredrik Gumpel, CEO of Lion & Lion, shared that over the last three years, they have been consistently growing their business and capabilities, and seeing how their current product and regional delivery model are resonating with clients has given them great confidence to invest even more in the same direction. 

“With our dedicated focus on the Southeast Asia region and increasing demand for our integrated solutions, we believe we can generate strong returns from these investments – both in terms of building a competitive product for the future and creating solid financial results. With offset in our successful transformation and the underlying economic growth in Southeast Asia, our investment plan is centred around doing more of what we do today – just better and bigger,” said Gumpel.

Meanwhile, Krishna Kumar, group director of strategy and media, noted, “Our value proposition of making [an] impact will be underpinned by data-driven approaches, be it inputs that make all our functional deliveries better or outcomes that are clear and measurable. With impending changes in the data world that will impact a lot of our audience and media data, our approach will be geared to meet these challenges and help our clients.” 

Cheelip Ong, regional chief creative officer at Lion & Lion, said, “With a new dedicated film and content production team with directing, motion graphics, editing and music creation capabilities; to complement our strengths in creative, social and digital experience solutions, we can facilitate brands’ demands for digital film content that engages. Our new T-shaped talent hires across all operating markets will also help us to blitz scale growth to win in our region, while creating exponential impact for our clients’ businesses.”

As Singapore has become a hub for multinational businesses, with many of Lion & Lion’s clients having a regional scope there, the agency will also be leveraging that momentum in 2023. A dedicated investment will go towards growing the agency’s team in Singapore to drive more local business and unlock long-term regional growth.

Sydney, Australia – Global media intelligence and data analytics company, Meltwater, has announced several product enhancements and the addition of several new premium clients, including IKEA Australia.

Aside from IKEA, Austrade, Australia’s trade, investment, and education promotion agency, is the latest client to appoint Meltwater to replace multiple existing vendor partners. The company will be deploying Meltwater’s integrated solutions both in its Australian operations and all its global offices. It’s the most recent of Meltwater’s Australian-based multinational clients who have opted to standardise their use of Meltwater globally.

Meanwhile, as part of its ongoing commitment to invest in research and development, Meltwater has recently launched its enhanced TV & Radio (Broadcast Content) offering which includes diarised speech to text for transcripts and identification of supers/banners for TV coverage. It has also announced the introduction of facial recognition technology to further improve its platform offering. Meltwater has also confirmed that it has secured long-term deals with The Australian and Australian Financial Review to support its media monitoring capabilities. These deals coincide with a global partnership with Twitter for industry-leading access to its social data intelligence pipeline.

In addition, Meltwater has expanded its local workforce with 47 new people joining the company in Australia in the last year and three new strategic senior appointments set to lead key functions across APAC, which includes Upali Dasgupta stepping into the newly created role of marketing director based in Singapore.

David Hickey, Meltwater’s regional director, believes that the breadth of their offering combined with their exceptionally strong locally based team means that they can provide unparalleled support for the often-complex requirements of their customers both here and across the region. 

Over the past year, Meltwater has also completed the acquisition and onboarding of four insights companies with a focus on emerging areas including social media engagement and influencer marketing. These include social media intelligence company Linkfluence, influencer marketing company Klear, community-based research company Owler, and AI start-up Deepreason.ai. Meltwater also recently partnered with Hubspot on World Certification Week in a bid to support the learning and development of its local talent by joining the Great Upskilling initiative. 

Hickey said, “We have always placed a lot of importance on learning and development, it’s in our DNA and our partnership with Hubspot was in perfect alignment with our values. At Meltwater, we regularly invest in upskilling through training budgets and are further investing in our employees by hosting a yearly two-day Australian Leadership Development Summit in Sydney for the entire national team.”