The Asian Marketing Effectiveness & Strategy Awards 2014 Award Winners

AMEAsia2014The Asian Marketing Effectiveness & Strategy Award winners have been announced yesterday during a gala dinner at The St. Regis Singapore. Asia Pacific's premier awards honouring clients and agencies for effective marketing strategies, has received a record number of entries this year.

A total of 1,208 entries from 20 countries, up 37% on 2013, have been submitted across the four main entry sections of Effectiveness, Digital Strategy, Data & Analytics and Media Strategy.

13 Jury members, led by James Thompson Global Managing Director of Diageo Reserve, were present in Singapore to deliberate over the 128 shortlisted entries. 47 winners were chosen; 1 Platinum; 7 Gold, 15 Silver and 24 Bronze trophies were awarded.

VIEW ALL WINNERS

DIGITAL: 17 Jury members, led by Andrew Knott Vice President of Media & Digital McDonald's APMEA were present in Singapore to deliberate over the 99 shortlisted entries. 41 winners were chosen; 6 Gold, 12 Silver and 23 Bronze trophies were awarded.

MEDIA: 12 Jury members, led by Rahul Welde, Vice President - Media of Unilever Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Russia were present in Singapore to deliberate over the 86 shortlisted entries. 35 winners were chosen; 1 Platinum; 5 Gold, 15 Silver and 14 Bronze trophies were awarded.

DATA & ANALYTICS: 8 Jury members, led by Dr Elaine Rodrigo Global Director of Consumer Insights & Strategy, Biscuits Category Mondelēz International, were present in Singapore to deliberate over the 21 shortlisted entries. 14 winners were chosen, 1 Platinum; 1 Gold, 7 Silver and 5 Bronze trophies were awarded.

Congratulations!

By MediaBUZZ

 

 

Pankaj_NayakOmnicom Media Group (OMG), Asia Pacific has appointed Pankaj Nayak as Director, Business Development for Asia Pacific. Pankaj will succeed Laura Gordon, who is departing the organization to pursue other opportunities.

Pankaj joins Omnicom Media Group, from OMD International, where he held the post of Regional Business Director, for the past 4 years. In his new role, Pankaj will provide strategic leadership to support new business development initiatives for Omnicom Media Group agencies and specialist business units. Working closely with regional and local market leaders, Pankaj will develop the new business strategy and identify client opportunities across the region. Prior to OMD, Pankaj occupied leadership positions in various media agencies.

Pankaj’s role is effective immediately and he will be based in Singapore, reporting to Cheuk Chiang, CEO, Omnicom Media Group, Asia Pacific.

 

 

PERFORM, the leading digital sports content company, announced the formation of a new leadership team in Asia Pacific that will oversee the company’s continued growth and expansion throughout the region.

JamesJames Rushton has been appointed as Managing Director of the region after nearly two years as Managing Director for Australia & New Zealand. Before moving to Asia, James was Managing Director of the ePlayer product, PERFORM’s industry leading video-on-demand (VOD) platform. He is based in Singapore and heads up the new APAC leadership team comprising James Peel, Director of Sales, Asia Pacific; Elliot Renton, Commercial Director for Asia Pacific; Alex Peebles, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand; and Deane Sadler, Managing Director in Japan.

With over 18 years media experience spanning TV, mobile and digital, James Peel leads the strategic growth of PERFORM’s advertising business across the region. Prior to his current role, James was Sales Director for Australia and New Zealand at PERFORM, and has held senior roles at News Australia and in London at Yahoo! as Commercial Head of Sports - Europe.

EillotElliot Renton has created a pan-regional digital advertising team that focuses on managing content distribution revenues and strategic partnerships, to boost PERFORM’s expansion into new markets. Previously with Nokia Singapore where he led brand partnerships strategy across the Nokia & Microsoft mobile ecosystem, Elliot joined PERFORM’s mobile advertising team in March 2013.

AlexAlex Peebles oversees the operation of PERFORM’s offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. Alex has held a number of senior positions at the company, previously having the role of Business Development Director following PERFORM’s acquisition of local market leader Sportal in August 2009.

DeaneDeane Sadler leads the development and growth of PERFORM in a market where one in every two sports fans consume sports online. Deane joined PERFORM through the company’s amalgamation with Ad Networks in June 2013, which he co-founded and led as Chief Executive Officer.

Regionally headquartered in Singapore, PERFORM creates and distributes sports content for millions of fans around the world. The company generates revenues through a mix of licencing content, advertising, subscription and technology and production fees through its industry-leading content collection, production and distribution capabilities, and expanded digital products.

Goal.com, the world’s biggest football brand owned by PERFORM, has 11 local editions in Asia Pacific and collectively they make up 33% of the site’s global traffic of over one billion page views from over 53 million unique users (April 2013).

 

 

Leading e-commerce site DEAL.com.sg is officially entering the online luxury space with D'Luxe, a space dedicated to luxury products. Leveraging on its international sourcing network, D'Luxe, aims to deliver the widest variety of current season goods from premium luxury brands at the best possible prices. In addition, the company will be opening a new Redemption Centre featuring an exclusive VIP Room in July. Online shoppers will now be able to have access to the luxury lifestyle, backed by one of the largest and most trusted e-commerce groups in South East Asia.

Focusing on the variety of branded items in their offering, D'Luxe carries over 900 different models of branded goods, targeting to have over 1500 different models by the end of 2014, making D'Luxe one of the largest luxury shopping platforms in Singapore. To complement the launch of D'Luxe, DEAL.com.sg will be officially opening an exclusive VIP Room from July 2014. Located within the Redemption Centre the VIP Room will offer a white glove service manned by executives who will specialise in servicing VIP customers and handling luxury goods, completing the online shopping purchase with a polished luxury experience offline.

 

 

Huawei announced the launch of eSpace Contact Center solutions for enterprise customers, which are certified for SAP® Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM). The eSpace Contact Center empowers customers to move toward a customer contact center architecture, offering sales, marketing, and service information and insights and providing high-quality customer experiences, enhanced customer interaction, and more efficient service.

The SAP Integration and Certification Center (SAP ICC) has certified that eSpace Contact Center V2 integrates with SAP CRM and the Huawei contact center platform, providing a multi-channel access gateway to interactive channels for customers, including voice, Web, and SMS. Huawei eSpace Contact Center offers innovative, Web-based customer services that incorporate a portfolio of collaborative applications, such as social media, remote desktop, whiteboard, file transfer, and annotation.

To help to consistently improve customer satisfaction, Huawei eSpace Contact Center solution integrates with the robust and reliable SAP CRM application. Companies that use Huawei eSpace Contact Center together with SAP CRM as the foundation for their contact centers can experience an outstanding customer experience.

Huawei made its contact center sector debut in 1993, and, through continuous efforts over the past 20 years, the company has become a leader in China's contact center market and has achieved remarkable growth worldwide. To help customers build outstanding contact centers and remain relevant in competitive markets, Huawei leverages its telecommunications experience by incorporating new technologies and concepts into all-in-one contact center solutions. Working with SAP, Huawei seeks to develop integrated and breakthrough solutions that will help address the changing needs of enterprises and industries in the continuously evolving ICT landscape.

 

 

Rakuten, Inc. opened the doors to its flagship Kashiwa Sato designed “Rakuten CAFE” in Shibuya, Tokyo on May 29, 2014. The new venture will offer customers a menu featuring some of the most popular desserts and snacks from Rakuten Ichiba and will allow patrons to experience a variety of Rakuten services.

Rakuten CAFÉ is an offline extension of Rakuten’s expansive suite of Internet services. In addition to serving menu items influenced by Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten CAFÉ will offer information to the public on everything from financial services to Kobo eReading, and of course, online shopping.

Kobo eReaders are located throughout the café for customers to freely use, in addition to complementary use of power sockets and mobile phone chargers. In addition, Rakuten CAFÉ will offer 1GBPS Wifi, free of charge.

Rakuten CAFÉ will also offer customers multiple payment methods, including Rakuten Edy touch payments and Rakuten Smart Paymobile credit card payment processing service. A concierge is also on duty at all times, ready to answer any questions customers might have about Rakuten services.

On the menu are Rakuten Ichiba’s most popular desserts, light meals and drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. As a true café Rakuten CAFÉ prides itself on the quality of its coffeehouse beverages and aims to offer a selection of premium coffee-based beverages (including drip coffee, latte, cappuccino, and espresso) made from selectively curated coffee bean varieties. In addition, coffee and tea menu beverages are half price if purchased using Rakuten Card.

Designed by award-winning art director Kashiwa Sato, Rakuten CAFE’s design marries modern and traditional Japanese aesthetics, defined by straight lines, natural materials and understated sophistication. Located in Japan’s youth and fashion hub of Shibuya, Rakuten CAFÉ is sure to become another Shibuya landmark and a milestone in Rakuten branding.

With Rakuten CAFE, Rakuten hopes to create a venue that will introduce new audiences to the Rakuten’s services and to offer an additional marketing channel for Rakuten Ichiba merchants.

In collaboration with the NPO Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities (ETIC), part of the sales from Rakuten CAFÉ will be donated to the Disaster Recovery Leader Development Project and a range of other youth causes.

 

 

parryParry Ravindranathan has been appointed as the first Managing Director of Bloomberg Media for Asia Pacific, responsible for leading Bloomberg's entire multi-platform media operation – web, mobile, television, digital video, print magazines and live events – across the region.

The new management structure is part of Bloomberg’s new global media strategy, first outlined by the company’s CEO, Justin b. Smith, in March.

The new leadership structure reflects Bloomberg Media’s new strategy to expand its global media footprint beyond television to multiple media platforms. Ravindranathan's appointment will ensure Bloomberg’s consumer media content, ad products, distribution and licensing deals are carefully tailored to serve each distinct, individual market.

Over the last three years, Ravindranathan has led Bloomberg TV in Asia Pacific, expanding its commercial partnerships and delivering a strong, award-winning product. In his new role, Ravindranathan will apply his entrepreneurial spirit to all Bloomberg Media properties in Asia Pacific markets, across TV, digital and live events.

Prior to joining Bloomberg, Ravindranathan worked at Al Jazeera in Qatar and CNBC-TV18 in India.

He will take on his new role this week and will be based out of Hong Kong.

 

 

Michael-LisboaDentsu Möbius announced the appointment of the much-celebrated industry hand Michael Lisboa as Creative Director. He will report to the agency’s general manager, Margery Lynn and will work closely with existing Creative Director, Fredrik Englund.

With over 20 years of international experience, Michael has established a track record of leading user experience, integrated digital strategy and experiential design for some of the most recognized brands in the world including Pepsi and Microsoft. His knowledge and expertise combined with an intuitive understanding of what clicks with both clients and consumers, brings much value to Dentsu Möbius and brands looking for more innovative and effective consumer engagement initiatives in Asia.

Born and bred in New York City and most recently from San Francisco, Lisboa has been based in Singapore for four years. Having launched successful digital agencies and start-ups on both the East Coast and West Coast, he is an entrepreneur at heart.

Lisboa brings experience, innovation and a passion for digital to Dentsu Möbius, always seeking to push boundaries with creative ideas and solutions for client partners.

 

 

Unilever announced the launch of The Unilever Foundry, a platform that will provide a single entry-point for innovative start-ups seeking to partner with Unilever. The Unilever Foundry will enable the company's global brands to experiment with and pilot new technologies more efficiently, effectively and speedily. It will also provide start-ups and entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop and work on global projects, access mentoring from marketing professionals, and tap into a new source of funding through Unilever Ventures.

The Unilever Foundry offers three key opportunities for start-ups and entrepreneurs:

1. Marketing Mentors: Over a period of three months, Unilever mentors will work individually with start-ups and entrepreneurs to craft their brand vision, marketing strategy and product roadmap.

2. Projects: Through The Unilever Foundry Projects, Unilever brands and functional teams will post briefs where they are looking for innovative technology solutions. Companies with proven technology are invited to pitch their solution and, if selected, pilot their technology with Unilever. The pitch-to-pilot process enables Unilever to embed experimentation at the heart of the marketing function, allowing new technologies to be piloted and new partnerships to be cultivated.

3. Investment: The Unilever Foundry will also give companies the option to apply for funding through Unilever Ventures, the venture capital arm of Unilever. One of the investment focus areas for Unilever Ventures is 'digital marketing'; and it has already made several successful investments in this space, including Brain Juicer, Yummly and Brandtone.

Briefs detailing requirements and the innovative technology solutions that can help are posted on www.unilever.com/foundry.

 

 

TRUSTe, a global data privacy management company, announced a partnership with the 2014 UK Mobile & App Design Awards to champion mobile privacy best practice within the industry. The Awards are part of a global Grand Slam series including participants from UK, U.S., Asia and Australia, which recognizes innovation and design within the mobile app ecosystem. As part of this partnership, for the first time ever, privacy will be an entry requirement for all award submissions in the UK awards and the US awards later this year.

In today's market, developers race to bring innovative applications to market to draw in consumers, build engagement with diverse audiences and drive new streams of revenue for business using the vast amount of data available from mobile users. However, app developers have to balance this pressure with growing consumer privacy concerns (76% of smartphone users will not download an app they don't trust) and increased regulatory scrutiny.

Now the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN) conducted its second annual international enforcement sweep from 12 to 18 May 2014, reviewing how mobile apps deal with the collection and use of personal data and protect consumer privacy. GPEN members include 27 privacy and enforcement authorities from across the globe including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Entries to the 2014 UK Mobile & App Design Awards close on 28 May 2014. The winners will be announced in an Awards Ceremony on 18 June 2014 as part of the first London Technology Week. Privacy will also be a requirement for all entries in the 2014 US Mobile & App Design Awards taking place later this year.

 

 

Anathea_RuysOmnicom Media Group (OMG), Asia Pacific has appointed Anathea Ruys to lead Fuse, its branded content, sponsorship and ideation unit that services clients within the network and its brands - OMD, PHD and M2M. Fuse specializes in strategy and building brand assets in owned and earned platforms and integrating these with paid media.

Anathea will succeed Jeremy Paul, who is departing the organization to pursue other opportunities, as the new Head of Fuse, APAC.

Anathea joins Omnicom Media Group from Mindshare, Melbourne, where she is currently serving as the Managing Director. Prior to Mindshare, Anathea was the Managing Director at Clemenger Harvie Edge, Melbourne. She has also served a ten year stint at Spark Activate, where she grew the agency from a small boutique PR agency into one of New Zealand's leading activation agencies.

The new appointment is effective mid-July and Anathea will be reporting to Cheuk Chiang.

 

 

Ranjoy_DeyHavas Media Group, India has appointed Ranjoy Dey as Head - Digital. His key responsibility will be to drive growth for the digital offering of Havas Media in India.

Ranjoy has worked extensively in the digital marketing domain and is in the business for almost 20 years. Prior to Havas he was COO at Ignitee Digital and was earlier with Digitas India. Brands he worked on include Nestle, Samsung, Reckitt Benckiser, Dabur, ITC, JK Tyre, Axis Bank, SanDisk, Airtel, Pizza Hut Delivery, amongst others. His works have won several National and International awards including the PMAA, MAA Globes, Abbys and DMA.

In his early days, Ranjoy headed marketing for e-Learning companies such as eMind (now Kaplan India) or InfoPro and managed large scale on-ground operations projects in the area of Promotions & Events for agencies like Solutions Integrated Marketing Services.

 

 

Michael_MendenhallFusion-io announced that Michael Mendenhall has joined the company as executive vice president and chief marketing and communications officer.

Mendenhall formerly served as senior vice president and global chief marketing officer at Hewlett Packard. Before HP, Mendenhall spent 17 years at the Walt Disney Company, culminating in his positions as president of marketing and synergy for Walt Disney Studios and EVP of global marketing for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

The company’s Fusion ioMemory platform - and software defined storage solutions - accelerates virtualization, databases, cloud computing, big data and performance applications, delivering the world's data faster. From e-commerce retailers to the world's social media leaders and Fortune Global 500 companies, Fusion-io supports its customersby improving the performance and efficiency of their data.

Mendenhall's duties will include overseeing corporate marketing strategy, branding, advertising, digital marketing, social media, promotion, strategic partnership marketing, lead generation, corporate communications, analyst relations and events for Fusion-io on a global basis.

Mendenhall has received numerous industry awards, was a member of the World Economic Forums Global Agenda Council on Marketing and Branding, he sits on a number of boards and is widely known for being a distinguished speaker. He was also a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from Emerson College in Boston, where he holds a bachelor's degree and now serves on the Board of Overseers.

 

 

iveJonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Design at Apple, heads Mobile development project with UNATION and Apercu.

UNATION is a New York based internet company that operates an event driven social media platform that allows a business or individual to create meaningful content centered around their unique brand.

Apercu Global provides solutions in business advisory, information technology, marketing & sales and economic security.

After recently partnering with UNATION and announcing a mobile development partnership with Apple, Apercu Global proudly announces an expanded partnership and association with Apple, specifically as it relates to UNATION's mobile platform. The UNATION project will be headed by Apple’s design and development team and Jonathan Ive, respectively.

 

 

KatalystM, a leading Marketing Automation Agency, has become a member of 3radical's partner network in Asia Pac and the first accredited 3radical Partner – demonstrating their commitment to the highest level of training and skill in 3radical implementation and support.

Since gamification will play a rapidly increasing role in developing consumer and customer relationships, KatalystM has chosen 3radical as its technology partner in this area.

3radical has developed a marketing technology platform that enables brands to create an unprecedented level of engagement with consumers by delivering a rewarding, fun and relevant consumer experience on mobile. The platform enables brands to deliver a "gamified" experience to consumers - through competitions, recognition and rewards for exhibiting behaviour such as visiting stores or online properties, answering quizzes, sharing messages about the brand with their friends on social networks, and ultimately purchasing and becoming an advocate.

KatalystM enables its clients to treat each and every one of their clients in a completely personalised and customised way, even if these number in the millions. They serve clients throughout Asia-Pacific & Europe including Symantec, Philips, Air Asia Expedia, Flybuys, Tabcorp, Rakuten Group and Johnson & Johnson.

The 3radical consumer app is branded either as radicalRealms, or branded and customised for specific organisations, including functionality relevant to that organisations audience - for example stock locators, news feeds etc. Offers and messages within the app are targeted and delivered to consumers in real time based on their social media profiles, past behavior and location and optimized based on powerful analytics – delivering exactly the kind of smart, targeted and triggered marketing that KatalystM focus on.

"We have shown since our launch in July 2013 that the gamified experience delivered very high engagement, with more than 40% of all consumers downloading the app to date engaging with a gamified offer from a Brand. This is because it is both contextual and delivers value to the consumer as well as the brand, and is attractive to a large and growing audience" said Chris Tew, EVP Asia Pacific for 3radical.

"The skills and experience of KatalystM are well proven and recognized in the market, and our partnership will enable a growing number of Brands to quickly adopt the 3radical platform and realize the benefits of gamification in marketing."

KatalystM and 3radical will soon announced a joint launch event in Singapore for Asia Pacific’s users of marketing automation platforms.

 

 

Ericsson has completed its acquisition of Red Bee Media, a leading media services company headquartered in the UK, from Creative Broadcast Services Holdings - an entity controlled by Macquarie Advanced Investment Partners, L.P.

Ericsson announced its intention to acquire Red Bee Media on July 1, 2013, and the UK's Competition Commission formally cleared the acquisition on March 27, 2014. Now the company looks forward to working with Red Bee Media's extensive list of high-profile broadcast services customers, including the BBC, BSkyB, BT Sport, Canal Digital, Channel 4, EE, UKTV, UPC, Virgin Media, and many more.

In addition, Ericsson has gained 1,500 highly skilled employees as well as media services and operations facilities in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Australia. This will further strengthen Ericsson's broadcast services business, which began in 2007 with the signing of the first broadcast services deal with C More (formerly Canal+) in the Nordic region. Ericsson has a significant heritage in the global TV and media market and, in the UK, pioneered the video compression technologies that are driving the worldwide digitalization of TV and enabling new viewing experiences - such as HDTV, TV Anywhere and UHDTV. Ericsson's strategy in TV and media is to help content owners, broadcasters and TV service providers evolve to meet consumer demands for video experiences on any device, anytime, anywhere. Ericsson recently highlighted its view for the future of TV in its Media Vision 2020.

Without doubt, Ericsson a the driving force behind the Networked Society - a world leader in communications technology and services – with it outstanding services, software and infrastructure - in mobility, broadband and the cloud.

 

 

At its annual Smarter Commerce Global Summit event, IBM announced it has completed the acquisition of the privately held software company Silverpop.

Silverpop empowers marketers with cloud-based capabilities that deliver personalized customer engagements that scale for any sized business. The company's automated platform reduces the complexity of omnichannel marketing and makes it easier to personalize each customer interaction in real time. By providing deep customer insights and an intuitive engagement engine, Silverpop enables exceptional experiences for customers across the entire brand journey.

Silverpop extends IBM's leadership in marketing automation in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios. With this acquisition, more than 8,000 organizations around the world now use IBM's Enterprise Marketing Management tools. Silverpop also adds to IBM's portfolio of more than 100 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that can be quickly deployed with little technical knowledge to accelerate time to value. Silverpop makes personalization easier by automating the customer experience based on insights drawn from permission-based data streams — such as social, web, email and mobile activity – and its powerful engagement and lead management platform enables marketers to use these profiles to deliver unique, highly personalized experiences for each customer in real time.

IBM's growing ecosystem of more than 140 Ready for Smarter Commerce marketing partners will create without doubt an even more complete view of each customer by integrating data from these additional sources into Silverpop, enabling deeper customization. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

 

6UnitedUnified Inbox, the social communication and collaboration platform, announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Boston-based Smak (previously available at mysmak.com), for an undisclosed sum. The platform centralizes external conversations, social engagement and internal team collaboration into one single experience across desktop and mobile devices.

Smak (Secure Messaging Alerting and Knowledge) is a cloud solution to help executives and professionals sort their incoming information from email accounts and social media and increase their productivity by applying so-called LifeModes®.

Founded in the US by Matt Hooper and Doug Fleming in 2011, Smak was started with the vision to provide those who wanted to cut through email and social media clutter with an option to actually do so. However, it took more time and effort to build out the whole solution they truly wanted to offer to their users who were struggling with communication overload.

Since the launch of the Unified Inbox iPhone app, users have indicated the need for even better tools to juggle their incoming message streams. Users wanted to filter their Unified Inbox for messages that would fit their current LifeModes®, (such as “Work”, “Home”, “Holiday”) to read and respond to those first. Smak, according to Ruckert, has some of the best tools for such functions and will be important for Unified Inbox moving forward.

 

 

Taylor1Winnie Chang has joined Taylor Vinters Singapore office as a Partner and Head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications Asia, in response to the recent growth of the firm’s practice in the region.

Taylor Vinters is a successful next generation law firm with a commitment to being one of the elite law firms operating internationally in the areas of technology, investment and private client. In Singapore, the firm works alongside British and Singaporean government trade bodies, helping predominantly UK, Europe or US-based technology companies plan and execute their Asian growth strategies.

Winnie has more than 13 years of international experience in the TMT sector, providing corporate, commercial and regulatory advice to a variety of multinational companies from Europe, the US and Asia.

She has an excellent reputation for her commercial approach and depth of knowledge of the TMT sector. Winnie has been recognised by The Legal 500 (Asia Pacific) as having “expertise in telecoms, IT, commercial transactions and regulatory matters”. She has also won the 2014 Finance Monthly Global Award for “TMT Lawyer of the Year” in Singapore.

Winnie is the author of the best seller book "A Practical Guide to Singapore Data Protection Law" and the co-author of the global chapter on "Cryptography and Electronic Signatures" in a publication launched at the UN World Summit on the Information Society.

Fluent in English, Mandarin and Malay, Winnie is qualified to practise law in England and Wales, Singapore and Malaysia.

Taylor

 

 

DannyDanny Yeung, Founder & Ex-CEO of Groupon HK, joins Paktor as a key company advisor. Paktor is a leading dating app dedicated to helping Asian singles meet other singles, announcing recently that it is on track to reach 1M users in Asia by Q2 2014. The company emphasizes anonymity, locality, and usability for its users.

Danny Yeung is actually a serial entrepreneur who founded uBuyiBuy, which was subsequently acquired by Groupon after 6 months of operations. While at Groupon HK/TW, Danny led the business to revenues of over USD $100m annually and overseeing a staff of 350. Furthermore, he is a LP and Mentor for 500 Start-Up's SEA fund in addition to being a General Member for AngelVest.

 

 

LeaHavas Media Group Ortega has announced the appointment of Lea Nepomuceno as Business Director of the group’s second agency brand, Arena.

Iea will be in charge of the Arena account management team and will be working closely with Lawin Bulatao, Arena’s Executive Creative Director to manage the agency’s growing list of clients that includes LBC, LG, L'Oréal, Maybelline, Garnier, Globe Business and SM Cyberzone.

Iea’s previous agency experience includes stints at JWT and TBWA\Tequila Manila. She joined JWT as an Account Director and was later promoted to the role of Integrations Director, where she supported the development and implementation of integrated campaigns across clients like Unilever, Mondelez, Nestle and Johnson &Johnson. At TBWA\ Tequila, she handled below-the-line advertising, activations and CRM. Some of the notable campaigns that Iea has worked on includes Bactidol 12-hour Sing-a-thon, Kraft Eden Operation Smilewich and Cream Silk Hair Sonata.

More recently she worked at a leading media blocktimer.

 

 

kellyIntegrated communications consultancy Text100 has appointed Keeley Benjamin as ASEAN Digital Brand Lead. She will be responsible for providing strategic brand and digital consultancy to Text100’s clients in Southeast Asia.

Based out of Singapore, Keeley joins Text100 with 14 years of integrated marketing communications experience across Europe and Asia having worked with brands such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Sony Ericsson and Reebok & Russell Athletic.

As Digital Brand Lead, Keeley will partner with Text100’s Digital Hub team in Malaysia which houses the agency’s web development, design and analytics team for Southeast Asia. She will also work with Text100’s existing earned and social media consultants, digital producers and content team in Singapore.

Keeley has extensive experience of working in Asia and with global brands. In 2012, she relocated from London to Hong Kong to take on the Head of Global Press and Digital Marketing role for Native Union, a mobile and digital accessories provider. Prior to this, she led Sony Ericsson’s public relations and digital strategy for its lifestyle and consumer technology segment and spent eight years at NIKE where she was responsible for the brand’s digital-led integrated media campaigns across 32 markets within EMEA.

Her campaigns include the football star-studded NIKE Secret Tournament campaign, YouTube FanFest with HP and the award-winning Royal British Legion’s 2-minute Silence campaign (2011 Cannes Lions: Silver Lion for Best Integrated Campaign and Silver Lion for Best Charity Campaign)

Keeley's hire is part of Text100's regional growth strategy, and comes on the back of a successful streak of ten new client wins in Singapore and Malaysia across the consumer, corporate and technology sector including Cisco, GE, Häagen-Dazs, Trend Micro and Vserv.mobi, to name a few. The remits span media and influencer relations, integrated communications and content marketing.

Over the past two years, Text100 has developed and delivered a considerable number of successful integrated campaigns for key clients across Asia Pacific, including IBM, Lenovo, CSIRO, The Guardian, Multimedia Development Corporation and OLDTOWN White Coffee. In the last twelve months, integrated billings doubled with a significant jump in paid and owned work.

 

 

Havas Media Singapore has expanded its social media team with four new hires, Shiella Christy, Shelby Sarkar, Nicki Thng and Gigi Vu.

The new appointments are part of the agency’s focus to strengthen its social media offering and come on the back of new business acquisitions like Thermos, F&N, Byron &Co, Petron and American Tourister.

The new executives will be responsible for supporting all significant areas of social media marketing including social media strategy, application development, community management, influencer management, social media trainings and social media listening.

Shiella Christy, who joins the agency as Social Media Manager, has four years of experience in the space. She previously worked with Group M and Vintedge and on blue chip brands that include KFC, Pizza Hut, SQ, Nestle and Canon. Her expertise lies with social media strategy and management of communities across platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. She is also adept at conceptualizing and executing tactical social campaigns driving marketing and business goals.

Shelby Sarkar has been appointed as Social Media Manager and joins the agency with four years of experience in the industry. Shelby previously worked with Yolk and Vintedge and the portfolio of clients she has worked on includes Metro, Canon, 7-11, MICA and Shine Youth. Besides social media strategy, Shelby will manage services such as enterprise listening.

Nicki Thng, meanwhile, will take on the role on Community and Content Development Manager. She has previously worked with Gushcloud for a year and has been associated with accounts like Skyscanner, Health Promotion Board, and SG50 among others in her previous role. She specializes in community management and content development. Her key responsibility includes devising content amplification strategies through paid social media, as well as influencer outreach programs.

Gigi Vu will take on the role of Community Management Executive and will support the new hires in community management projects.

Commenting on the new appointments, Cedric Dias, Social Media Lead at Havas Media Singapore said: “We are excited with the infusion of new talent in our team. Social Media is becoming a focus area for the agency with each client expressing a need for social component as an essential part of their ongoing marketing strategy. The focus for us it to capitalise on the specialisation of each talent to meet the needs of our clients and provide a 360 social service offering from strategy to community management to social listening and analytics besides of course, paid social.”

Social_Media_team_Singapore