Advertising + Marketing MY - Jun 2015

advertising + marketing malaysia

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2015

25/6/2015 4:32:41 PM

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CONTENTS

ON THE COVER All about Malaysia’s Agency of the Year 2015

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EDITOR’S NOTE

3

METHODOLOGY

5

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

6

JUDGES

7

OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

8

BRAND CONSULTANCIES

10

CREATIVE AGENCIES

12

DIGITAL AGENCIES

14

DIRECT MARKETING AGENCIES

16

EVENT MARKETING AGENCIES

18

MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

20

MEDIA AGENCIES

22

MOBILE MARKETING AGENCIES

24

PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

26

SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCIES

28

SEARCH MARKETING AGENCIES

30

THE MARKIES

32

AOTY SNAPSHOT

44

COMMS MALAYSIA

49

A MONTH IN NEWS

54

PROFILE: LEGOLAND

58

LAST WORD

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EDITOR’S NOTE

A TIME TO CELEBRATE

Elizabeth Low, Deputy Editor elizabethl@marketing-interactive.com Rezwana Manjur, Senior Journalist rezwanam@marketing-interactive.com Noreen Ismail, Journalist noreeni@marketing-interactive.com Editorial – International Matt Eaton, Editor (Hong Kong) matte@marketing-interactive.com Production and Design Shahrom Kamarulzaman, Regional Art Director shahrom@lighthousemedia.com.sg Fauzie Rasid, Senior Designer fauzier@lighthousemedia.com.sg Advertising Sales – Singapore & Malaysia Johnathan Tiang, Senior Account Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Grace Goh, Account Manager graceg@marketing-interactive.com Jocelyn Ma, Account Manager jocelynm@marketing-interactive.com Ong Yi Xuan, Advertising Sales Coordinator yixuano@marketing-interactive.com Advertising Sales – International Josi Yan, Sales Director (Hong Kong) josiy@marketing-interactive.com Events Yeo Wei Qi, Regional Head of Events Services weiqi@marketing-interactive.com Circulation Executive Deborah Quek, Circulations Executive deborahq@marketing-interactive.com Finance Evelyn Wong, Regional Finance Director evelynw@lighthousemedia.com.sg Management Søren Beaulieu, Publisher sorenb@marketing-interactive.com Tony Kelly, Editorial Director tk@marketing-interactive.com

The optimist in me says it is not all gloom and doom. Many judges I have spoken to said your work has greatly impressed them. What caught their attention was the breadth of ideas and executions that are out there and that coming from clients means a lot, you’d agree.

Amid the pressures of a depleting margin and an ever-growing need to innovate, agencies are trying their best to stay afloat.

And, along the way, are victories – big or small.

You, who have made it to the top are fighting these battles every day and deserve a pat on the back for not only surviving through the storm, but riding the wave.

This recognition is for those victories which help put brands on the path of growth. It is about celebrating what you and your teams have achieved over the past 12 months.

So, continue doing the great work guys, and sharing it with the wider client-marketer community.

And the winner is ...

Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

Editorial Rayana Pandey, Editor rayanap@marketing-interactive.com

It’s that time of the year again when we gear up for our biggest event of the year – the Agency of the Year Awards.

While it is an exciting journey for us – putting together an all-marketer jury, seeing them pour over all your entries and select the winners – it is also a poignant reminder of what the industry has achieved in the past year, what are its struggles and loopholes.

Some time back we spoke to Jonathan Oliver, global head of innovation at Microsoft Advertising, who said the traditional agency model would not be around in the next two years.

“Agencies need to evolve to become consultants,” he said.

Oliver said that while many agencies were today trying to evolve, this was still a struggle.

However, developments such as Publicis buying Sapient mark a good start for the advertising industry.

“Agencies are in an interesting predicament because they have to move as fast as culture is moving and constantly changing. There’s a lot of risk on the agencies’ part – they are always playing catch up, but at the same time they have a client to convince.

And if it goes wrong they get fired and clients find someone new,” he said.

That’s a truth, granted, but at the same time, this is largely also because clients themselves are not pro-innovation. The risks are too many and the “why rock the boat” mentality is also pervasive. Agencies, after all, are but a reflection of what their clients are.

(No, seriously. I’m not joking and yeah, we can debate this some other time.)

Justin Randles, Group Managing Director jr@marketing-interactive.com

Advertising + Marketing Malaysia is published 6 times per year by Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd PP 16093/12/2011 (026708). Printed in Malaysia on CTP process by Percetakan Skyline Sdn Bhd No. 35 & 37 Jalan 12/32B, TSI Business Industrial Park, Batu 61/2 Off Jalan Kepong, 52100 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 03-6257 4846. For subscriptions, contact circulations at +65 6423 0329 or email subscriptions@marketing-interactive. com. COPYRIGHT & REPRINTS: All material printed in Advertising + Marketing Malaysia is protected under the copyright act. All rights reserved. No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright holder.

Permission may be requested through the Singapore offi ce. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in Advertising + Marketing Malaysia are not necessarily the views of the publisher. Singapore: Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd 100C Pasir Panjang Road, #05-01 See Hoy Chan Hub Singapore 118519 Tel: +65 6423 0329 Fax: +65 6423 0117 Hong Kong: Lighthouse Independent Media Ltd Unit A, 7/F, Wah Kit Commercial Building 302 Des Voeux Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2861 1882 Fax: +852 2861 1336 To subscribe to A+M Malaysia magazine, go to: www.marketing-interactive.com ...............................................................................................................

A MEMBER OF

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Rayana Pandey Editor

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25/6/2015 4:33:08 PM

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METHODOLOGY

HOW THE WINNERS WON How the finalists were determined Since its inception, the winners of Agency of the Year have always won based on one constant: the agency preferences of client marketers.

Just like last year, this year’s awards once again gives agencies the opportunity to enter and nominate themselves to be in the running for the title. Any agency could enter in any of the 11 AOTY categories they felt were relevant to their business.

This allows for greater participation from more agencies based in Malaysia.

Staying true to the awards’ methodology, their cases were then rigorously scrutinised by a jury of 23 senior client-side marketers before the final rankings were determined.

The judges were chosen based on their seniority and vast collective knowledge and experience in the marketing and communications fields.

Each entry was judged by a number of members from the panel, each with strong expertise in that particular marketing discipline.

To ensure no conflict of interest, judges did not score agencies they had direct working relationships with, either currently or during the evaluation period.

Criteria The entrants’ performances during the specified time-period of 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014 were evaluated based on criteria that covered everything from business performance to greater contributions to the industry at large.

WHY DID LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE WIN OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR? While any agency winning gold in their category is eligible to win Overall Agency of the Year by having the highest overall score, Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide earned its title convincingly by triumphing in multiple categories: gold in Brand Consultancy of the Year, Creative Agency of the Year, Digital Agency of the Year, Direct Marketing Agency of the Year, Event Marketing Agency of the Year and Public Relations Agency of the Year and silver in Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year and Social Media Agency of the Year.

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JUDGING CRITERIA

25%

25%

25%

25%

Performance Product People Perspective

Agencies were required to structure their cases based on the following four key business areas, with an equal degree of value tied to each: performance (25% of total score), product (25%), people (25%) and perspective (25%).

How the winners were decided Entries were evaluated by a judging panel made up of senior client marketers across major industries in Malaysia, including telecommunications, F&B, hospitality, travel, insurance, retail and banking and finance.

All the judges’ scores were tallied and each agency’s score was expressed as a total percentage within each category to produce the winners’ table. The three agencies with the highest percentages, and the highest ranking

WHY DID PHD MALAYSIA WIN OVERALL BEST MEDIA MARKIE? While both Carat Malaysia and PHD Malaysia won an equal number of trophies in the Best Use of Media segment of the MARKies, the final winner was selected based on aggregated score of the judges.

Carat Malaysia with three wins secured an average of 69.00%. The same average for PHD Malaysia stood at 71.6%, thereby making it the winner.

independent agency (Local Hero) in each category were thus determined. The agency with the most wins across all categories was duly granted the title of Overall Agency of the Year.

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24/6/2015 3:18:59 PM

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

SPONSORS

Best Idea - Female Audience Sponsor

NBCUniversal Universal Networks International,

Entertainment Television, The Style

world, operate CNBC and NBC News

news and entertainment television

the international channels division

Network, DIVA, Telemundo and

internationally.

networks, a premier motion picture

of NBCUniversal, is one of the

Golf Channel. These unique brands

world’s premier entertainment

deliver a full range of entertainment

is a division of NBCUniversal,

production operations, a leading

portfolios, delivering quality content

experiences to local audiences

one of the world’s leading media

television stations group, world-

and compelling brands to over 176

across the globe. Universal Networks

and entertainment companies

renowned theme parks, and a suite

territories across Europe, the Middle

International also operates Movies

in the development, production,

of leading Internet-based businesses.

East, Africa, Latin America and Asia

24. Further, NBCUniversal News

and marketing of entertainment,

NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of

Pacific. The brands in the portfolio

Group, one of the most influential

news, and information to a global

Comcast Corporation.

include Universal Channel, Syfy,

and respected portfolios of on-air

audience. NBCUniversal owns and

13th Street, Studio Universal, E!

and digital news properties in the

operates a valuable portfolio of

Universal Networks International

company, significant television

PARTNERS

Fotobox

Tiger Beer

Fotobox is an innovative consumer

Guinness Anchor Berhad, Malaysia’s

engagement agency based in Malaysia,

leading brewer, was formed in 1989

Australia and Singapore. We specialize

with the merger of Guinness Malaysia

in providing solutions for brands to

Bhd and Malayan Breweries (Malaya)

engage with consumers in events and

Sdn Bhd.

digital space through social sharing

GAB operates the Sungei Way

tech and selfies. With more than 500

Brewery which began operations

consumer brands and growing under

in 1965. Located in Selangor, the

our portfolio, we have vast experience

brewery occupies a land area of 23.72

and extensive knowledge in digital

acres. The brewery brews Tiger, Tiger

technology and events. Our passion

Radler, Guinness, Heineken, Anchor

is to help brands to achieve great

Smooth, Anchor Strong, Kilkenny and

measureable results! For innovative

Anglia Shandy. It also produces the

solutions, visit www.whatisfotobox.com.

non-alcoholic Malta. GAB’s portfolio of brands also includes imported brands Strongbow, Kirin Ichiban, Smirnoff Ice, Affligem and Paulaner.

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THE JUDGES

YOU R A O MARKies T Y A N D M AJUDGES RKies JUDGES YOUR AOTY AND

Sydney Quays

Mark Ng

Koh Joo Siang

Managing director Berjaya Starbucks Coffee Co

Cluster marketing director BP Castrol Lubricants

Vice president and general manager Cerebos Malaysia

Low Bee Yin

Steven Tai

Shirley Hoo

Timothy Johnson

Chuah Sze Phing

Marketing director Courts Malaysia

Head, strategy & marketing Ericsson Malaysia

Director of marketing communications InterContinental Kuala Lumpur

Vice president marketing INTI International University & Colleges

Head of group marketing & communications K&N Kenanga Holdings

Rafeah Ariffin

Chan Meng Yang

Sulin Lau

General manager marketing Mamee

Head of marketing services Maxis

Mohamed Adam Wee Abdullah

Alex Yoong

Senior general manager group marketing & communications KPJ Healthcare

Fiona Liao

Lee Yen Ming

Chief marketing officer Prudential Assurance Malaysia

Acting head, brand & marketing Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia

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Ken Mohamed Faiz Kamal Director, group marketing & communications CIMB Group Holdings

Eric Wong Country marketing director Citibank

Group chief marketing officer Maybank

Head of marketing/assistant general manager, group marketing Nippon Paint Malaysia

Ir. Nirinder Singh Johl

Vivian Yap

Philip Whittaker

General manager (Strategic Marketing Mgmt) Tenaga Nasional

Marketing director Tesco Stores Malaysia

Chief marketing officer Themed Attractions & Resorts

Amanda Woo

Rakesh Mohan

Suzanne Ooi

Director of brand, marketing & communications Tune Hotels

Chairman (Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia & Laos) Unilever

Vice president marketing Volvo Malaysia

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OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

BACK-TO-BACK GLORY FOR LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE It was definitely a night to remember as members of Malaysia’s advertising community celebrated and partied the night away at the sixth annual Advertising + Marketing Agency of the Year awards.

And it was an even more spectacular night for Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide, as it walked away with the Overall Agency of the Year title for the second time in a row.

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide swept the pool winning six gold awards: the Brand Consultancy of the Year, Creative Agency of the Year, Digital Agency of the Year, Direct Marketing Agency of the Year, Event Marketing Agency of the Year and Public Relations Agency of the Year.

It also won two silver awards in the Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year and Social Media Agency of the Year categories.

Lowe Malaysia put up a strong defence, winning two silver awards for Creative Agency of the Year and Direct Marketing Agency of

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the Year, and two bronze awards for Mobile Marketing and Event Marketing Agency of the year respectively.

Lion & Lion was the night’s dark horse, taking away gold for the Search and Social Media Agency of the Year categories.

On the media agency front, this year Carat Media Services bagged top honours after edging out runner-ups OMD Malaysia and PHD Malaysia to take gold, breaking Mindshare’s winning streak.

The independent agency that shone across multiple categories was VLT, which won the Local Hero award for Creative Agency of the Year, Digital Agency of the Year, Direct Marketing Agency of the Year and Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year.

Thirty three campaign-based MARKies were also given out, with Faster Advertising winning the Overall Creative Ideas MARKie and PHD Malaysia claiming the Overall Best Use of Media MARKie.

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Faster Advertising laid claim to four trophies in the “Creative Ideas” categories, including Best Idea – Launch and Best Idea – Social.

PHD Malaysia won the Best Use of Integrated Media and Best Use of Videos awards, winning the top honour in the “Media Usage” categories.

Carat Malaysia, Publicis Communications Malaysia, TBWA and Cheil Malaysia were some of the other winners at the MARKies.

This year’s Agency of the Year Awards is in its sixth run since it started in 2010 as an agency awards programme judged solely by client marketers. Twenty-three senior client marketers representing brands such as Citibank, Nippon Paint, InterContinental Malaysia, Maxis and Tenaga Nasional, among others, took part in the judging process this year.

The awards were sponsored by NBCUniversal and supported by partners FOTOBOX and Tiger Beer.

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LBKLinhse_advmktg 2015-05-25T16:29:23+08:00

BRAND CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

Bagging the gold award in the Brand Consultancy category is Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide.

Last year was a big year for the agency as it quickly embraced the challenges technology presented the agency with and countered it with progressive communication solutions.

According to the agency, by maximising

THE FINALISTS Cohn & Wolfe Malaysia IMMERSE Landor Associates, Malaysia TBWA\ The Distillery VLT

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efficiencies, Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide was able to deliver one of the best operating margins last year from across all its APAC offices.

Its clients across a range of disciplines often look to the agency to provide consultation through a range of specialised workshops such as human purpose, ACTs, understanding communication, developing marketing and brand plans to conducting brand audits.

Its clientele includes a range of brands such as KLK Properties, Felda Global Ventures, PETRONAS, TNB and Dutch Lady.

The agency also worked towards developing unique and relevant brand strategies for its clients, based on a deep understanding of the business issues to drive brand and business success.

One such example was the “Save the Sundae Cone” campaign by McDonald’s.

As the client found its appeal and relevance among youth waning, Leo Burnett was brought in to turn this around and capture the attention and drive the experience and sales from the youth segment. The agency worked to develop an interactive mobile game that allowed interaction with the outdoor billboards of the sundae cones.

It tapped into various relevant insights of

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youth behaviour and likes for the campaign. In a period of 10 days, the client saw over 1500 vouchers given away in 200 minutes. As part of the campaign more than 256 cones were “saved”.

“Our strength lies in having the best people to create the best work – creative people who are entrepreneurs with a deep local understanding. We continue to build on this strength through our Leo Burnett knowledge centre,” said CEO Tan Kien Eng. In 2014, the agency saw continued mutual growth with long-standing clients, with relationships based on trust and respect, and a retention rate of 100%. Tan added the agency aimed to continue in developing a deep understanding of people and behaviour.

“Our distinctive ‘HumanKind’ approach boosted by our creative digital solutions in fulfilling clients’ needs kept us ahead of our competitors and resulted in a 90% success rate in new business wins,” Tan said. Some of its new business wins included Maxis, Reckitt Benckiser, Sime Darby Property, FrieslandCampina, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, F&N and PETRONAS. Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

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BRAND CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR PUBLICIS COMMUNICATIONS Taking sec second spot for Brand Consultancy is Publicis Communications Malaysia.

The past 12 months for the agency have been yet another chapter in its transition into the new digital reality. In the past year the agency launched Newsdesk which is a live ideation machine for liquid content. With the help of Newsdesk, it also got back into media and engagement planning.

The agency saw new people, new skills and an overall new way of working with old and new clients. Publicis Communications Malaysia currently has 45 digital staff members. The agency also currently has a large number of new roles being integrated into its existing team.

These roles include digital media planning,

data analysts, digital planning, UX planning and creatives. In the past year, the agency also saw no client losses or senior departures.

Some new account wins for the agency included Intel, Huawei, Nestlé, Proton, EON

projects, York, Continental and Tourism Malaysia. All of these accounts are integrated across brand, digital, retail and, in some cases, B2B. Going forward, the agency will still be looking to hire more talent.

“Our one P&L approach to holistic solutions makes every day a challenge and the only way we survive is great talent. We hope to hire more media planners, more engagement planners and a load more creative talent over the coming 12 months,” said SEA CEO Dean Bramham.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Dean Bramham, regional CEO

LOWE MALAYSIA

In the past 12 months, Lowe Malaysia has emerged as one of Malaysia’s most awarded agencies. This time it’s taking home the bronze award in the Brand Consulting category.

Last year, the agency helped its client Unilever Malaysia win the 2014 Marketer of the

Year Award at the A+M Marketing Excellence Awards. Simultaneously, over the past year the agency also doubled in terms of business, growth, revenue and size.

Lowe Malaysia recently took home the regional mandate for Toyo Tires Japan to drive brand building and synergies across the key markets of Australia, Malaysia and Thailand. It was also assigned to rebrand and relaunch the prestigious World Islamic Economic Forum now in its 11th edition.

Cementing its footing into the branding world, the agency also bagged the brand consulting mandate for creating and launching Ekuinas Corporate Group’s CSR brand, and the brand envisioning for ILMU – one of

Malaysia’s largest integrated Education Group of Companies.

Some of the iconic campaigns the agency launched included the “Welcome to the era of convergence” for Telekom Malaysia’s corporate brand vision campaign. It also launched “SME Biz Fest Nationwide Events” for the client.

Another memorable campaign launched by the agency was for Burger King called “Weigh Your Wallet”. For Clear & Rexona, it also launched the “Football Zombie” campaign and for klia2, it helped launch the “What’s in the bag” campaign.

Owned by: IPG Headed by: Mazuin Zin, managing director

FOREFRONT INTERNATIONAL Forefront International touched a remarkable milestone during its 10-year anniversary in 2014 by implementing its visionary goals in line with its expansion plans. This led the agency to take home the Local Hero award in the Brand Consultancy category.

The agency witnessed a steady and consistent growth in all key areas of creative, innovation, digital as well as management and business development. In total, its headcount increased to 60 from 47 over the past year.

With its high talent retention rate, Forefront International claims it is now in a place where individuals and employees can grow in terms of salary increment and career progression. From 2015 onwards, the agency is heading forward as Forefront International.

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Rigorous plans are underway for further expansion of the organisation to a full-suite creative and digital agency.

The agency hopes to serve clients in both advertising and communication along with a wholesome marketing experience that includes branding consultation expertise.

One major digital campaign deployed by the agency was for EcoWorld Development. The agency was tasked to position EcoWorld’s brand as an organisation that will incorporate eco living standards in all its future developments.

Despite more than 152 years of combined experience in local and international property development, the brand EcoWorld itself is still fairly new in the nation.

The agency helped EcoWorld Development

build a new website that represents it as a complete entity. Additionally, a mobile site was also launched which garnered a large number of visits only two months after the launch.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Darien Mah, CEO

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CREATIVE AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

Bagging the gold award in the Creative Agency category is Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. Last year saw it harnessing its strengths and growing its own business with its clients’ brands.

This was done largely by the agency

THE FINALISTS Creative Paramedics IMMERSE M&C Saatchi Mantra Communication Publicis Communications Malaysia Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid TBWA\

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embracing fast changes with technology and progressive communication solutions.

According to the agency, by maximising efficiencies, Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide continued to deliver the best operating margins from across all its APAC offices. The agency saw its strongest annualised growth rate and with a strong pipeline, it is set to continue growing in 2015. Overall, Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide achieved growth over its projected revenue due to the shift in digital growth that has outpaced traditional mediums.

With digital a priority in 2015, the agency is set to grow as social media, mobile marketing, e-commerce and web analytics take prevalence for online communications.

“We plan to capitalise on our recent wins to build digital expertise for a sustainable longterm growth, a trend that Malaysian agencies are now adopting. Our strength lies in having the best people to create the best work.

Creative people who are entrepreneurs with a deep local understanding. We continue to build on this strength through our Leo Burnett knowledge centre,” said CEO Tan Kien Eng. In 2014, the agency saw continued mutual growth with long-standing clients, with relationships based on trust and respect,

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and a retention rate of 100%. Tan added the agency aimed to continue in developing a deep understanding of people and behaviour.

“Our distinctive ‘HumanKind’ approach boosted by our creative digital solutions in fulfilling clients’ needs kept us ahead of our competitors and resulted in a 90% success rate in new business wins,” Tan said.

Some of its new business wins included Maxis, Reckitt Benckiser, Sime Darby Property, FrieslandCampina, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, F&N and PETRONAS. Leo Burnett Malaysia also recently announced a creative restructure following the hire of Andrew Low. Low was last at O&M Malaysia and replaces Eric Cruz, who took up a role at digital agency AKQA. The creative council will see six of Leo Burnett Malaysia’s senior creative directors jointly take the creative helm of the agency.

They are Iska Hashim, group creative director; James Yap, creative director; Ian Lee, creative director; Christie Herman, creative director; Theresa Tsang, creative director of Alpha245; and Low. Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

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CREATIVE AGENCY OF THE YEAR LOWE MALAYSIA Bagging tthe silver award in the Creative Agency category is Lowe Malaysia.

In the past 12 months, Lowe Malaysia has emerged as one of Malaysia’s most awarded agencies. Last year, the agency helped its client Unilever Malaysia win the 2014 Marketer of the Year Award at the A+M Marketing Excellence Awards. Simultaneously, over the past year the agency also doubled in terms of business, growth, revenue and size.

The agency also launched several iconic campaigns for its clients. For Telekom Malaysia’s corporate brand vision, it launched the campaign “Welcome to the era of convergence”. It also launched “SME Biz Fest Nationwide Events” for the client.

Another memorable campaign launched by the agency was for Burger King called “Weigh Your Wallet”. For Clear & Rexona, it also launched the “Football Zombie” campaign and for klia2, it helped launch the “What’s in the bag” campaign.

Moreover, in 2014, the agency also appointed Zaidi Awang as its new executive creative director, replacing Brandie Tan who has relocated to the Philippines. Awang is now responsible for the core management and

driving the agency’s mandate of delivering creative and effective business solutions.

Looking to the future, the agency hopes to continue in its path of fortifying its expertise and demonstrated abilities in the chosen marketing disciplines of brand and business consulting, content and engagement marketing, digital and mobile platforms creation and live experiential event properties to further its “resultant” marketing position.

Lowe Malaysia recently took home the regional mandate for Toyo Tires Japan to drive brand building and synergies across the key

markets of Australia, Malaysia and Thailand.

It was also assigned to rebrand and relaunch the prestigious World Islamic Economic Forum now in its 11th edition.

The agency also bagged the brand consulting mandate for creating and launching Ekuinas Corporate Group’s CSR brand, and the brand envisioning for ILMU – one of Malaysia’s largest integrated Education Group of Companies.

Owned by: IPG Headed by: Mazuin Zin, managing director

VLT

Over the past year, VLT enlarged its vision to build three complementary businesses in one company that would redefine the “agency” model. This has led the agency to grow on all fronts and take home both the bronze and Local Hero award in the Creative Agency category.

VLT is a digital, creative and strategy led agency that builds businesses and transforms brands for the digital age. Most recently, it started up VLT Labs which is a studio and start-up accelerator that partners with founders to invent and build new products and

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businesses. Meanwhile, the VLT community was launched as an ecosystem builder that creates initiatives and events for the creative, technology and entrepreneurial communities.

Each business has its own P&L and serves its own clients, but the collaborative sum of all three will define VLT’s vision of the “agency of tomorrow” explained CEO Warren Tan. Over the past year, LG Electronics appointed the agency its overall AOR for Malaysia, a first for a digital-led agency.

Meanwhile, increasing its global remit, the agency also partnered with an agency in

Dhaka to win it’s first-ever client in Bangladesh – Grameenphone, the country’s largest telco.

Other clients on its roster include The BIG Group, INTI International, Khazanah Nasional, Munchy’s, Sony and Tesco.

The agency also recently won BMW Malaysia’s overall digital and social media account in December from Leo Burnett. In January this year, the agency set itself an ambitious vision.

“We believed that all we knew and loved shouldn’t only result in user-centred web presences and well-told stories, but also deliver solutions to real problems, and reframe possibilities for our clients, colleagues and the community,” Tan said.

“We believe in a future where we could apply all that we knew and loved – creativity, technology and entrepreneurship – to not just build participative platforms or tell emotive stories, but to solve real problems, discover solutions and reframe possibilities for our clients, colleagues and the community.”

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Warren Tan, CEO

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25/6/2015 4:36:06 PM

DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

Taking home the gold award in the Digital Marketing category is once again Leo Burnett/ Arc Worldwide. Last year, the agency was focused and invested on training to help its people grow – this especially so in the digital field. Through this, the agency claims that all

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its staff members are now able to work on digital projects. The agency also grew its digital specialists from 76 to 105 in 2014.

Last year saw Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide harnessing its strengths and growing its own business with its clients’ brands. This was done largely by the agency embracing fast changes with technology and progressive communication solutions. With digital a priority in 2015, the agency is set to grow as social media, mobile marketing, e-commerce and web analytics take prevalence for online communications.

The agency claims that in 2014, it transformed to “become the agency of the future”. This means it increased its offerings beyond traditional advertising by staffing in a new way, mixing traditionalists with hybrids and up and coming digital natives. This was in a bid to assemble diverse creative skill sets that addressed its clients’ changing business needs.

The agency also dissolved boundaries to offer integrated digital, mobile and social media services, driving new business wins. It also reduced the number of accounts per head to enable a better focus. One way the agency mapped digital into other disciplines was by

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absorbing Arc Creative into LB. This dissolved the boundaries between digital and ATL. The agency also increased its digital and innovation capabilities by hiring specific digital natives to build up its digital and technical offerings in social media and front and backend solutions for web and mobile.

It also strengthened its knowledge foundation to create effective ideas through its in-house Leo Burnett Learning. New specialised services such as digital CRM, B2B, i360 were also incorporated.

Leo Burnett CSR was created to help clients create and communicate the much needed CSR strategies that are a growing mandate today.

Leo Burnett S2S was created to develop relevant and effective B2B communication to better understand the motivations of decision makers.

The agency also introduced a Leo Burnett BitLab that led it to utilise NFC capabilities, Nymi wristband heartbeat identification and Haptic technology.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

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DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SAATCHI & SAATCHI ARACHNID Last year was another great year for Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid as it saw double-digit growth compared with previous years. This came despite an increasingly crowded market and aggressive cost-cutting schemes from some of its clients.

It retained all its client relationships and also brought on several new ones. In 2014, the agency bagged work from Olay, Head & Shoulders and Ariel’s APAC account. It also won work from HSBC Premier (Malaysia) and Toyota Motor Company (APAC).

Social continues to be an area of growth for the agency. The areas of content creation and curation have been important and will continue to be a focus for the agency in the near future.

The agency also said its clients had learnt to recognise how its work in the areas of social had become the “new” area of reach and depth for their brands. One such content-driven campaign was the Durex Valentine’s Vow. To engage Facebook fans, the agency decided

to help the brand stand out from the cluttered landscape of Valentine-related ads. The idea was to say no to gifts and do something which was more meaningful.

Together with the brand, the agency helped create shareable content that spread messages on love that could not be bought.

Then, fans were invited to make a vow on what they would do for their partners to put love into action. From 393 vows created, there were 1,289,689 organic impressions and 9,736 new fans added in six weeks.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Chin Weng Keong, managing director

PHD MALAYSIA

The past 12 months have been a period of transformational growth for PHD. But the agency has impressed the jury to bag the bronze award in the Digital Marketing agency category.

Last year, PHD went back to its cultural

roots of “finding a better way” to accelerate its approach on thought leadership, creativity and innovation. On the digital front, the agency claims it “embraced a brave new world where a continuous state of disruption is the new norm”.

The launch of its operating system Source across 79 offices last year enabled its 3,000 employees to collectively ideate and even compete globally. Creating the “Massively Multi-Player Online Game” led to the unleashing of some of PHD’s best ideas for clients.

The digital focus is just the starting point for PHD’s strategic planning package, it says.

PHD was also quick to realise that with the consumer evolving in real time and its staff having to constantly keep abreast with their

evolving behaviour, a media agency has to be thinking and planning almost in real time.

Hence, the agency will continue to push forward with “game changing products”. PHD also recently launched PlayPen, a media lab which allows media partners to work with clients to test new digital products.

For PHD, this year will be the year of mobile. With the adoption rate of smartphones at ideal heights and the omnipresence of the mobile screen, PHD has already lined up a series of road shows and mobile solutions that it is certain will change the media landscape.

Owned by: Omnicom Media Group Headed by: Jimmy Lim, general manager

VLT Taking home ho the Local Hero award in the Digital Marketing agency category is VLT. Over the past year, VLT enlarged its vision to build three complementary businesses under one entity through which it hopes to redefine the “agency” model.

VLT, a digital, creative and strategy led agency that builds businesses and transforms brands for the digital age, recently started up VLT Labs. This is a studio and start-up accelerator that partners with founders to invent and build new products and businesses.

Meanwhile, the VLT community was launched as an ecosystem builder that creates initiatives and events for the creative, technology and entrepreneurial communities.

Each business has its own P&L and

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serves its own clients. Over the past year, LG Electronics appointed the agency its overall AOR for Malaysia – a first for a digital-led agency, claims VLT. Other clients on its roster include The BIG Group, INTI International, Khazanah Nasional, Munchy’s, Sony and Tesco. The agency also recently won BMW Malaysia’s overall digital and social media account in December from Leo Burnett.

VLT also made a record number of hires in the second quarter of 2015 – totalling 19 new hires as of May this year. This expansion gives the independent agency its highest headcount yet, with more than 100 full-time staff.

The diverse group of new hires consists of content specialists, designers, strategic planners, developers, client service specialists,

a product manager and a lawyer. The varied skill sets and backgrounds will help to expand its consulting and creative capabilities. The new hires will support VLT’s future plans.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Warren Tan, CEO

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25/6/2015 4:39:58 PM

DIRECT MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

Winning the coveted gold award in Direct Marketing is none other than Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide.

With the introduction of LB Lifestyle CRM in 2013, Leo Burnett Malaysia has leveraged on its product offerings and grown its lifestyle client base. The agency achieved this through its approach as a onestop holistic CRM service that provides an engaging multi-dimensional and media brand immersion experience between brands and

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target segments. According to the agency, it has gone beyond the perception that direct marketing is just a support tactical medium, but is instead a strategically crafted, targeted and personalised brand engagement and experience that shapes behaviour and drives results.

In line with its vision to be the digital experts, it also surged ahead in growing its knowledge and usage of the latest digital and social tools in its CRM/direct marketing arsenal to deliver modern and effective solutions for its clients, according to the agency.

By maximising efficiencies, Leo Burnett also continued to deliver the best operating margins across all its APAC offices of above 25% yearly, higher than the Leo Burnett global average. It boasts the strongest annualised growth rates, the agency said. With a strong pipeline, the agency is poised to continue growing in 2015.

Overall, it also achieved 50% above its projected revenue due to the shift in digital growth that has outpaced traditional mediums.

With digital a priority in 2015, it is set to grow a further 100% as social media, mobile marketing, e-commerce, web analytics take prevalence for online communications.

Strong growth in 2014 was driven by solid

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new local business wins and strong organic growth from international clients such as McDonald’s and Samsung, a reflection of Leo Burnett’s in-depth local market understanding to support both local and international clients.

The agency boasts a distinctive “HumanKind” approach that boosted its CRM solutions in fulfilling clients’ needs which kept it ahead of its competitors and resulted in a 90% success rate in new business wins. Account wins and retainers in the past year included McDonald’s, Philip Morris, PETRONAS, P&G, Dutch Lady, Maxis and many others.

Looking ahead, the agency plans to capitalise on its recent wins to build digital expertise for sustainable long-term growth, a trend that Malaysian agencies are now adopting, the agency said.

Its approach to new business is to differentiate itself from others, not through the usual pitch and credentials, but through an honest and intuitive understanding of business and offering communication solutions to business problems and coming across as a partner and communication consultant rather than an agency.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

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DIRECT MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR LOWE MALAYSIA

Clinching silver in the Direct Marketing category is Lowe Malaysia. The past year saw the agency emerge as one of Malaysia’s most awarded agencies. Regionally, it won more than 45 business and creative effectiveness awards in 2014-2015, the agency said.

The agency helped its client Unilever Malaysia win the 2014 Marketer of the Year Award at the prestigious A+M Marketing Excellence Awards. Over the past year the agency also doubled in terms of business, growth, revenue and size.

According to the agency, 19 out of the 27 brands Lowe presently handles are double-digit market leaders in their respective categories. Hence, the agency is keen on finding a “Malaysian way to express a global or local brand proposition” for its clients.

Key wins this past year included bagging the regional mandate for Toyo Tires Japan to drive brand building and synergies across the key markets of Australia, Malaysia and Thailand. Lowe Malaysia also won the mandate to rebrand and relaunch the prestigious World

Islamic Economic Forum. It also clinched the brand consulting mandate for creating and launching Ekuinas Corporate Group’s CSR brand. The agency was also tasked to handle brand envisioning duties for ILMU – one of Malaysia’s largest integrated Education Group of Companies.

Lowe Malaysia also made some key hires to its team. It appointed an executive creative director, Zaidi Awang; client service director, Shukri Jai; head of human resource, Geetha James; and a new creative services director.

In the direct marketing category, the agency boasts its expertise through past campaigns such as its work for Telekom Malaysia’s corporate brand vision campaign “Welcome to the era of convergence” as well as Unifi+ Streamyx customer acquisition campaign called “Be a stream champion”.

Besides focusing on the chosen disciplines, it also launched its in-house digital production capability to help clients take charge both of production quality control and costs.

Owned by: IPG Headed by: Mazuin Zin, managing director

VLT Clinching both the bronze and Local Hero awards in the Direct Marketing category is independent agency VLT. VLT has enlarged its vision in the past year to build three complementary businesses in one company that will redefine the “agency” model.

These include VLT – a digital, creative and strategy led agency that builds businesses and transforms brands for the digital age; VLT Labs – a start-up studio and start-up accelerator that partners with founders to invent and build new products and businesses; and VLT community – an ecosystem builder that creates initiatives and events for the creative, technology and entrepreneurial communities.

In the agency, each business has its own P&L and serves its own clients, but the collaborative sum of all three define VLT’s vision of the “agency of tomorrow”.

Some key account wins for the agency in the past year included LG Electronics which appointed VLT as its agency of record for Malaysia – reportedly a first for a digital-led agency. In addition, VLT partnered with an agency in Dhaka to win its first-ever client in Bangladesh – Grameenphone – the country’s

largest telecommunications company. The agency also clinched the accounts of The BIG Group, INTI International, Khazanah Nasional, Munchy’s, Sony and Tesco among many others.

VLT added new key hires to accompany its growth. Two senior employees – Andrew Tan and Izwan Ismail – were made partners with equity ownership in the company, demonstrating VLT’s commitment to sharing financial rewards and a long-term future with

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its team, the agency said. It also attracted senior talent and key hires: Clarissa Ng joined the agency from Ogilvy, where she was account director, while Ng He-Xiang joined from Leo Burnett where he was senior copywriter. More importantly, the agency hired from a global talent pool and from diverse backgrounds.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Warren Tan, CEO

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25/6/2015 4:40:24 PM

EVENT MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide clinches the gold award in Event Marketing this year. 2014 saw the agency harnessing its strengths and creating growth alongside its clients’ brands by creating truly experiential events beyond its product offerings.

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It kept its edge and achieved a net profit of above 20% with new business growth of 53%, the agency said.

Overall, Leo Burnett Events achieved 53% above its projected revenue as more clients/ brands aimed towards creating experiential brand experiences.

Capitalising on the trend and customising its services offerings, Leo Burnett Events managed to gain a foothold as the go-to agency in creating bespoke experiential event experiences, according to the agency.

Leo Burnett boasts a key client retention rate of 100%. Its objectives are set on key priorities such as focusing on people, product and profit, in that order.

Its unique “HumanKind” approach to creative ideas centres upon transforming human behaviour to achieve maximum effectiveness in results for its clients.

2014 also saw its continued mutual growth with long-standing clients and some new clients. Keeping in mind LB’s HumanKind values, LB Events continued to use the values as its core approach by creating emotionally linked experiential events.

By treating each and every brand as an individual with different sets of personalities, the agency is able to portray the brand images to its relevant consumers and further

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enhance the brand image to set it apart from its competitors, the agency said. Following the success of LB Events in 2013, Leo Burnett continued working with its LB counterparts to ensure that every event strongly defines the brand and its purposes.

Some of its innovation and HumanKind approach was demonstrated in the campaigns for BMW’s Motorrad 2014 Media Launch.

The campaign resulted in coverage from 23 print and online media with a total of RM$406,758.82 worth of PR value. Another campaign was for Sime Darby’s TransitOriented Development Launch.

The agency was tasked to build the brand as the pioneer in TOD development in the local market through a series of fast-paced modern events catered to the Gen-Y population.

With the agency’s help, the launch hosted more than 3,080 unique consumers who attended the event.

Moving forward, the agency is aligned in its direction to train multi-skilled talents.

It aims to focus on enhancing its people’s knowledge and skills in various areas, including public relations, digital, talent management, CRM, finance and creativity.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

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EVENT MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR A&D CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

Winning the silver and Local Hero awards in the Event Marketing category is A&D Creative Solutions. The past year saw A&D Creative Solutions’ expertise in event management grow in Malaysia.

According to the agency, it continues to improve and expand, giving its best shot in every opportunity given. Over the years, it has been involved in all sorts of event marketing campaigns, while providing assorted event services, including corporate events, product launching events, theme parties, award

dinners, mobile tours, fashion shows, press conferences and various live events.

The agency is passionate about reaching its clients’ expectations in its pursuit of growth.

Since its inception in 2008, its persistence and passion has made it one of the fastest growing event management companies in the industry. It has plans to sprout up as an event management company in Penang.

One of the projects executed last year included its work with cosmetics brand Shiseido. In conjunction with Shiseido’s 100

years in whitening celebration, the agency designed a mobile lab to enable Shiseido to go on mobile tours to introduce its White Lucent range to new users. The promotional campaign was aimed at getting users to participate in its White Lucent challenge while trying out skincare samples.

A&D Creative Solutions also worked with eye wear company De Rigo Hong Kong, who “identified A&D as a reliable companion due to its competency, flexibility and professionalism in event planning and management”, according to Vittorio Trusso, managing director of Asia Pacific at De Rigo Hong Kong.

The agency also organised an event with creative brand activation ideas promoting Tron services targeted at the younger generation.

The invited guests included the press and media, business associates, dealers and celebrities such as Amber Chia, Chelsea and FM DJs. Recently, it was tasked to organise a roadshow event in shopping malls such as Sunway Pyramid, Paradigm Mall and Setia City Mall to promote Federal Auto Volkswagen.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Audrey Wong, project director

LOWE MALAYSIA Winning b bronze for the Event Marketing category is Lowe Malaysia. The past year saw the agency emerge as one of Malaysia’s most awarded agencies.

According to the agency, 19 out of the 27 brands Lowe presently handles are double-digit market leaders in their respective categories. Hence, the agency is keen on finding a “Malaysian way to express a global or local brand proposition” for its clients.

Key wins this past year included bagging the regional mandate for Toyo Tires Japan to drive brand building and synergies across the key markets of Australia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Lowe Malaysia also won the mandate to rebrand and relaunch the prestigious World Islamic Economic Forum. It also clinched the brand consulting mandate for creating and launching Ekuinas Corporate Group’s CSR brand.

It made some key hires to its team. It appointed an executive creative director, Zaidi Awang; client service director, Shukri Jai; head of human resource, Geetha James; and a new creative services director.

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It also prides itself on the abundance of talent in its network that spans every communications discipline from advertising, digital, CRM, retail marketing, entertainment, interactive design, rural marketing and more.

The agency says it capitalises on its team’s great diversity and local cultural knowledge to support its clients. In the event marketing category, the agency’s prowess is evident in its work for clients such as Telekom Malaysia’s “SME Biz Fest Nationwide Events”; Burger

King’s “Weigh Your Wallet”; and the Clear & Rexona “Football Zombie” campaign.

Adopting a “populist creativity” mindset, Lowe Malaysia prides itself on using laser-like analysis of the core problem to provide insight into contemporary culture. Looking forward, the agency continues to create enduring ideas that aim to change behaviour on and offline.

Owned by: IPG Headed by: Mazuin Zin, managing director

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24/6/2015 3:21:50 PM

MARKET RESEARCH AGENCY OF THE YEAR

NIELSEN MALAYSIA Clinching the gold award in this category is Nielsen. The agency continues its mission of providing a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy.

In particular, Nielsen’s watch segment provides media and advertising clients with total audience measurement services across all devices where content – video, audio and text – is consumed, the agency said.

By integrating information from its watch and buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with measurement and analytics that help improve performance.

At present, Nielsen has operations in more than 100 countries that cover more than 90% of the world’s population.

The past year saw Nielsen named as one of DiversityInc’s 2015 Top 50 Companies for Diversity ranking for the second consecutive

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year. Advancing eight spots from 2014, Nielsen was ranked number 42 this year. Diversity and inclusion are top business priorities at Nielsen, and its leadership is committed to a workforce that is reflective of the global communities and clients it serves, the agency said.

Mitch Barns, chief executive officer of Nielsen, said: “Inclusion is a cornerstone of Nielsen’s success around the world. Our diverse workforce helps us to reach and understand all of those consumers effectively.

“Diversity and inclusion are crucial to our growth, strength and ability to innovate. It is not simply a good practice, it is good business.”

In terms of recruitment, Nielsen uses its seven employee resource groups for recruitment and talent development, which includes an 18-month leadership-development programme focused on cross-cultural coaching, executive networking and building knowledge.

Frequent exposure to senior leadership is also part of the process.

Under the guidance of Dr D. Sangeeta,

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chief diversity officer and head of global measurement science, and Angela Talton, senior vice-president of global diversity and inclusion, Nielsen not only follows existing best practices, but strives to create new ones, the agency said.

Sangeeta said: “Our diverse associates and their varied perspectives help us serve clients in new and effective ways, and that enables Nielsen to deliver increasing value to all our stakeholders and strengthens our company for growth.”

Moving forward, Nielsen continues to help companies and organisations identify and build a custom view of their most profitable consumers.

For example, its marketing effectiveness measurement helps organisations measure how well they are accomplishing their advertising goals across video, audio and text-based advertising on virtually any platform or device.

Owned by: Public Headed by: Richard Hall, country manager

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MARKET RESEARCH AGENCY OF THE YEAR ACORN MARKETING & RESEARCH CONSULTANTS Winning ssilver in the Market Research category is Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants. Touting itself as the only independent truly Asian marketing research group, Acorn continues to help its clients plot marketing strategies, develop new products or communications, and craft brand architectures.

According to the agency, Acorn’s forte lies in strategic brand development research, new product development work and problem-solving research. It boasts more than 30 years of research experience in Asia, and its key people possess an insightful and comprehensive understanding of the Asian markets.

Part of Acorn’s suite of services include RealPeople Research and Brandwar.

RealPeople Research is an inside out research model that focuses on the lives and aspirations of ordinary consumers rather than on products or brands.

According to the agency, the research model strives to understand the strong emotional bond between the consumers’ environment, their cultural values and their social consciousness which bind them to certain behavioural patterns. The research

structure recognises that a consumer is multi-faceted; who is a personal consumer of perfume, a family consumer of toiletries, a social consumer of wine or a corporate consumer of high-speed printers.

RealPeople research is used to align brands with values, aspirations and selfperceptions of target consumers. The agency says its measurement tools are “necessarily precise and the processes rigorous”.

Acorn’s interpretation of its research findings possess a deep empathy for the social context and clear understanding of

the marketing issues, the agency said. Acorn also believes that Asians in each of their own countries can best interpret the nuances of consumers’ voices and understand what they think and feel.

Some of the agency’s clients include ABN AMRO Bank, Eu Yang Sang, Pfizer, Alliance Banking Group, DBS Bank, Dentsu and Borneo Motors, among many others.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Julius Augustine, associate director and country manager

DYNAMIC SEARCH

Winning both the Local Hero and bronze titles for Market Research Agency of the Year is Dynamic Search. The company has developed a set of specialised research tools which span across both qualitative and quantitative research services.

Being a home-grown agency, Dynamic Search boasts its expertise in the local market.

The agency is also the Malaysian representative to the prestigious IRIS (International Research Institutes) Network, the largest global network of independent

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Market Research Institutes. With more than 35 countries represented, members share a common interest of “knowing local insights to make a global impact” the agency said.

Part of the agency’s current suite of research offerings is the Brand Equity Index – a unique and consistent empirical tool specially designed by researchers at Dynamic Search to measure and monitor a company’s brand equity. According to the agency, this tool combines measurements of perception and recall of a brand’s image, packaging, pricing,

promotional programmes, products, and user conviction to develop an index value that can be tracked over time.

In addition Dynamic Search also designed its own price sensitivity model – a statistical tool that helps companies determine how the price variation will change consumers’ buying patterns. By using price sensitivity analysis, a brand can establish the value that customers place on individual attributes.

The price sensitivity model is based on a conjoint analysis, where researchers systematically change prices, sizes and promotions and measure how consumers choose the products given the different variations, the agency said.

The agency takes pride in both renowned multinational corporations and Malaysian national companies as its clientele which spans across industries such as automotive, banking and finance, building and manufacturing, media, entertainment and many others.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Ng Hsin-Ling, founder-owner and managing director

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24/6/2015 3:19:44 PM

MEDIA AGENCY OF THE YEAR

CARAT MALAYSIA

Scoring the gold award in the Media category is Carat Media. In 2014, the agency focused on transformation by improving and elevating its products – from media planning, strategy to ideation – to provide value to its clients.

That was the big plan, and the only plan.

The plan worked as reflected in its clients’ business growth. On the peer side, the awards it has been receiving for innovative

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work are testament to the effect of the positive changes.

2014 was very tough for new business, however, Carat was ambitious throughout.

It pulled off an excellent RM300 million to push overall billings to one billion. Key wins included holistic planning for Mondelēz, Ginvera, Microsoft, Mastercard, Ajinomoto, Nikon, Gamuda Land, Spotlight and Tune Insurance. These wins added 40% to top-line business turnover, with a one-in-two win-pitch conversion, the agency said.

The agency has ensured the business teams are balanced with the right mix of experience and expertise and equips them to become hybrid planners. It also made bold investments solely to drive its creativity and innovations agenda – an industry first – which it believes is paying dividends.

Carat Malaysia operates within the Dentsu Aegis Network umbrella. According to the agency, collaborating with specialist brands within its group is what it will harness more in the coming years.

The agency is focusing on three areas it feels when done right will keep it strong as an agency – business results planning – using convergence planning to deliver positive business results, and using innovation as a means to deliver them; innovation and

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creativity as fundamental to solutions – aiming for more awards and peer recognitions, and applying learnings from other markets to advance its offerings; and pro-activity in industry representation – its senior team has taken various leadership positions in major industry bodies to promote the growth and advancement of the industry.

In this digital age, the agency believes content is king and context is queen. Everyone has a voice or an opinion, and the platforms to get messages across are getting more and more accessible. Most people that will shape (or are currently shaping) the future have the internet as their ubiquitous source of information and knowledge.

They are mostly authors, commentators or sharers who share online content like how traditional media has influenced the generations of the past.

It is by these facts the agency feels it’s ripe to have a content team that understands the dynamics of consumption and conversations so brands can relevantly join in.

This latest offering will add a new dimension into its integrated solutions that will keep it ahead as it innovates how brands are built.

Owned by: Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Headed by: Bala Pomaleh, CEO

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MEDIA AGENCY OF THE YEAR OMD MALAYSIA 2014 was a year of reinvention and tremendous optimism for the agency. It was clear 2014 was going to be a different year for OMD – a rapidly shifting consumer landscape and elevated client expectations heralded a significant shift for the business, according to the agency.

Through rapid investments in elevating skills and quality delivery across the board with distinct specialist fields in the areas of performance media buys, mobile innovations, content strategies and big data analytics, the agency was able to achieve one critical factor: help its clients future-proof their business and ensure their continued growth in 2014.

“In 2014, OMD strove to become an ER agency,” it says, explaining it as: “Our mantra

is not one of absolutes, but rather of constant improvement. In 2014, OMD became the ER agency. It’s not about being the best or biggest.

Rather, our drive is to continuously become

biggER, bettER, strongER. “In doing so, we recognised that we can only achieve this together.” Key hires for the agency included Kelvin Lim as digital director and Agnes Yee as general manager.

Some key account wins included AEON, Heinz, Coach, Qatar Airways, Hakuhodo and Apple.

2015 will also be a year of prudent spending, and the agency’s goal is to ensure that its clients realise greater value through sensible and high-impact solutions that doesn’t compromise on quality, the agency said.

Owned by: Omnicom Media Group Headed by: Margaret Lim, managing director

PHD MALAYSIA

Bagging the bronze award this year is PHD Malaysia. The past 12 months have been a period of transformational growth for PHD. Since the arrival of its new general manager Jimmy Lim, PHD went back to its cultural roots of, “Finding a better way” to

accelerate its approach on thought leadership, creativity and innovation. “PHD has always tried to find a better way for our clients and we knew we needed to change the game to take the agency to the next level,” Lim said.

The agency boasts a client retention rate of 100%. Eight of its top 20 clients registered organic billings growth of an average 30% year-on-year, while revenue extraction improved significantly, the agency said.

PHD closed 2014 with average digital spend of 30% across its key clients. New business represented 10% of the 2014 total billings thereby increasing annual billings by 20% year-on-year. One of the key hires in 2014 was Lim. Lim was identified as a primary

game-changer in the industry and is poised to carry the PHD game-changing mantra to the next level, the agency said.

On the talent front, the focus for the upcoming year is to cultivate a new breed of media specialists that not only understand digital, but are digital natives themselves.

It expanded its digital headcount threefold while ensuring its current planners are placed on an intensive digital training programme. Keeping the focus on presenting innovative work, creative workshops were organised to help nurture the art of story-telling in partnership with Second City.

Owned by: Omnicom Media Group Headed by: Jimmy Lim, general manager

K-GIC ADVERTISING Claiming tthe Local Hero title is K-Gic Advertising. Being a fully fledged local agency, it continues to boast a comprehensive understanding of the local marketplace such as its cultural influences, traits, flaws, latest trends, changing consumers’ behaviour and the wants and needs in the Malaysian business environment, the agency said.

Meanwhile, new business wins included several international and local clients, including Marrybrown, Tune Talk, Kawan Food Berhad and Violet Basic, among many others. The agency creates bespoke communication strategies for campaigns to capture a brand’s essence. K-Gic integrates creative strategies across a wide range of media for the campaigns.

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For its client Vono, the agency was tasked to handle its brand positioning. With a vast amount of competitors in the market, the agency wanted to educate Chinese consumers that Vono mattresses are more than just a back care mattress. Thus the campaign, “Tied to your bed?” was created to convey this message for the brand’s Chinese target audience.

The agency was appointed by Tune Talk as its advertising agency to capture and deliver its brand image. The company had been targeting the Malay market and had only just begun to focus on the Chinese market.

As one of the fastest growing prepaid mobile virtual network operators in Malaysia, Tune Talk wanted to penetrate the Chinese market targeting Chinese youths, and K-Gic

helped the company achieve this. The agency aims to provide relevant training and development programmes for its staff to keep up with changing trends.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Joe Lee, managing director

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MOBILE MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR

CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES

Winning gold in the Mobile Marketing category is Capillary Technologies. 2014 saw the agency going beyond campaigns and loyalty programmes to deliver real-time customer value for its clients.

The agency continues to work with brands that truly know their customers.

According to the agency, it aims to fill the gap where many marketers struggle to obtain

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customer insights and are unable to make sense of their customer behaviour and patterns due to the lack of an integrated platform.

It helps brands personalise messaging and offers to make them more relevant to their consumers.

Capillary Technologies helps to create a platform that collects and aggregates data, channels, relationships, transactions and other valuable customer demographics in the most authentic way, the agency said.

With Capillary’s insights-based integrated marketing platform, it offers brands the ability to personalise and precisely hone communications that shoppers look forward to, the agency said.

The agency provides services for marketers to create programmes for shoppers based on insights from customer analytics through its customer engagement management offering.

Meanwhile, Capillary’s intelligent customer engagement suite of products integrates everything retail marketers and operators require to engage with their customers, weaving social and mobile experiences into any point-ofsale device – from legacy terminals to the latest POS devices and mobile tablets.

The agency also offers a customer

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engagement management platform which consists of a cloud-based, real-time customer relationship management solution with a marketing data warehouse that securely houses a brand’s customer and related data.

The agency offers brands access to insights-based campaigns. It brings the power of real-time customer analytics and visualisation for convenient reports, dashboards and the tracking of key performance indicators.

Furthermore, its innovative loyalty programme allows marketers to create and manage loyalty programmes for their customers through as easy sign-up process.

Some of its technologies have been used by various brands, including PUMA, a brand that reportedly won back 80% of its lost customers using targeted campaigns designed

by Capillary.

Using customer segmentation and targeted win-back campaigns PUMA reactivated more than 80% of its dormant customers that led to a 30% increase in sales from repeat customers, the agency said.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Brian Fernandez, head of Malaysia

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MOBILE MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE Landing th the bronze award in Mobile Marketing is Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. The agency has transformed to create “Leo Burnett+1” people to become the agency of the future, it said.

Aligning itself with these goals, it made measures to increase its integrated offerings beyond traditional advertising by staffing up in a new way, mixing traditionalists with hybrids and up and coming digital natives, to assemble diverse creative skill sets.

Strong growth in 2014 was driven by solid new local business wins and strong organic growth from international clients such as McDonald’s and Samsung, a reflection of Leo Burnett’s in-depth local market understanding to support local and international clients.

The agency’s distinctive “HumanKind” approach, boosted by its CRM solutions to fulfil clients’ needs, kept it ahead of its competitors and resulted in a 90% success rate in new business wins. Account wins and retainers

in the past year included McDonald’s, Philip Morris, PETRONAS, P&G, Dutch Lady, Maxis and many others. The agency is keen on mapping digital into other disciplines. One way it achieved this was by absorbing Arc Creative into LB, dissolving the boundaries between what is digital and what is ATL. It also increased its digital and innovation capabilities by hiring specific digital natives to build its digital and technical offerings in social media, front and back-end solutions for web and mobile, as well as building its digital strategic thinking for the benefit of clients.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

LOWE MALAYSIA

Lowe Malaysia bags the bronze award in the Mobile Marketing category. The agency has seen some exciting wins this year and has also won more than 45 business and creative effectiveness awards in 2014-2015, it said.

According to the agency, over the past

year it has doubled in terms of business, growth, revenue and size.

In January 2014, Telekom Malaysia selected Lowe Malaysia to spearhead its business and brand growth for the mass market consumer and its SME businesses portfolios after three months of rigorous pitches.

According to the agency, 19 out of the 27 brands Lowe presently handles are double-digit market leaders in their respective categories. Hence, the agency is keen on finding a “Malaysian way to express a global or local brand proposition” for its clients.

Key wins this past year included the mandate to rebrand and relaunch the prestigious World Islamic Economic Forum. It

also clinched the brand consulting mandate for creating and launching Ekuinas Corporate Group’s CSR brand.

Lowe Malaysia was also tasked to handle brand envisioning duties for ILMU – one of Malaysia’s largest integrated Education Group of Companies. The agency has made some key hires to its team. It appointed an executive creative director, Zaidi Awang; head of human resource, Geetha James; and a new creative services director. In August 2014, Lowe Malaysia appointed Shukri Jai as its new client services director.

Owned by: IPG Headed by: Mazuin Zin, managing director

VLT VLT wins the Local Hero award in the Mobile Marketing category. Keen on challenging the status quo, the agency set itself an enlarged vision. According to the agency, it wanted its results to be more than just user-centred web presences and well-told stories.

VLT aims to deliver solutions to real problems, and reframe possibilities for its clients, colleagues and the community.

VLT developed eight product and service innovations, which included the task of building start-ups better. In 2014, VLT further innovated new models to work with start-ups by taking equity stakes and/or profit sharing, instead of charging fees. This resulted in record-breaking efficiency metrics and gross margins versus that of a regular fee-paying client, the agency said.

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VLT had to build an ecosystem that would deliver services, results and value beyond that of what it was doing, the agency said.

Driving this was a five-person team led by the agency’s CEO. The team’s sole mandate was to innovate and build the ecosystem.

In the past 12 months, VLT has launched over a dozen initiatives, events, collaborations and partnerships, including work for The Co Kuala Lumpur – a co-working and event space in two locations in the city. Its pioneer members include Endeavor, Golden Gate Ventures and Cradle Fund; TRANSIT – a quarterly meeting for creatives, technologists, entrepreneurs, CMOs, investors, change-makers and leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries; and #DAKL Hyper Island and Hackerscape

– an event comprising of seminars and mini conferences in partnership with Sweden’s digital educators Hyper Island. VLT helped client Anugerah MeleTOP Era to beat its competitors to become the highest rating show.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Warren Tan, CEO

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE

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This year’s Overall Agency of the Year winner for the second time in a row, Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide tops the Public Relations category as well.

“I believe our industry contribution starts internally from within the agency,” said CEO Tan Kien Eng. “As a Burnetter, and a champion of the HumanKind philosophy, Leo Burnett’s approach is to create meaningful work that a ttransforms human behaviour.

“My purpose as the CEO is to preserve our vvalues and culture. I believe that in everything we do, we must always start with our people w and if we inspire and support them, they will a produce their best. With great people and p great products, profit will follow.” g This year, major moves in Leo Burnett Malaysia included the agency announcing M a creative restructure following the hire of Andrew Low, who recently joined the agency A as executive creative director. a Low was last at O&M Malaysia and replaces previous lead creative Eric Cruz, who took up a role at digital agency AKQA. The creative council will see six of Leo Burnett Malaysia’s senior creative directors jointly take the creative helm of the agency.

They are Iska Hashim, group creative

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director; James Yap, creative director; Ian Lee, creative director; Christie Herman, creative director; Theresa Tsang, creative director of Alpha245; and Low. According to Tan, Leo Burnett wanted to structure itself to ensure its competitive best in using creativity to deliver dynamic business change for its clients. This comes as in the past few years, Leo Burnett Malaysia has been trying to evolve from an advertising agency to a fully integrated communications company.

The new creative structure aims to align with clients’ changing needs.

Tan said: “The role of the creative council is to redefine the type of work we ought to be producing now and beyond. Through HumanKind, they will collaborate with key senior agency members to help reshape the agency to deliver the world’s best creative ideas that truly move people – bar none.”

The creative council, comprised of experienced and accomplished creatives, hopes to combine the agency’s creative prowess and extensive knowledge, Tan added.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, chief executive officer

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCY OF THE YEAR EDELMAN MALAYSIA Edelman Malaysia grabs silver in the category for Public Relations.

The agency has evolved to become a fullservice PR firm, with six core practice verticals supported by a strong research capability via Edelman Berland. With localised proprietary IPs, backed by a global network, Edelman Malaysia has been sought out as the “glocal” PR firm in the market, said the agency.

The firm has been on a roll this year. First, it appointed Christine Chang as director of integrated brand and digital practice. Chang reports to Edelman Malaysia’s managing director Raymond Siva. She joins Edelman with 15 years of experience in the advertising industry. Before Edelman, she was group account director at Leo Burnett, where she led McDonald’s integrated brand communication work.

According to the agency, the hire reflects Edelman’s evolution towards a communications marketing consultancy, alongside the firm’s core services in public relations. “Edelman Malaysia must provide valuable insights and strategies, combining earned media with social, digital, paid and experiential strategies to deliver effective outcomes for our clients,” Siva said.

“We are very excited Chang has taken the leap with her heritage and experience in advertising to join us from Leo Burnett. She will turbo charge our branding and digital practice.”

Chang said: “I believe Edelman Malaysia has a first mover’s advantage in this area and I am really excited to be a part of this vision to become a fully integrated, end-to-end communications marketing consultancy. I hope that my years of experience in the advertising and brand communication industry will help to propel this vision into reality.”

Regionally, the agency has been building its research offering Berland.

“The growth of Edelman Berland’s expertise in our region means a significant upgrade in our ability to provide real-time analytics, benchmarking and insights, which in turn drives better programming and creative for clients,” said David Brain, president and CEO of Edelman Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Raymond Siva, managing director

ORCHAN CONSULTING | ASIA

Orchan Consulting Asia bags both bronze and Local Hero. In the past 12 months, the agency has had its head down creating and executing great campaign initiatives for clients, and developing further business opportunities for 2015.

2014 was a monumental year with a significant revenue increase for Orchan, as well as further solidifying existing retainer and project relationships, said the agency.

Orchan had several notable project and retainer wins in 2014. These ranged from

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FMCG products, corporate services, F&B and healthcare. The team size also grew from eight to 10 in 2015.

“We like to remain a small, tight agency, where everyone is involved,” said an agency spokesperson. Orchan also lost two of its junior team members to “an overseas calling” in 2014. As a result, new hires were made to replace these individuals.

It also expanded its administrator’s role to be both finance and human resources at a management level; and created a new position

of creative director to spearhead the launch of Orchan Creative Design (OCD) in 2015. It also continued to develop its intern training programme, and had students from reputable overseas universities intern with the agency in 2014.

“The outlook for 2015 is very positive, with two significant account wins already in the first part of the year – one being a major project within the automotive industry; the second being a retainer in the electrical appliances sector. Both of these accounts enable Orchan to not only utilise its existing skill sets, but apply them to new sectors,” said the spokesperson.

Orchan’s subsidiary OCD has a core focus on design and brand consultancy. Projects include a national advertising campaign for a petroleum company, and the development of a northern region training facility in the agricultural sector. “We are looking forward to continuing on the current trajectory for 2015, and to enhancing staff development opportunities.”

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Craig J Selby, managing director and Farrell Tan, founding director

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SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LION & LION A quickly growing digital agency, Lion & Lion takes top spot for Social Media Agency of the Year. Incorporated in late 2012 and headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the agency prides itself on a data and resultsdriven approach.

The agency is growing quickly in size and geography, but also in terms of service scope to be able to offer everything digital, and in particular, to have the most effective media management in the market.

It says: “We firmly believe the digital landscape is in the making and we’re merely contributors to a marketing world reinventing its own agenda; and we happily share our thoughts through conferences, press and by

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facilitating round table discussions for clients and non-clients alike.

“Consumers’ digital time continues to grow, and with the explosion of the middle class in Southeast Asia, the market is in a tremendously exciting period of transformation.

“Digital marketing is expected to become a US$14 billion industry in Southeast Asia by 2017,” added the agency on why it was excited

by Asia’s prospects.

The agency also combines a strong local foundation with a global perspective, with a good majority of staff being local and some from international shores. Many of its staff have also joined from the likes of McKinsey, Google, Mitosis, PWC, Ernst & Young, BBDO, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi and more.

It announced its KL office opening to A+M shortly after launching there, with James MilesLambert and Stefan Bruun leading the agency.

It was then comprised of 45 staff offering consulting, execution, performance, social, website development, CRM and analytics services on the digital platform.

During its first days in KL, its clients

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included IKEA, Singtel, Jatomi, Reckitt Benckiser and DTAC. “We think Malaysia is a super interesting market, English-speaking, great for recruiting talent and very forward thinking. Furthermore, we can also serve most of the region from KL which facilitates our growth aspirations. We are very happy with our progress so far,” said Miles-Lambert, vice-president and founding member of Lion & Lion in Malaysia.

Lion & Lion also operates with offices in Singapore, the US and is soon to open in multiple other Southeast Asia markets.

In 2013, it added a Jakarta office to its Southeast Asian network, following the agency’s success in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila. Lion & Lion was founded by Nova Founders, the online entrepreneurs responsible for the online success of Zalora (SEA), Lazada (SEA), Groupon (APAC) and The Iconic (Australia).

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Hugh Batley and Casper Andersen, founders and managing partners

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SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY OF THE YEAR LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE This year’s Overall Agency of the Year winner for the second time in a row, Leo Burnett/ Arc Worldwide bags silver in the Social Media Agency of the Year category as well.

2014 was a landmark year for its social media practice, said the agency.

“After spectacular growth during 2013, we challenged ourselves to consolidate our successes, build momentum with new business growth and drive innovation in our client partnerships,” the agency said.

“To stand out in a crowded social marketplace, our strategy went back to basics.

We positioned ourselves as a market leader by delivering modern, effective social solutions.”

It built a new social team from scratch,

growing it to eight people during 2014. It also launched its “Digitisation 2.0”’ programme – including training from Facebook, Twitter and Google – to integrate social into its wider services.

According to agency, this approach paid off

with a 100% social media revenue growth. This saw it win significant new social business from clients, including McDonald’s and PETRONAS. It was also picked by Leo Burnett’s global team to lead Samsung’s largest ever real-time content marketing project for the Galaxy Note 4.

“With a track record of sustainable growth and a commitment to continuously improving our service offering, we are targeting to grow our social media revenue a further 150% in 2015,” remarked the agency.

Owned by: Publicis Groupe Headed by: Tan Kien Eng, CEO

M&C SAATCHI MALAYSIA

M&C Saatchi takes home the bronze award for the Social Media Agency of the Year category.

2014 was a year of growth and hard work for the agency’s newly established social media team, but it has paid off said the agency. In just 12 months, M&C Saatchi has

grown to look after not only existing clients’ social media campaign needs, but also to consult over half a dozen new brands in the world of social media.

It lists the year’s highlights as being measurable campaign effectiveness results for clients; social media-centric thinking and the understanding of consumer behaviour in the social realm driving its new business acquisitions; as well as awards and recognition in the social media space.

For example, the agency helped Volkswagen turn around its social media sentiment in Q4 alone and made Axiata Cup the most discussed badminton event in 2014, doubling the quality fan count and reaching

Facebook engagement rates uncommon in the age of zero organic reach and engagement.

Account wins included PLUS, Moët & Chandon, Hennessy, Glenmorangie and Volkswagen. The agency also said it had grown from having no social media staff to seven. Otherwise, it boasted a 100% staff retention rate in the year, it said. It now plans to set up a content development team scheduled to be fully functional within the next three months. This will allow the agency to work on content-related briefs.

Owned by: M&C Saatchi Headed by: Datin Sharifah Menjelara Hussein, managing director

KINGDOM DIGITAL SOLUTIONS Kingdom Digital bags top local honours for the Social Media category. Formerly known as Branded3, it has transitioned from a digital production agency to a fully fledged digital creative and content agency.

It was actively involved in major pitches where it was up against some of the “big boys” in the industry.

“Our efforts bore fruit as we added several new accounts to our clientele list, bagging Guocera and Oxford Fajar, followed by Mach

by Hong Leong Bank and AIA,” it said.

“We managed to acquire and retain most of our clients because our services demonstrated the ability to enhance relationships between brands and people through meaningful digital solutions, where

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people enjoy engaging with the brand and keep coming back for more.”

The agency’s solutions include digital creative ideation and strategies, digital ad production, email marketing design and development, web design and development, social media campaign development and management as well as Facebook application development. It also introduced two new services – mobile app development and content marketing strategies as part of its diversification in various platforms.

Among the campaigns launched which featured some of the new services were Schick’s Exacta social media campaign to launch the new Exacta product; the Revive Rev-fit mobile application, a social fitness app in

Malaysia; AIA’s life planner recruitment website solution, an enhanced recruitment platform; and Cadbury’s choclairs social media marketing to promote brand growth among fans.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Ryan Ong, managing partner

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SEARCH MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR

LION & LION

A quickly growing digital agency, Lion & Lion takes top spot for Search Marketing Agency of the Year. Incorporated in late 2012 and headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the agency prides itself on a data and results-driven approach.

The agency is growing quickly not only in size and geography, but also in terms of service scope to be able to offer everything digital, and in particular, to have the most effective media management in the market.

It says: “We firmly believe the digital landscape is in the making and we’re merely

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contributors to a marketing world reinventing its own agenda; and we happily share our thoughts through conferences, press and by facilitating round table discussions for clients and nonclients alike.

“Consumers’ digital time continues to grow, and with the explosion of the middle class in Southeast Asia, the market is in a tremendously exciting period of transformation. Digital marketing is expected to become a US$14 billion industry in Southeast Asia by 2017,” added the agency on why it was excited by Asia’s prospects.

The agency also combines a strong local foundation with a global perspective, with a good majority of staff being local and some from international shores.

Many of its staff have also joined from the likes of McKinsey, Google, Mitosis, PWC, Ernst & Young, BBDO, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi and more.

It announced its KL office opening to Advertising + Marketing shortly after launching there, with James Miles-Lambert and Stefan Bruun leading the agency.

It was then comprised of 45 staff offering consulting, execution, performance, social,

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website development, CRM and analytics services on the digital platform. During its first days in KL, its clients included IKEA, Singtel, Jatomi, Reckitt Benckiser and DTAC. “We think Malaysia is a super interesting market, English-speaking, great for recruiting talent and very forward thinking. Furthermore, we can also serve most of the region from KL which facilitates our growth aspirations. We are very happy with our progress so far,” said MilesLambert, vice-president and founding member of Lion & Lion in Malaysia.

Lion & Lion also operates with offices in Singapore, the US and is soon to open in multiple other Southeast Asia markets.

In 2013, it added a Jakarta office to its Southeast Asian network, following the agency’s success in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila.

Lion & Lion was founded by Nova Founders, the online entrepreneurs responsible for the online success of Zalora (SEA), Lazada (SEA), Groupon (APAC) and The Iconic (Australia).

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Hugh Batley and Casper Andersen, founders and managing partners

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SEARCH MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR LOCUS-T ONLINE Locus-T Online O wins both the silver and Local Hero awards for Search Marketing. The agency has 16 years of experience in Malaysia and Singapore and provides internet marketing strategies and web development services.

An independent agency, it is headed by Joseph Ting, head of sales and co-founder.

The agency claims ISO 9001 Quality Management System certification and also, that it is the first homegrown internet marketing company in Malaysia to have earned the respected status of Google AdWords certified partner and Yahoo! Search Marketing (SEA) authorised reseller. It is also an official PayPal partner in Malaysia.

In the past year, the team has grown 50% in size in terms of staff strength going from 30 to 45. This is only expected to continue as the agency relocates to roomier quarters at Menara AmFIRST, going from an office space of 3,000 sq ft to 8,000 sq ft.

The aim is for 90 staff in 2015. The agency also prides itself on a 100% retention rate of its senior staff.

The agency has also developed its own marketing department to generate sales and leads, as well as provide overall marketing

support. The department handles online and offline lead generation campaigns, workshops, corporate partnerships or collaborations, creative/media agency partnerships, reseller programmes, career talks and branding efforts.

Its vision is to be the leading integrated online marketing solution provider in the Asia Pacific region, delivering consistent high-quality online marketing services with exceptional results and excellent customer service.

It aims to complement its services with research and development and its core

competencies. The wider aim is to provide education to the market to create awareness of internet marketing and encourage businesses to take the first steps.

Earlier last year, the agency announced its completion of acquiring the SEO and web development business of Macromac Webtech, a Malaysian operating subsidiary of Macromac Group of Companies.

Owned by: Independent Headed by: Joseph Ting, head of sales and co-founder

IPROSPECT MALAYSIA

The past 12 months have been transformational for iProspect Malaysia, said the agency. “We’ve doubled our service offerings and with that came a lot of testing and experimentation before we went out to market these services,” it said.

“The team had to be equipped with the know-how, so all relevant certifications were taken. Talent hiring was a challenge (as it always is in this industry), so we had to think creatively in our approach of hiring. Today, the team comes from various backgrounds to add

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more colour into what we do.” Key highlights for the year were 13 new clients into the roster, including ones for Remark Group, MDeC, Grohe and L’Oréal.

“The next 12 months for us looks exciting as we embark into more sophisticated offerings that will supplement and power the digital marketing ecosystem. We’re not just talking about search, but the whole works from content, data, mobile, social and e-commerce and how things are attributed to one another.”

Major campaigns in the year included

one for Nippon Paint. The brand wanted to aggressively push its textured paint series, Nippon Momento. The campaign was not focused on outdoing Nippon Paint’s competitors, but rather entering a whole new market – the category of wallpapers.

Search had the most growth on matters relating to home improvement among all media touch-points. The agency gathered all the relevant passion points of consumers and segmented them into multiple ways it could educate, engage and persuade them individually.

The multi-pronged search campaign used advanced search features and functions as well as innovative techniques in its execution.

It also created an advanced consumer path model to merge the activities and actions of active and passive searchers. The result was Nippon Momento’s share of voice on wallpaper rose to 36% within that short period of time and sales grew, surpassing 180%.

Owned by: Dentsu Aegis Network Headed by: Justin Murugaya, managing director

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THE MARKies

The MARKies emphasise excellence in two main areas: creative ideas, where innovation is combined with top-class execution, and media usage, which champions a deep media understanding with a powerful channel presence.

Just like the Agency of the Year categories, the MARKies entries were assessed by a jury panel consisting of senior-level client marketers, with winners selected based on the highest combined score in each category.

The agencies with the most number of wins in each of the two areas were then crowned either the Overall Creative Ideas MARKie or Overall Best Use of Media MARKie trophies. In the event two agencies win the same number of trophies, as happened this year with Carat and PHD Malaysia, a comparison of the average percentage scores given by the judges was calculated to determine the winner and as a result PHD Malaysia won this year. Congratulations to the winners, and many thanks to all entrants and judges for helping us determine and celebrate the best creative and media innovations in Malaysia.

Category sponsor of the MARKies:

Best Idea – Female Audience

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THE MARKies OVERALL CREATIVE IDEAS MARKie FASTER ADVERTISING

OVERALL BEST USE OF MEDIA MARKie PHD MALAYSIA

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24/6/2015 4:18:10 PM

THE MARKies CARAT MALAYSIA AIRASIA STEPS UP DOMINATION AIRASIA

Faster Advertising 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia Edelman Malaysia Bringing Kuala Lumpur to a Global Audience InvestKL Corporation Lowe & Partners TM SME BizFest 2014 Telekom Malaysia Vizeum Malaysia Interior Designers pick up awards and pick Nippon Paint Nippon Paint (M)

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – CONSUMER EVENTS

MOVING WALLS LOVE GENERATOR MOVING WALLS

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – BUSINESS EVENTS

Lowe & Partners Frogasia WordMania Challenge Frogasia Lowe & Partners TM Life Made Easier Roadshows Telekom Malaysia Team Energizer Night Race The Energizer Night Race: Race for a Brighter World Energizer Malaysia The Hot Shoe Show & Co NestlĂŠ Nutrition, Health & Wellness Campaign: “Promosi Lebih Kebaikan, Lebih Nilaiâ€?

NestlĂŠ Malaysia

BEST IDEA – CONTENT MARKETING

BEST IDEA – DIGITAL

OGILVY & MATHER MALAYSIA INTI SPMSURESKOR INTI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY & COLLEGES

McCANN ERICKSON (M) MINUTE OF SILENCE MUTIARA (MALAYSIA)

The day the Internet went silent

INTI #SPMSureSkor Campaign: Content Hub Landing page

2014 was a year of unprecedented tragedies for Malaysia. The two aviation disasters, coming so close together, took a heavy toll on the hearts and minds of the Malaysian people.

Sample of free tip

UK (\N\Z[ ^HZ ZL[ HZPKL HZ H KH` VM UH[PVUHS TV\YUPUN (Z Ă…HNZ Ă…L^ at half-mast, Malaysians were encouraged by the government to spend [OL KH` PU X\PL[ YLĂ…LJ[PVU HUK [V VIZLY]L H TPU\[L VM ZPSLUJL H[ HT

Minute of Silence

But what about those, the vast majority of people, who spend their time online? How could they pay their respect to the victims?

We created a mobile website to invite these people to temporarily KPZJVUULJ[ MYVT [OL 0U[LYUL[ Âś UV -HJLIVVR [^LL[PUN LTHPSZ Z\YĂ„UN VY messaging. For the launch, we used our owned media and the owned channels of our clients to seed the website.

On channels that are more frequently visited from desktop or laptop computers, we included QR codes to make it easy for people to access the website from [OLPY TVIPSL KL]PJLZ ;V LHYU TLKPH ^L JVU[HJ[LK PUĂ…\LU[PHS ISVNZ HUK UL^Z websites to feature the website. We also included a social toolkit within the website, which participants can download and use to promote the website on [OLPY V^U -HJLIVVR WHNLZ ;OPZ [VVSRP[ PUJS\KLK H 89 JVKL WYVĂ„SL WPJ[\YL [OH[ created curiosity, and again, made it easy for people to access the website from their mobile devices. No media was paid for this campaign.

Within hours, thousands of participants observed their own personal minute of silence. And not just from Malaysia. Participants from 80 other countries HJJLW[LK [OL PU]P[H[PVU [V KPZJVUULJ[ 0UĂ…\LU[PHS ISVNZ Z\JO HZ “DigitalBuzzBlogâ€? featured the website, driving further awareness and participation. And in November 2014, Dutch news channels encouraged their digital users to visit the site during their nation’s day of mourning.

How it works Visit the www.minuteofsilence.com.my website via a mobile browser.

Free tips offered for 9 subjects

Enter personal details and contact information to get more Activate “Airplane Mode� on your mobile device.

The website detects the enabled Airplane Mode and starts a one minute countdown.

If you’d like to observe a minute of silence, scan this QR code with your mobile phone.

Creative Paramedics Seven Seas Malaysia Facebook Page Management Merck Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide Samsung GALAXY Tab S – “Blind Sense Test� experience Samsung Malaysia Electronic PHD Malaysia Fall In Love With Printing Again HP Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia You Against Debt Bank Simpanan Nasional

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FINALISTS

FINALISTS

www.minuteofsilence.com.my

Lowe & Partners Frogasia WordMania Challenge Frogasia M&C Saatchi Celcom Football MAD Territory Celcom Axiata Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia INTI SPMSureSkor INTI International University & Colleges Publicis Communications Malaysia MAGGI “BESTNYA KAWEN�

NestlĂŠ Malaysia (Maggi)

a dvert i s i ng + ma rket i ng AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2015

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24/6/2015 4:20:19 PM

THE MARKies LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE KALAU MAK MENANG FRIESLANDCAMPINA – DUTCH LADY MILK INDUSTRIES

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide Be A Dog Hero Malaysian Dogs Deserve Better (MDDB) Lowe & Partners Weight your wallet Burger King Malaysia McCann Erickson (M) Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Survivor Pink Ribbon Wellness (L) Foundation PHD Malaysia HTC Hijack HTC

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – FEMALE AUDIENCE

TBWA\ NO EXCUSE FOR ABUSE WAO MALAYSIA

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – DIRECT MARKETING

Carat Malaysia Love Is In The Air: The First Scent-vertising in Malaysia Wipro Unza (M) MEC Colgate Sugar Acid Neutraliser Toothpaste Launch Colgate Palmolive Malaysia Publicis Communications Malaysia Lactacyd – Complete Your Beauty Regime Sanofi-Aventis TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

FASTER ADVERTISING 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA

36

M&C Saatchi Axiata Cup Axiata Group Publicis Communications Malaysia MAGGI “BESTNYA KAWEN” Nestlé Malaysia (Maggi) Publicis Communications Malaysia Proton IRIZ pre-buzz launch campaign PROTON Holdings Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia You Against Debt Bank Simpanan Nasional

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FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – LAUNCH

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE A WALK THROUGH TIME PETRONAS

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – INTEGRATED MEDIA

Cheil Malaysia gaLAXY 11 World Tour Samsung Malaysia Electronics PHD Malaysia HTC Hijack HTC Publicis Communications Malaysia Proton IRIZ pre-buzz launch campaign PROTON Holdings Vizeum Malaysia The Facelift That Had Everyone in Stitches Perodua Automobile

W W W . M A R K ET I N G -I N T ER A C T I V E. C O M

24/6/2015 4:20:42 PM

THE MARKies BEST IDEA – LOYALTY & CRM

BEST IDEA – MALE AUDIENCE

WOM ADVOCACY SAY YES TO WATSONS BRAND – THE ADVOCACY PROGRAM WATSONS MALAYSIA

SAATCHI & SAATCHI ARACHNID MINI POWER MINI Malaysia power demo video

New MINI, a revolution in

power kimchow

kimchow kimc o

kimchow

Print campaign

SOCIAL campaign

In Malaysia, MINI is perceived as fashionable, not substance-oriented.

Task: Launch the new MINI and achieve its yearly sales target of 250 cars. To substantiate reasons for purchase, we played up the different facets of power it embodies. Power was the theme, literally and figuratively, to enhance its masculinity and appeal to more people.

7-week results (11 April-31 May 2014): ‡ 2.3 million eyeballs on Facebook ‡ 40,881 social actions

website

(posts, likes, comments, shares) ‡ 49,881 demo video views ‡ 99 cars sold

online ad

That’s 40% of yearly sales target reached in 7 weeks (Target was 14%) ‡ RM22M in sales Source: Facebook Insights, Radian 6, MINI Malaysia,

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

YouTube and manual tracking on social media.

Lowe & Partners Weight your wallet Burger King Malaysia Maxus Malaysia Loyalty Risk to Loyalty Boost Tesco Malaysia Publicis Communications Malaysia CitiMakeMyDay Citibank Malaysia Rapp Plus Brave Views, Bold Ideas Campaign Star Publications (M)

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide Durex Touch Reckitt Benckiser MEC The Rise of “Boo Loo San�

Schick Malaysia PHD Malaysia HTC Hijack HTC Zenith Media Pertandingan Paling Keras Tohtonku

BEST IDEA – MOBILE

BEST IDEA – OUT OF HOME

McCANN ERICKSON (M) MINUTE OF SILENCE MUTIARA (MALAYSIA)

SPIN COMMUNICATIONS ART OF OLDTOWN OLDTOWN WHITE COFFEE

The day the Internet went silent 2014 was a year of unprecedented tragedies for Malaysia. The two aviation disasters, coming so close together, took a heavy toll on the hearts and minds of the Malaysian people.

UK (\N\Z[ ^HZ ZL[ HZPKL HZ H KH` VM UH[PVUHS TV\YUPUN (Z Ă…HNZ Ă…L^ at half-mast, Malaysians were encouraged by the government to spend [OL KH` PU X\PL[ YLĂ…LJ[PVU HUK [V VIZLY]L H TPU\[L VM ZPSLUJL H[ HT

Minute of Silence

But what about those, the vast majority of people, who spend their time online? How could they pay their respect to the victims?

We created a mobile website to invite these people to temporarily KPZJVUULJ[ MYVT [OL 0U[LYUL[ Âś UV -HJLIVVR [^LL[PUN LTHPSZ Z\YĂ„UN VY messaging. For the launch, we used our owned media and the owned channels of our clients to seed the website.

On channels that are more frequently visited from desktop or laptop computers, we included QR codes to make it easy for people to access the website from [OLPY TVIPSL KL]PJLZ ;V LHYU TLKPH ^L JVU[HJ[LK PUĂ…\LU[PHS ISVNZ HUK UL^Z websites to feature the website. We also included a social toolkit within the website, which participants can download and use to promote the website on [OLPY V^U -HJLIVVR WHNLZ ;OPZ [VVSRP[ PUJS\KLK H 89 JVKL WYVĂ„SL WPJ[\YL [OH[ created curiosity, and again, made it easy for people to access the website from their mobile devices. No media was paid for this campaign.

Within hours, thousands of participants observed their own personal minute of silence. And not just from Malaysia. Participants from 80 other countries HJJLW[LK [OL PU]P[H[PVU [V KPZJVUULJ[ 0UĂ…\LU[PHS ISVNZ Z\JO HZ “DigitalBuzzBlogâ€? featured the website, driving further awareness and participation. And in November 2014, Dutch news channels encouraged their digital users to visit the site during their nation’s day of mourning.

How it works Visit the www.minuteofsilence.com.my website via a mobile browser.

Activate “Airplane Mode� on your mobile device.

The website detects the enabled Airplane Mode and starts a one minute countdown.

If you’d like to observe a minute of silence, scan this QR code with your mobile phone.

Carat Malaysia MINI Dominition MINI Compass Interactive UPSR iBuddy MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide Durex Touch Reckitt Benckiser TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

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FINALISTS

FINALISTS

www.minuteofsilence.com.my

dnaCOMM #tanahairku Street Art PETRONAS Moving Walls Tweet to Unfurl Astro OMD Malaysia Poh Kong Hemera Diamond Challenge Poh Kong Holdings TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

a dvert i s i ng + ma rket i ng AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2015

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24/6/2015 4:21:48 PM

THE MARKies FASTER ADVERTISING 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA

Carat Malaysia Tropicana Became Malaysia’s News(paper) From Cover To Cover Permanis Sandilands Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid HSBC Personal Economy HSBC Malaysia theLABEL Ads Movie Club TGV Cinemas Zenith Media Dino Trek 2: Dinosaurs Coming to Life Petrosains

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – PUBLIC/MEDIA RELATIONS

DENTSU MALAYSIA THE 5 DIMENSIONAL PREMIUM, GOURMET COFFEE EXPERIENCE PERMANIS SANDILANDS

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – PRINT

Cohn & Wolfe Malaysia The CAREton Project Tetra Pak Malaysia Edelman Malaysia Media Publicity Campaign for MEASAT–3b Launch MEASAT Satellite Systems Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide BIG Campaign AirAsia BIG TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

MAXUS MALAYSIA THE HUNT IS ONE THIS CNY… FOR 10 MILLION SHOPPERS TESCO MALAYSIA

38

Beans Media Swan Beg Hwa Thong Bags Industries Maxus Malaysia FREQUENCY TO FRENZY Tesco Malaysia OMD Malaysia Watsons Move Your Body Watsons Malaysia Vizeum Malaysia Turn 4 Giant Stations into Mamee Krew Kari Laksa Pacific Food Products

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FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – RETAIL/SHOPPER

MEC MALAYSIA INTI SPMSURESKOR INTI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY & COLLEGES

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – RADIO

Creative Paramedics 2 Tickets: On the Run United Overseas Bank (M) Lowe & Partners Weight your wallet Burger King Malaysia Lowe & Partners What’s in your bag?

KLIA2 – Malaysia Airports OMD Malaysia Say YES to Watsons Brand Watsons Malaysia

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24/6/2015 4:22:01 PM

THE MARKies PUBLICIS COMMUNICATIONS MALAYSIA THE ULTIMATE NOODLE ADVENTURE NESTLÉ MALAYSIA (MAGGI)

M&C Saatchi CARIF Frankathon “Donate Your Kilometres” CARIF (Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation) Publicis Communications Malaysia MAGGI “BESTNYA KAWEN” Nestlé Malaysia (Maggi) Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid Lexus Chronicles UMW Toyota Motor TBWA\ The Corbis Contracts Click Photos

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – TV

FASTER ADVERTISING 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – SOCIAL

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide Maxisone Plan – Satu Kosong Maxis Mobile Services McCann Erickson (M) PETRONAS Liquid & Metal PETRONAS Vizeum Malaysia Tolong! RumahKu! Nippon Paint (M) Vizeum Malaysia The Facelift That Had Everyone in Stitches Perodua Automobile

FOREFRONT INTERNATIONAL ECOWORLD CORPORATE WEBSITE ECOWORLD DEVELOPMENT

Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide #HOTLINK OOHSOME Maxis Mobile Services Publicis Communications Malaysia MAGGI “BESTNYA KAWEN” Nestlé Malaysia (Maggi) Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid Friso Discover Dutch Lady Milk Industries TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

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FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – WEB DESIGN

FASTER ADVERTISING 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA 1600 PANDAS WORLD TOUR IN MALAYSIA

FINALISTS

BEST IDEA – VIRAL

FOREFRONT International Expressionz Exsim Group of Companies Kingdom Digital Solutions AIA Life Planner AIA Mirum Malaysia Cyberjaya – Global Tech Hub Cyberview Operion Ecommerce & Software Operion Ecommerce & Software Jim Tan Kiam Beng

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24/6/2015 4:23:36 PM

THE MARKies

FINALISTS

LOWE & PARTNERS FROGASIA WORDMANIA CHALLENGE FROGASIA

Compass Interactive UPSR iBuddy MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems Kingdom Digital Solutions Revive Rev-Fit Mobile App Revive Isotonic Malaysia Mantra Interactive Jack ‘n Jill Go Go Goooooal URC Malaysia MediaCom Ambi Pur Finds “Waze” to Freshen Malaysian Cars Procter & Gamble

BEST USE OF BRANDED CONTENT MEC MALAYSIA VIZEUM MALAYSIA CITIBANK – HOW MALAYSIANS PAY BILLS TOLONG! RUMAHKU! CITIBANK MALAYSIA NIPPON PAINT (M)

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF APPS

Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid MINI Power MINI Malaysia Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia You Against Debt Bank Simpanan Nasional Vizeum Malaysia Getting closer to God to Win Hearts Prudential BSN Takaful

CHEIL MALAYSIA GALAXY 11 WORLD TOUR SAMSUNG MALAYSIA ELECTRONICS

40

Carat Malaysia How Jacob won Sherry back in his life!

Mondelēz Malaysia Carat Malaysia How did Oreo make 5,600 Families enjoy the “F” word?

Mondelēz Malaysia Lowe & Partners Frogasia WordMania Challenge Frogasia Mindshare Malaysia NESTUM 3in1 Brings “More Life” Nestlé Malaysia

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FINALISTS

BEST USE OF EVENTS

PHD MALAYSIA IKEA BOOKBOOK IKEA

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF DIGITAL

Carat Malaysia AirAsia Steps Up Domination AirAsia E-Plus Entertainment Productions Melaka Art and Performance Festival 2014 Art & Performance Festival Melaka Faster Advertising 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia Team Energizer Night Race The Energizer Night Race: Race for a Brighter World Energizer Malaysia

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24/6/2015 4:23:50 PM

THE MARKies CARAT MALAYSIA MINI DOMINITION MINI

Carat Malaysia David Outsmarting Goliath In A Wonda-ful Way Permanis Sandilands Mindshare Malaysia ASTRO Empowers Malaysians to Positivity this Ramadan and Raya ASTRO (MEASAT Broadcast Network System) Vizeum Malaysia Tolong! RumahKu! Nippon Paint (M) Zenith Media I “HEART” MAYBANK Maybank

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF MOBILE

PHD MALAYSIA IKEA BOOKBOOK IKEA

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF INTEGRATED MEDIA

Carat Malaysia David Outsmarting Goliath In A Wonda-ful Way Permanis Sandilands Compass Interactive UPSR iBuddy MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems PHD Malaysia Ikea BookBook Ikea TBWA\ No Excuse for Abuse WAO Malaysia

BEST USE OF OOH

BEST USE OF PRINT

LEO BURNETT/ARC WORLDWIDE SAVE THE SUNDAE CONE GOLDEN ARCHES RESTAURANTS

ZENITH MEDIA DINO TREK 2: DINOSAURS COMING TO LIFE PETROSAINS

Carat Malaysia David Outsmarting Goliath In A Wonda-ful Way Permanis Sandilands Carat Malaysia 437 TVCs created by Twisties @ RM 95,000 Mondelēz Malaysia Moving Walls Tweet To Unfurl Astro Vizeum Malaysia The World’s Largest and Longest Nippon Momento Colour Card Nippon Paint (M)

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FINALISTS

FINALISTS

Dinosaurs Coming to Life

Carat Malaysia Tropicana Became Malaysia’s News(paper) From Cover To Cover Permanis Sandilands GO Communications For Those Who Truly Love Zurich Insurance Malaysia Zenith Media Ikhwan Cards Umrah Campaign Maybank Zenith Media Merdeka & Malaysia Day 2014: A Walk Through Time PETRONAS

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24/6/2015 4:24:09 PM

THE MARKies BEST USE OF RADIO

BEST USE OF SEARCH

VIZEUM MALAYSIA #MYCYBERSALE RADIO MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (MDEC)

CARAT MALAYSIA THE SECRET TO BLOCKBUSTER HORROR MOVIES AGENCY’S GSF FUNNEL WARNER BROS

The e

1stt Digital Radio Stationn

Æ

A FU FULLY ULL DEDICATED D and CAMPAIGN BRANDED D Digital g Radio Station 24/7, 30 days

Catch Special by participating e-ret

even greater savings

with h Insider

Information

• $67mil in saless • 222 22% increase in traffic

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

• Supported by 9 major radio stations

Carat Malaysia Reviving Relationships with Raya Mondelēz Malaysia Maxus Malaysia FREQUENCY TO FRENZY Tesco Malaysia MEC Malaysia INTI SPMSureSkor INTI International University & Colleges Vizeum Malaysia Turn 4 Giant Stations into Mamee Krew Kari Laksa Pacific Food Products

Carat Malaysia From Jihad to Joy Mondelēz Malaysia iProspect Malaysia Painting Over Wallpapers Nippon Paint (M) Lion & Lion Personal Loan SEM Campaign CompareGlobalGroup

GET ENGAGED AT ASIA PACIFIC’S ONLY LOYALTY BASED AWARDS Twenty six categories covering loyalty, engagement and relationship marketing, 81 trophies, over 300 professionals, 1 chance to celebrate and network with APAC’s best of the best over a grand and glitzy gala ceremony.

Book Your Tables With Our Early Bird Rates (before 21 JULY 2015) Single Seat: S$ 380 | 1/2 Table (5 Seats): S$ 1800 | 1 Table (10 Seats): S$ 2800

Awards Night: Thursday, 13 August, 2015, Shangri-la Hotel Singapore Cocktail reception starts at 6.15pm www.ma rketin g-in tera c tive.c om/le-a wards- sg Brought to you by For more information, table reservations, or entries, call Czarina Solomon at +65 6423 0329 (ext: 250), +65 98205195 or email czarinas@marketing-interactive.com For sponsorship opportunities, call Soren Beaulieu at +65 6423 0329 or email sorenb@marketing-interactive.com

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24/6/2015 4:24:22 PM

THE MARKies MINDSHARE MALAYSIA CHOLESTEROL-FREE REALITY SHOW NESTLÉ MALAYSIA (MAGGI)

GO Communications Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar? DoubleTree by Hilton Johor Bahru PHD Malaysia Ikea BookBook Ikea Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid Friso Discover Dutch Lady Milk Industries TBWA\ The Corbis Contracts Click Photos

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF TV

CARAT MALAYSIA HOW DID OREO MAKE 5,600 FAMILIES ENJOY THE “F” WORD? MONDELĒZ MALAYSIA

FINALISTS

BEST USE OF SOCIAL

Carat Malaysia Reviving Relationships with Raya Mondelēz Malaysia OMD Malaysia Watsons Raya Watsons Malaysia Vizeum Malaysia The Facelift That Had Everyone in Stitches Perodua Automobile Vizeum Malaysia Getting closer to God to Win Hearts Prudential BSN Takaful

BEST USE OF VIDEOS

FINALISTS

PHD MALAYSIA IKEA BOOKBOOK IKEA

Faster Advertising 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia 1600 Pandas World Tour In Malaysia Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide #HOTLINK OOHSOME Maxi Mobile Services OMD Malaysia Jimat Jimat McD McDonald’s Malaysia Saatchi & Saatchi Arachnid MINI Power MINI Malaysia

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THE MARKies WILL BE BACK NEXT YEAR, STAY TUNED! a dvert i s i ng + ma rket i ng AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2015

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24/6/2015 4:25:19 PM

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2015 SNAPSHOTS

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26/6/2015 11:56:41 AM

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2015 SNAPSHOTS

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26/6/2015 12:00:37 PM

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2015 SNAPSHOTS

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26/6/2015 12:01:15 PM

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2015 SNAPSHOTS

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26/6/2015 12:01:40 PM

With twenty six categories rewarding the top solutions and teams of media owners across South Asia, Southeast Asia and ANZ, this is one party you can’t miss! Places are filling fast, book your tables now at a reduced rate.

Early Bird rates until 14 August Single Seat

S$380

Half Table (5 Seats)

S$1,750

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S$2,900

Awards Ceremony: 27 August, 6.30pm – late, Singapore Marriott Hotel Contacts: Table bookings: CARLO RESTON +65 6423 0329, +65 9727 0291, carlor@marketing-interactive.com Sponsorship opportunities: SOREN BEAULIEU +65 6423 0329, sorenb@marketing-interactive.com

Brought to you by:

SA2015_Print Ad.indd 1

26/6/2015 10:49:28 AM

The Comms Malaysia 2015 conference held at the Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral saw a room full of PR practitioners discuss a broad range of topics on the future of PR.

The day opened with Liz Kamaruddin, senior general manager for group strategic communications at PETRONAS, giving an overview of the big challenges in the PR landscape in Malaysia.

Tino Fritsch, head of communications for APAC at ThyssenKrupp, then spoke about what relationships communication professionals should oversee and where PR currently stands in the boardroom.

Mastura Adnan, head of corporate communications and corporate affairs for Standard Chartered Bank, broke the ice with the audience by playing an interactive game of non verbal communication. This was then followed by a presentation on internal communication and how to effectively communicate business objectives to employees across the board.

Ramesh Rajandran, head of e-business at DiGi Telecommunications, spoke on the need of recognising the role social media plays in a brand’s PR strategies.

In the Mamak Corner was a panel discussion on understanding today’s newsroom. We saw senior journalists Kamarul Bahrin bin Haron, executive editor of Astro Awani, Keith Kam, journalist and news producer of BFM Media and Jahabar Sadiq, CEO and editor of The Malaysian Insider, speak up on what their biggest gripes are in today’s PR scene.

Anita Devasahayam, brand and communications manager of IBM Malaysia, spoke on using data and analytics to drive PR campaigns.

Neil Brennan, area director for Japan and SEA at Meltwater, then spoke on the transformation of the communication discipline today and why communication is finally ready for disruption.

Leigh Wong, Shell Malaysia’s head of media relations and issues management, then took to the stage to speak on where PR fits with the rise of branded content.

Finally, in the pop-up cafe, we met the online stars of Malaysia’s blogging scene such as Sue Lynn, founder and editor of Bangsarbabe. com, Joyce Wong, blog founder and entrepreneur of KinkyBlueFairy, and KY, blog owner of KY. Comms Malaysia 2015 was supported by gold sponsor Meltwater.

Meltwater helps companies make better and more informed decisions based on insights from online data.

Gold Sponsor

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24/6/2015 3:09:40 PM

IS BAD PR HAMPERING MALAYSIA’S GLOBAL IMAGE?

During A+M’s Comms Malaysia conference held at Aloft KL recently, several journalists took to the stage to discuss how the state of PR had impacted Malaysia’s overall image on the global news scene.

Kamarul Bahrin bin Haron, executive editor of Astro Awani, pointed out that PR needed to be ready at all times.

Speaking on the recent MAS tragedies, he said these were clear examples that news does not pop up when it is convenient for the PR industry and that is why PR professionals need to always be armed and ready.

“When a crisis hits, journalists are going to get the news out whenever and at whatever time they can. This might be through sources, social media or whichever outlets possible.

Hence, if PR professionals want to capture the attention of journalists, they need to very quickly adapt to this change,” he said.

Speaking on the crash of MH370, he added in the 21st century, the public was no longer accepting of the fact that when a plane had been missing for hours, the organisation had no concrete information on it. Today people want instantaneous information.

In the case of MAS, it wasn’t just a company statement or a press releases, but rather “information about lives that matter”.

“It is a confirmation on the loss of a loved one. The global public was criticising us because from an information flow perspective, we were not keeping our mouth in order. How can we accept that? It is a blow to the pride of Malaysia and all the good things present in this country,” he said.

It is during such crisis situations that PR professionals need to actively leverage the trust they have built. Keith Kam, journalist and news

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producer of BFM Media, added that this was especially vital during a crisis because when wrong information is disseminated it not only looks poorly on the news organisation, but in turn the PR agency and the company supplying the information.

“The most frustrating aspect of being a journalist is the unavailability of a PR person when it comes to clarification of a news piece,” Kam said.

Jahabar Sadiq, CEO and editor of The Malaysian Insider, also added that because of the quick turnaround time for news, journalists no longer sit around and wait for responses from PR folks. They often simply bypass the PR folks to go straight to the source. To counter this phenomenon, PR folks need to reposition themselves as not just gate keepers of an organisation, but rather experts who are readily available for a statement when approached by a journalist Broaden your horizon, PR guys One gripe online journalists in Malaysia seem to have, according to Jahabar, is that despite the rise of various online portals, Malaysian PR folks still seem very reliant on traditional channels.

However, the way news is being consumed is changing and many simply jump onto their mobile devices to access information.

“There are a lot more media channels out there so we all compete for the PR folks’ attention and vice versa,” Jahabar said.

“PR consultants have to move their focus from mainstream media into online portals now.

Online portals do not see as much engagement from PR people and we do the calls more to get the news and recognition that PR people send out to the traditional folks. I think PR relies on

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outdated books on media channels as there is not too much interaction from PR experts with us online mediums.”

Meanwhile, Kamarul added that PR agencies are still stuck in a traditional mindset of getting the journalist to come down to cover a story or event. With the limited number of journalists out there and the numerous events, this is not always possible.

He explained this was when PR people needed to step up their game and identify opportunities in these “unattended spaces”.

“If a journalist is unable to attend to your client, PR folks should step in. Use that empty space and grow into it. PR practitioners are equally skilled in writing stories and technology has enabled anyone with a smart camera to make instantaneous videos. Send us your completed or nearly completed stories and we are likely to rework it slightly and use it. I can’t attend all the events, but what’s there to stop you from making a good story out of it and pushing it out?”

He added that consumers today rarely care where they get the information from or what platform it is based on – they want to decide for themselves.

Stop acting like the ad folks PR folks today need to stop mimicking the ad industry. According to Kamarul, because advertising has become so advanced and big in value, it has lost the ability to build a brand trust with the public.

PR still has not – it is still trusted. A PR account executive today, hence, needs to know that it’s not just about making calls and pitches proactively, but rather being relevant to the content that is trending.

They added that when a topic is trending, and is relevant to your brand product, that’s the best time for a company to speak out. PR should not be replaying the same one key brand message like advertising does for a brand, but rather it should create a range of narratives around it.

“There are a lot of stories to be told from one piece of news. If PR acts like advertising that’s how it will be treated. But PR is not advertising – it is about great storytelling. Make the most of one story and come up with as many narratives as you can and then, there will not be such a thing as ‘limited space’,” Kamarul said.

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3 STEPS FOR EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS Speaking at Advertising + Marketing magazine’s Comms MY conference, Mastura Adnan, head of corporate communications and corporate affairs for Standard Chartered Bank, emphasised the importance of internal communications in a company.

“Firstly, we need to remember that any kind of internal communications that is shared externally can potentially tarnish a company’s image,” she cautioned. To avoid any crisis, a company has to establish a solid internal communications line with all employees across all divisions.

Companies need to embrace their employees as brand ambassadors, and as such, they need to take care of their stakeholders and realise that employee satisfaction will directly impact a company’s public perception. For this reason, exchanging information is essential to a company’s success, via internal and external communications.

“Keeping your communications accurate and informative is vital.”

Highlighting that effective engagement has to begin from within the company, she also shared tips on how to ensure the channels of communication are clearly defined at the beginning of an employee’s career in the company. To improve and create effective engagement with employees, she recommended the following steps: 1. Spot engaged employees According to Mastura, engaged employees are those who share and believe in the company’s vision and objectives.

“They are the forces that drive and make your brand great.”

A company should find out how to effectively communicate business objectives to employees across the board, and also ensure the departments are talking to each other consistently and effectively. In spotting an ideal engaged employee, she said managers should look out for candidates who exhibit a motivated and authentic approach to their work.

An engaged employee is someone who is also involved in various aspects that contribute to the company’s growth, while being receptive and proactive in terms of executing new improvements for the company’s progress.

A company should identify champions – employees who are not necessarily leaders –

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so as to promote self-discovery and instil brand pride.

2. How to effectively engage employees Building a strong brand requires that all employees feel connected to the corporate brand and understand their role in turning brand aspirations into reality. To build a strong corporate brand, you need brand ambassadors – employees who are thoroughly engaged.

“Promoting self-discovery among employees will engage them.”

A company should set the goal of attracting new brand ambassadors who will feel authentically drawn to its brand. Helping its employees unearth their greatest strengths and integrating them into everything it does is essential to its success and the success of its team, she added.

Prepping employees to be brand ambassadors will involve extensive and effective engagement with the employees. Mastura said a company was responsible for “instilling a sense of belonging” in every individual in the company, regardless of their seniority.

“Discover how to turn your staff into ambassadors for your brand.”

Companies should also strategies to make brand awareness among its staff a priority. “How can your team deliver on the corporate brand promise if they aren’t clear about what it is?

“As a leader, you must educate your team on the brand and live the brand so they can learn from your example.”

Strong brands are not built by the marketing department alone; every employee in the

organisation has a role to play, she said.

According to her, newcomers at Standard Chartered Bank are quizzed on a multiple choice test to ensure they are well-versed in the company’s credentials and objectives.

Most importantly, a company’s employee engagement or internal communications strategy needs to align with the overall business strategy and objectives.

3. Sustaining relationships with employees To sustain a communicative relationship with its employees, a company has to decide on the communication channels that appropriately meet its strategic objectives and goals, while keeping its employees engaged at all times.

According to Mastura, engaged employees are more productive, create better customer experiences and are more likely to remain with their employers. Thus, a company should connect on both a personal and corporate level.

“Your brand must promote greater two-way feedback with employees and actively respond to and communicate appropriately on feedback received.”

This will encourage more bottom-up communication and feedback, moving away from a purely “top-down” approach.

This exercise, she advised, can generate more “honest” reporting and feedback from employees.

"While many companies may focus all their branding efforts on marketing activities such as advertising campaigns and packaging, “one of the most powerful brand assets a company has is its people," she said.

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24/6/2015 3:10:16 PM

Advertising + Marketing’s MasterClass series is an ongoing programme of specialised workshops covering wide-ranging topics relevant to present-day marketing communications disciplines. One day in length and customised to ďŹ t the needs of marketers from various functions, each MasterClass course will enrich you with skills and tools to bring your competencies to a higher level.

Check out all upcoming courses here: WWW.MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.COM/MASTERCLASS-SERIES/MY

COMING UP Social media crisis management Date: 30 July Copywriting for Social Media Date: 5 August Innovation Question Formulation Date: 11 September Under the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), registered employers can claim rebates for trainings conducted by an overseas trainer/ training provider.

Contact Joven Barcenas, jovenb@marketing-interactive.com, +65 6423 0329 for further information on agenda and registration.

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WANT MORE BREAKING NEWS? SCAN THE CODE TO FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE INDUSTRY.

Sanitary issues Restaurant chain Secret Recipe’s halal certificate was revoked because of sanitary issues. According to a post on Secret Recipe’s Facebook page, this came in the midst of its expansion plans. The management of Secret Recipe assured customers on social media that all its “ingredients and preparation of products and food are in accordance to the Halal Certification Standards of Malaysia”.

Keeping roads safe Allianz Malaysia launched road safety initiatives that have included plans to organise road safety advocacy campaigns in schools, at accident prone areas as well as during major festivals to create road safety awareness among members of the public. According to Jabatan Keselamatan Jalan Raya (“JKJR”)’s Road Safety Statistics Book 2014, 80.6% of accidents are caused by human factors with fatal accidents mostly due to negligence.

4As sends warning The Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaysia (4As) issued a letter to Malaysia Airlines (MAS) regarding its pitch.

The airline had called for a pitch for its business with at least 15 network agencies involved. 4As executive director Kenneth Wong told A+M the intention was to protect its members and remind the client to pay agencies that did not win the pitch.

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A new appointment Public relations firm Edelman Malaysia appointed Christine Chang as its director of integrated brand and digital practice. She reports to Edelman Malaysia’s managing director Raymond Siva.

Before joining Edelman, Chang was group account director at Leo Burnett, where she led McDonald’s integrated brand communication work. According to the agency, the hire reflected Edelman’s evolution towards a communications marketing consultancy, alongside the firm’s core services in public relations.

Tourism Malaysia’s big targets Tourism Malaysia settled its digital pitch with the appointment of Kraken Interactive. The agency will work with Tourism Malaysia until 2017. The agency was awarded the account following a pitch held mid last year. Under the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan (MTTP) 2020, the government aims to receive 36 million tourist arrivals with RM168 billion in tourist receipts by 2020.

AirAsia denies BIG rumours AirAsia has denied it was in talks to sell a minority stake in its loyalty programme AirAsia BIG to private equity firms. Reported on several Malaysian media sites, AirAsia’s chief executive officer Aireen Omar denied the move saying that AirAsia BIG has “tremendous potential for growth”. Omar added that due to its growing network of partners, AirAsia BIG was expected to grow its membership to more than 20 million in the next five years.

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Banking on Affiniti Koperasi Angkatan Tentera Malaysia Bhd appointed Singapore-based branding agency Affiniti as its branding consultant ahead of its transformation from a Malaysian Armed Forces credit co-operative bank into a co-operative one.

Affiniti is tasked to spearhead the entire branding and marketing efforts, which will include the co-operative bank’s new name, brand story and strategy. The agency was awarded the account after a seven-month pitch against multinational agencies.

Media win for Vizeum IKEA appointed Vizeum for its media business across the region, which includes three markets in Asia: Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The incumbents were OMD in Singapore and PHD in Malaysia and Thailand. Vizeum’s appointment officially starts in September this year for a contract period of two years. The first campaign from the appointment will roll out in September. Both IKEA and Vizeum confirmed the appointment in a release.

Audi appoints Zeno Luxury car brand Audi appointed Zeno to handle its public relations account. According to an Audi spokesperson, managing director of Audi Malaysia, Immo Buschmann, has outlined goals to be the top premium automotive manufacturer in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, the Audi TT launched in early May with online and print advertisements for the “Daredevil” campaign. The car was unveiled at a gala launch event on 8 May 2015.

Boosting tourism As part of the Genting Integrated Tourism Plan, a premium outlet centre – Genting Premium Outlet – began its construction in late May. The Genting Integrated Tourism Plan is a 10-year development, expansion, enhancement, refurbishment and infrastructure master plan. The development will cover 600,000 square feet and is set for completion in Q4 of 2016.

The outlet mall will be built on Genting Highlands Resort.

Life’s blessings AIA Public Takaful (AIA Public) released a television commercial which made its debut on TV3, TV9, YouTube and Tonton. The new commercial formed part of an integrated campaign that AIA Public has launched to strengthen its brand. The new spot, titled Cubaan dan Rezeki Tiada Hentinya, is an extension of AIA’s The Real Life Company brand positioning and focuses on the challenges and the blessings individuals face in life.

Creative restructure Leo Burnett Malaysia announced a creative restructure following the hire of Andrew Low, who joined the agency as executive creative director. The creative council will see six of Leo Burnett Malaysia’s senior creative directors jointly take the creative helm of the agency.

They are Iska Hashim, group creative director; James Yap, creative director; Ian Lee, creative director; Christie Herman, creative director; Theresa Tsang, creative director of Alpha245; and Low.

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A new player The Malaysian e-commerce market has a new player called GEMFIVE. This platform is backed by Hong Leong Group, which according to The Star , has invested under MYR5 million into the online shopping portal.

GEMFIVE will be operated by GuoLine eMarketing which is an independent new private entity owned by the Hong Leong Group.

Moey Tan, CEO of GuoLine eMarketing, said there was a “huge untapped market” in the e-commerce realm in Malaysia.

Samsung’s No.1 Priority Samsung Malaysia appointed Priority Communications as its PR agency. The agency confirmed the news to A+M, but declined to comment further on the duties and products. A+M understands the account was handed to Priority following a pitch. The incumbent on the account was Lewis PR who handled the mobile range. Before Lewis, Samsung also worked with Edelman PR in Malaysia.

Norbreeze appoints Rantau Retail company Norbreeze appointed Rantau PR to manage its PR account. The six-month contract covers the Malaysian market. Norbreeze and Rantau started planning initiatives in May, which will go on until October.

Rantau is tasked to handle two of Norbreeze’s brands: Bering, a watch and jewellery brand from Denmark, and Cath Kidston, a lifestyle brand from the UK, providing apparel, accessories, home ware and furnishings.

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Stepping down Malaysia Airlines’ director of commercial Hugh Dunleavy announced his resignation from the company effective 31 August 2015. In a press statement, the company said it was conducting a search “to identify a suitable successor, both internally and externally”. Meanwhile, newly appointed CEO Christoph Mueller has taken over responsibilities as chief commercial officer effective 1 June 201 to ensure a smooth transition until an individual has been identified for the role.

Strength in numbers Design, technology and innovation agency VLT made a record number of hires in the second quarter of 2015 – totalling 19 new hires as of May this year. This expansion gives the independent agency its highest headcount yet, with more than 100 full-time staff, the agency told A+M. The diverse group of new hires consists of content specialists, designers, strategic planners, developers, client service specialists, a product manager and a lawyer.

NagaDDB adds to its stable PepsiCo appointed NagaDDB as its agency of record for its isotonic drink brand Revive.

NagaDDB won the account from BBDO. The agency is tasked to provide effective and cut-through communication programmes.

Business unit head Kevin Teh said the win represented encouraging organic growth to NagaDDB’s stable of brands under PepsiCo, namely Tropicana and Lipton Ice Tea. “It further demonstrates the client’s trust in us to take the brand to a new, differentiated level.”

WeChat continues to grow Mobile social communication app WeChat reached 549 million monthly active users globally, a jump from the 500 million users mark achieved three months ago. In Malaysia, WeChat boasts a 95% smartphone penetration rate. According to WeChat, the company is looking to expand the app’s local reach and relevancy to the Malaysian audiences.

WeChat works together with local partners such as Digi to achieve its expansion plans.

Subway consolidates Subway regionally aligned its media buying and planning account with MediaCom. The key markets for this alignment are Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, India and Korea.

The appointment followed a closed-door pitch with the company’s partners in the respective countries as well as its incumbents. MediaCom also handles Subway’s accounts in key global markets such as the UK, Canada and Ireland, which led to the regional consolidation.

Pitching for FairPrice According to sources, incumbents Havas Media, Maxus and Mindshare have made the cut on the media side for the FairPrice account. The pitch was first called in late February with an ad placed in the classifieds section of The Straits Times.

This is part of its periodic review which happens every two years.

Both Havas Worldwide and Havas Media have been working on FairPrice since 2008.

Million dollar makeover The Singapore Boat Quay is getting a SG$5 million makeover.

This comes after a majority of its stakeholders gave the green light for plans to enhance the outdoor refreshment areas along the promenade at Boat Quay.

Upon completion next year, diners and visitors can look forward to an “improved ambience and enhanced public realm”, said the URA. This project was initiated by Singapore River One to enhance the Singapore River precinct.

Taking it to the streets MINI’s brand activation campaign for the “MINI We Tow You Drive” programme saw the brand taking a test drive out of the showroom and onto the streets. The brand partnered with a tow service company to help drivers whose cars, of all brands, had broken down. The programme responded to breakdown calls in real time, with a MINI dispatched together with the tow truck.

Campaign to boost tourism Five hotel brands teamed up to launch an overseas marketing campaign, with ground travel products and services firm Gullivers Travel Associates spearheading the campaign.

The Ritz-Carlton, Resorts World Sentosa, Global Premium Hotel, FRHI Hotels and Resorts and Far East Hospitality are pooling in SG$2 million in funding for a marketing campaign aimed at boosting sluggish tourist numbers that have hit Singapore in recent years.

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Content push by FEH Far East Hospitality Management (FEH) launched a campaign called Far More Singapore.

The campaign was created by its agency partner Zeno Group Asia. FEH partnered with Zeno on strategy, content and engagement across all paid, earned and owned channels for the campaign to increase brand affinity in key markets across Asia Pacific. The integrated marketing campaign showcased how FEH delivers a far more authentic and unique Singapore experience to travellers.

Becoming a smart nation The Infocomm Authority of Singapore (IDA) has mapped out a vision to create a comprehensive data pool, with government agencies as well as corporates having access, to build new technical infrastructure. Called the Smart Nation Platform, the massive project is aimed at driving connectivity in Singapore, as well as creating a database to build new tech infrastructure on. This is expected to affect areas such as transport, communications, governance and business.

IKEA under fire Furniture brand IKEA came under fire for partnering with Faith Community Baptist Church’s controversial pastor Lawrence Khong to offer promotions to its members. Khong was in the limelight for openly opposing homosexuality and campaigning to maintain a law that criminalises homosexuality. The controversy stirred strong reactions from netizens.

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Wunderman wins adidas account Sports brand adidas appointed Wunderman as its social media agency of record. The appointment came following a pitch. The contract runs until the end of the year. Wunderman is tasked to handle all existing and future social media accounts for the Singapore market, and will offer adidas strategic support for SEA markets. Wunderman is also tasked to substantially increase adidas’ organic growth on social media.

AIA picks new media agency AIA handed Starcom MediaVest Group its media business in Singapore. The business last sat with UM Singapore. SMG’s scope of work includes media planning, performance marketing and content solutions. SMG’s win follows the recent campaign SMG’s Malaysia office created for AIA called “Letters for the Future”.

The campaign encouraged reserved Malaysians to express their heartfelt sentiments by writing letters to their children for a time capsule.

Unsung heroes FairPrice launched a movement called “For the Heroes in our Lives” to celebrate the nation’s 50th birthday. The campaign was a way for FairPrice to uncover everyday heroes who have contributed to society or towards the personal development of individuals in the community. The campaign invited Singaporeans to identify the unsung heroes in their lives and share their stories with the public.

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Insurance access Etiqa Insurance and Maybank is sponsoring the personal accident insurance for 3,000 low-income families in Singapore. Renamed as the Maybank-Etiqa Family Shield, this initiative expands on an existing community insurance programme by Maybank. Celebrating SG50, Maybank and Etiqa will jointly pledge SG$500,000 over three years for this programme. Each breadwinner will receive two years of free personal accident insurance coverage.

Breaking records P&G’s Head & Shoulders broke the Singapore Book of Records’ record for most number of #SGLargestGroufie Instagram uploads in four hours, with a final count of 1,111 uploads on a campaign it did. The anti-dandruff shampoo brand partnered with Spotify-powered The Music Run, sponsored by insurance company AIA, to start a movement of closeness and confidence through group-centred activities.

SIA hunts for media agency Singapore Airlines (SIA) is on the hunt for a media agency to handle its global media planning and buying services. SIA stated that interested agencies should have integrated marketing communication capabilities across offline and online media channels. The agency must have the reach and networks to match SIA’s global reach, along with a good track record in managing online and digital media and relevant experience in working with global brands.

Paragon appoints Neighbor Paragon appointed local creative agency Neighbor to create a series of tactical ads for the premium shopping mall. The scope of work includes rebranding ads for its sub-brands Paragon Medical and Paragon Junior. The first campaign to roll out is the spring summer 2015 promotion for Paragon mall.

NEA calls for media pitch The National Environment Agency called a pitch for its media buying business. According to GeBiz, the agency selected will be tasked with media buying and planning initiatives for its public education and communications campaigns.

The tender was put up on 31 March and closed on 21 April.

The contract is for a period of an initial 10 months with the option to extend until March 2017.

Powering up Battery manufacturer GP Batteries was appointed the official batteries partner for the upcoming SEA Games 2015. The third tier sponsorship involves about half a million dollars worth in goods, supplying all batteries required in the official SEA Games activities.

GP Batteries will charge up the lighting equipment and sponsor its alkaline batteries with the SEA Games official logo in 50,000 fun packs for the closing ceremony.

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Marriott expands services The Marriott International expanded its digital travel services through its mobile app partnership with Apple Watch. Members of the Marriott Rewards programme, who purchased the Apple Watch, are able to access Marriott’s mobile app for check-in and checkout. They will also receive an automatic receipt of roomready alerts, booking and review reservations as well as detailed directions to the hotel.

Scoot finds its spirit Scoot continued its jabs at Spirit Airlines and named its new Boeing 787 Dreamliner “Inspiring Spirit” after the airline. This comes after Scoot pointed out the similarities between Spirit’s logo and marketing collaterals and its own. When Scoot first found out about Spirit’s marketing tactics, the airline posted a video on its Facebook page highlighting the similarities between the two.

The video was narrated by CEO Campbell Wilson.

Helping out in Nepal Following the Nepal earthquake, brands quickly stepped in to offer their services and to raise funds for those affected by the quake.

As part of a disaster relief effort, Google and Facebook quickly activated apps for people to find their loved ones. Google launched a person finder tool to help people locate visitors and residents, while Facebook’s safety check helped to track those displaced from their homes.

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MediaCorp looks to Indonesia To push its digital revolution further, Singaporean media company MediaCorp has invested in a 52% equity stake in the KLN Group which owns several of Indonesia’s successful web portals. The partnership is aimed at delivering fresh experiences for consumers across the region, and creating innovative solutions for advertisers to embark on new approaches to reach customers and prospects.

FOX goes OTT FOX International Channels (FIC) has launched over-the-top (OTT) services in partnership with leading platforms in Asia.

FOX, FOX Sports and National Geographic Channel have been made available for OTT in partnership with leading platforms, including Avex in Japan, Tencent and its OTT partners in China, Astro in Malaysia and Cignal in the Philippines. These services range from SVOD, linear streaming to catch-up, and will offer FIC’s content across all genres.

Trendy jeans To strengthen its brand positioning, “Live your life”, American Eagle Outfitters launched #AEOLive Express, a campaign to encourage customers to be original and express themselves. Created by TBWA\Digital Arts Network\Hong Kong, the campaign launched alongside the Destroyed Denim line – a collection of ripped jeans – for the spring/summer season.

With the use of voice and word recognition technology, the campaign allows users to turn their mottos into temporary sticker tattoos.

Switching sides OMD Sydney appointed Gideon Hornung head of strategy for McDonald’s. He joins OMD from his role as strategic lead at Mindshare. With more than 10 years of experience in the industry, he has led the strategic product for a number of clients in Australia, including NAB, GE, Carlton & United Brewery and Danone. He has expertise in consumers and retail, having worked five years on the client side.

Audi goes along for the ride Audi and Marvel Studios teamed up for the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The film will feature the next-generation Audi vehicles alongside the next generation of Avengers characters. For the promotions, Audi released exclusive pieces of digital content available on the Audi brand’s Avengers: Age of Ultron website.

The brand also collaborated with Marvel’s comic book creator Stan Lee to create a digital short closer to the film’s release.

Porsche accelerates Porsche APAC appointed incumbent Accelerate Advertising as the regional lead agency for marketing communications.

The markets which the agency will handle include Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Brunei, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

Flying high British Airways appointed SapientNitro its global digital agency for its creative technology and social media activities. The account was last handled by OgilvyOne. Following a handover, SapientNitro will begin working for British Airways in July.

SapientNitro will work with other British Airways agencies such as BBH and Carat/iProspect.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS EXPOSED

Strip’s campaign captured the attention of its target audience through a bold showcase of shavers on Clear Channel’s out-of-home medium. The objective of the campaign was to expose the other salons’ dirty little secrets of unhygienic hair removal practices.

At a bus stop shelter along Orchard Road, Clear Channel’s six-sheet

panel was removed and half-filled with 2,500 disposable razors, while the other half displayed an electric shaver with hair remnants. The campaign ran on Clear Channel Singapore for four consecutive weeks from 9 April to 6 May 2015. Clear Channel was the creative agency behind the campaign that cost an estimated SG$10,000.

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PROFILE

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THILA MUNUSAMY, DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING FOR LEGOLAND TELLS REZWANA MANJUR WHY IT’S IMPERATIVE FOR BRANDS TO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF TRADITIONAL MEDIA. 58

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LEGOLAND Malaysia opened up in 2012 with a big bang. The team hired the director of marketing at Sunway Lagoon, Thila Munusamy (pictured right), to be the director of sales and marketing for LEGOLAND and to lead its marketing plans.

Since then, LEGOLAND has enjoyed growth and industry wide recognition. Just recently, it was awarded the BrandLaureate for Country Branding Award 2014-2015 for promoting Johor and Brand Malaysia as a premier destination for Theme Parks and Resorts.

I sat down with Munusamy to understand what makes a great marketing success.

Softly spoken, yet determined, she tells me that while digital is no doubt a focus for any organisation going forward, traditional still has its part to play. She remains firm in her belief that traditional media in today’s vastly digitised ecosystem still has immense value.

Each platform offers its own set of pros and cons. While the digital age has certainly created new avenues and means to convey a brand’s marketing message, sometimes you need a combination of traditional and digital to get the greatest impact, she explains.

This is a tactic she not only employs in her day-to-day duties in LEGOLAND, but in all her marketing roles.

“Consumers are getting very demanding so as marketers we need to keep up on which trends are working at any given time. Today, there are hundreds of advertising channels, so marketers are faced with a lot of choices. You just have to keep up to figure out which one works and which one doesn’t,” she says.

I ask Munusamy if LEGOLAND has felt pressure to grow the number.

“Definitely,” she says. “With each year, the number of tourists coming into Malaysia is increasing. So accordingly, the international footfall into LEGOLAND will also have to increase.”

China at this point, she says, is a secondary market. It falls under the same category as India and the Middle East which are all set to aggressively grow this year.

To push for these markets, LEGOLAND aims to embark on mass advertising campaigns and joint promotional campaigns with airlines and tourism offices.

LEGOLAND will also be working closely with partners to create special tactical promotions in these regions. Also, for its international consumers, the theme park will embark on a digital strategy as well as the use of B2B and B2C campaigns directly targeted at customers.

Marketing and exposure wise, LEGOLAND also works very closely with Tourism Malaysia. The tourism board actively helps LEGOLAND to attain media buys and ad space in international markets such as Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, India and the Middle East. In fact, when LEGOLAND first started out, it only had to pay for the creative costs, while Tourism Malaysia compensated it for the media costs.

“Partnering with LEGOLAND, Tourism Malaysia is also leveraging on the international image of the brand. It’s a win-win situation for both parties. It works both ways,” she says.

“We incorporate information from Tourism Malaysia into our marketing campaigns and they incorporate ours.”

"PEOPLE AROUND WILL TRY TO SELL YOU THEIR PLATFORM BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW WHICH ONE WORKS AND WHICH ONE DOESN’T." In particular for LEGOLAND Malaysia Resort, TV is still a key medium in creating visual impact and reaching out to consumers. Nearly 60% of its marketing spend currently goes to TV and 20% is on digital. The rest is split between press and radio and other marketing means.

“I think a big part of being a great marketer is about understanding your target audience and being able to find what appeals to them.

Another part is also understanding the mediums available for you to use to reach out to your audience with market research.”

Simply put, marketing is not just about chasing the next big trend.

Social media, she adds, has made marketing somewhat overwhelming at times because of the amount of information and possibilities present.

At the same time, marketers only have a limited amount of budgets and means to stretch their dollars.

“People around will try to sell you their platform, but you need to know which one works and which one doesn’t. Some of the methods for traditional marketing are tried and tested and will work for the target audience. Adding the digital element to it doesn’t mean giving up on traditional elements, it’s simply adding another dimension to the marketing mix.

“The idea is to not get carried away. We at LEGOLAND are very focused – we know Malaysia and Singapore are our core. Then, in the second-tier, we work in phases when targeting geographies.”

GOING INTERNATIONAL For LEGOLAND, Singapore and Malaysia are two of its key residential markets. Currently, 30% of its footfall is international and with the Malaysia government putting an emphasis on the Chinese market this year this is only set to grow.

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KEEPING IT FRESH From a galaxy far away or the spooky realms of ghosts and ghouls, LEGOLAND is known for its active PR during all periods seasonal. Just recently it launched a Star Wars-themed exhibition which showcased more than 2,000 well-known LEGO Star Wars models and iconic scenes from six Star Wars films.

It also launched a very successful special Halloween celebration for children last year despite no paid advertisements being utilised. Marketing initiatives were handled through “selected communication channels” such as newsletters, EDMs, park communications and PR initiatives held before school holidays in Malaysia and Singapore.

How hard is it to always keep things fresh then, I asked.

Enthusiastically, she says the limit to creativity is endless in a theme park setting. As a park, in its third year of operation, LEGOLAND needs a lot of new story ideas and concepts to keep its footfall on track and lure in repeat visitors.

While a creative arm comes up with attraction concepts, she explains her marketing team steps in early in the game to see if the concept will meet the needs of the local markets – this presents the team with new challenges and opportunities at every turn.

Coming from a hotel PR role and then soon after joining Sunway Lagoon, she adds that while those experiences were vital to her growth as a marketer, she no longer sees herself going back into the hotel industry.

“Unlike the hotel industry, in the theme-park world, there’s no repetition. I enjoy the strategising work here and putting things together for different initiatives. Theme parks present fresh challenges all the time and how interesting my work here gets depends completely on me.”

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ARE THESE THE FIRMS YOU SHOULD BE WORKING FOR IF YOU WANT TO BE A CMO? Here are the firms that most APAC CMOs have on their resumes, according to LinkedIn data.

Elizabeth Low writes.

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Earlier, A+M wrote an article on how many senior marketers and chief marketing officers have credited Procter & Gamble for kicking off their foundations in marketing.

LinkedIn has recently given us search findings on the companies in Asia Pacific most chief marketing officers have worked at before.

This was done across its network on professionals with the titles “chief marketing officer” or “CMO” for the Asia Pacific region, and the data was compiled on March 2015.

IBM comes in on top with 29 Asia Pacific CMOs hailing from it, and P&G and Unilever

second, with 22 CMOs hailing from them. Citi comes in third, with 19 CMOs in APAC hailing from its ranks. See the full list here below.

Interestingly enough, only two agencies were in this list – Ogilvy & Mather and JWT. We spoke to several of these firms on their marketing grooming strategy, and why they thought they were able to groom so many senior marketers.

Unilever Wendy Aitken Global marketing learning director Unilever has always grown its own talent – graduates join the business and there is a strong and consistent training programme which teaches young marketers career-long learning on the fundamentals of marketing and how we do marketing at Unilever, using best practice from inside and outside the company. The global programmes also incorporate a number of digital and agency partners, for example a Google Talent Exchange, to help develop and evolve the course. As marketers progress we continue to develop their fundamental marketing expertise, while also focusing on new Company

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APAC CMOs

IBM

29

Procter & Gamble

22

Unilever

22

Citi

19

Airtel

17

Standard Chartered Bank

17

Samsung Electronics

16

Microsoft

15

The Coca-Cola Company

14

Ogilvy & Mather Advertising

13

Johnson & Johnson

13

Nestlé S.A.

12

Deloitte

12

HSBC

11

Wipro

11

American Express

11

Commonwealth Bank

10

PwC

10

PepsiCo

10

Reliance

9

J. Walter Thompson Worldwide

9

GE

9

Philips

9

and emerging skills and other areas, including digital marketing and communications.

We also provide training to our marketers on Unilever’s sustainable living plan, which plays a strong role in attracting and retaining talent. The plan (launched in 2010) decouples growth from our environmental impact, while using growth as an enabler for positive social impact.

For example, marketers working with Dove are not only exposed to the best innovation in the beauty market, they are also helping boost self-esteem. Marketers working on the Lifebuoy brand are not only marketing hand wash, they’re also working on one of the world’s largest hand washing programmes to help save lives.

We have also surveyed our own graduates and we have found that around half of them highlight sustainability as the main reason to join Unilever. Having this sense of purpose in their day-to-day roles increases retention and productivity, as people care about what they are doing and can see the impact they can have on other people’s lives.

In addition to providing access to professional skills training, we encourage our marketers to build experience across the marketing discipline, working across different teams – from consumer insight to business development – and across different categories such as personal care and refreshments in order to progress in their career.

The increase of the use of digital in the workplace has provided new ways of delivering learning. In order to meet the needs of the business, we’re looking at how to make learning more agile and cost-effective, providing a blend of agile learning.

Technology is an enabler of this change which is really exciting and we are embracing this at Unilever.

Citibank Jerry Blanton Global marketing director, Asia and EMEA Acting regional marketing head Citi has a two-pronged strategy for finding, managing and developing marketing talent: (1) identifying talent internally and moving them across product and countries and (2) hiring talented marketers from outside the financial services industry to bolster specific areas of need. Successful or promising marketers are rotated into different countries and regional and global roles to broaden their experience as well as to share their expertise across the Citi network.

Citi is a strong training ground for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Citi is a global

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What do top brands do right with their marketers?

financial services brand that competes in very competitive markets where the local banks generally have larger presence, budget and share of voice.

To succeed in the way that Citi has in this environment requires innovative marketing approaches and creative uses of alternative media types since expensive mass media such as TV and extensive print is outside of most of our marketing budgets.

Delivering meaningful business results in a constrained environment requires significant creativity, adaptability and deep knowledge of the customer in your respective market. It also requires an understanding of emerging and changing communication/experience channels to reach our customers and prospects in an increasingly fragmented media environment.

Citi relies on a number of measures to gauge marketing effectiveness. NPS, brand preference and business performance are ultimately how our marketers and marketing programmes are measured and evaluated.

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That said, we believe strongly in a “test and learn” philosophy with regard to new ideas and we commit resources to trying new ideas and approaches that our marketing teams identify as worth exploring.

Samsung Irene Ng Vice-president of marketing, Samsung Electronics, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Our brand is aligned closely with the quality, design and innovation of our products and services. Over the years, we have successfully increased our brand value through marketing, sponsorship and advertising activities. Our marketing performance has been recognised as among the best-in-class, with Samsung ranked seventh in Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands” 2014.

This marketing excellence has not come about by chance. Samsung has a unique work culture defined by its strengths in quick decision-making and ability to implement a

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decision, which allows us to adapt to the everchanging IT trends.

This is possible because we have some of the best people in the world working at Samsung. What’s really important is nurturing them by creating the best working environment and to provide employees with the resources to achieve their full potential.

We give employees the freedom to be creative and to learn new things. We offer optimised career planning, with our marketers having the opportunity for on-the-job rotation to develop their skills across the full range of product marketing, retail marketing and consumer marketing. We also offer structured training courses, both classroom and online, covering areas such as customer service, retail excellence and scenario planning.

We have diverse and global talent in our company – across all ethnicities, genders, languages and regions. Samsung’s strength lies in our marketers across the region collaborating and learning from each other. We strive to gather our brightest minds at global

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and regional events and training workshops.

If they are not able to fly in across the region for these events, we offer online training as an alternative to allow them to connect and share best practices with their counterparts in other parts of the world, such as the US and Europe.

“Citi relies on a number of measures to gauge marketing effectiveness. NPS, brand preference and business performance are ultimately how our marketers and marketing programmes are measured and evaluated.”

Coca-Cola Elizabeth Suwanto Marketing capability director, ASEAN

Jerry Blanton - global marketing director, Asia and EMEA Acting regional marketing head, Citibank

For many years, our objective has been to build the world’s most loved brands in ways that fuel the sustainable value growth of our business.

This calls for a fusion of marketing art and marketing science, a critical skill of any good marketing leader.

From a talent and development perspective, in addition to the regular conversations with managers, we have disciplined routines to discuss our talents and develop strong talent pipelines. We track talent movements as they take on new challenges outside of their comfort zone (for example, outside of their function or home market) before coming back to be stronger leaders. We also review scope of work to see how to expand or stretch them to continue to learn and grow.

As part of marketing capability, we look at a variety of ways to groom marketers: • On-the-job experience: What roles or assignments would be appropriate to help marketers grow? How do we expand their scope so they are able to evolve from managing a brand to a category or a total portfolio?

• Mentoring/coaching: Apart from their manager, we believe it is important for marketers to identify mentors they can learn from.

• Training: We have a list of trainings that caters to various learning methods – from e-learning modules and classroom sessions to workshops that combine theory with application. With our concept of “leaders as teachers”, our marketing leads walk the talk in building capability and we ensure it’s embedded as part of what they do.

While we have a framework for growing our talents, there is no one right or correct way.

There is a need to balance market needs with talent aspirations, as well as to take into consideration market complexity, talent readiness, etc. The constant engagement with talents is critical, so we understand the situation and context and are able to provide the right and timely response.

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To groom marketing leaders, we organise development forums where our marketers experience “a day in the life of a senior marketer”. As they go through various simulation exercises, they will learn their natural strengths and identify potential development areas. This gives great insight into the design of their personal development plan, making it more effective and focused.

Ogilvy & Mather Alan Couldrey Chief talent officer, Asia Pacific Those of us who have been at Ogilvy for any length of time need to be careful not to sound arrogant when we talk about the culture of training and development that we believe makes us different. Hidden in the simple fact that many of Asia’s marketers have spent time at Ogilvy is the fact Ogilvy is constantly changing, always adapting.

Yes, some of the central tenants of David Ogilvy’s approach – that creativity matters above all, that you can be “gentlemanly” (or womanly) and still be professional and successful, that the more you know about who you are communicating to the more effective your work will be – those don’t change.

But anyone joining Ogilvy today would equally be learning about the continuous interactions of social media and the latest ways to work with data, mobile and user experience.

The brand has always come first – David was one of the first to see that and understand its implications. Today, advertising is part of a well-told, well-co-ordinated story that reaches consumers wherever they are, and on their terms. Keeping ahead of those trends is a challenge, and explains why Ogilvy is always on the look out for hires which will feed the process of transformation.

There is no better learning environment than to be on the same team as very bright, very driven, people. We do have formal training that explores the changing nature of the communications profession as we respond to clients’ changing needs.

But managers at Ogilvy learn most from

working closely with clients and live business issues. The familiar balance of “heart” and “mind”, of “logic” and “magic”, is as true today with grooming marketers as it has ever been in the agency’s long history. The skills may be changing, but the way to be sure those skills are relevant is to watch how they help solve real brand issues.

Ogilvy’s own internal research shows us, reassuringly, that our most contented professionals are those whose jobs involve the most diverse range of skills and challenges. Our structure is geared towards encouraging crossfertilisation of learning so that solutions can be found laterally that would simply not be possible otherwise.

And, of course, a high level of interconnectedness between teams and across national or discipline borders is essential for that – something that’s hard to replicate.

We have to be brave and open to the fact that not everyone will stay at Ogilvy for as long as we would like – there’s a big world of opportunity out there and markets are competitive. Nevertheless we try to ensure long-term career paths within the Ogilvy group are as challenging and rewarding as possible.

Transfers to other markets and different roles are part of the solution. And it is always very reassuring to see a high level of returnees over time.

We have three levels of training ongoing at any time: at a local level for essential skills such as presentation, client service, creative idea development, research and effectiveness and measurement; then regionally we have two sets of client-related training, one focused on introducing new skills that can help with client brand growth, the second focused on helping our service teams explore and develop their relationship with our own client base; and finally we have WPP and other long-term programmes that concentrate on the development of top potential and senior personnel.

As with all such things, it is the doing and the redoing of training that makes a difference – we are always vigilant to protect our learning time against the pressures of day-to-day business.

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LAST WORD

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6 SIGNS YOUR AGENCY’S WEBSITE IS GIVING EVERYONE A HEADACHE Is your site just a pretty face? asks Andrew Davy. high levels of creativity. In an attempt to show off their out-of-the-box techniques, agency websites too often become over-designed, as though over-excited creatives were given far too much free rein.

Here are some of the common examples that impact my experience as a user and which could ultimately lose me as a client: Just a pretty face This website may look good, but that’s where it ends. Far too little focus is on functionality and the attempt at originality renders the navigation confusing so nothing is where you would expect.

Mindless mover Animations can be exciting, but only when they actually add to the experience. Unnecessary movements and a clear case of flash fever make the user nauseous and ready to return to looking at the calming face of the Google homepage.

Don’t be a pill: Your site needs to get to the point.

I sit staring at a blank screen as giant blobs slowly descend, swirling around before deciding to settle down into the focal point of the website I had entered. My mind has already drifted and I soon forget why I came here to begin with.

The icons posing as navigation tools don’t seem to want to help and some of them lead to static images where any shred of relevance is lost on me. Minutes later I’m navigating another web world where everything is so minimalist I can’t decipher what they’re actually selling. The mouse drifts confusedly around the page. My head hurts. I need coffee.

The shortcomings of agency websites are nothing new, yet this is a struggle I regularly encounter when researching for many of our corporate events. It has me wondering – why are so many agency websites so poorly made?

Paul Cookson, CEO of the ad agency Ad Army, which specialises in web design, claims that: “Great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine.”

This seems blindingly obvious to me. A company’s website is the first point of contact for the majority of potential customers and first impressions are everything. Almost always, the difference between whether I buy something online or not comes down to how intuitive the website experience is.

I may not be a designer, but as a user I know that I crave the feeling of being in control. As soon as uneasiness creeps in and content crowds me, I get lost and I jump to the exit button.

More often than not people find themselves on agency websites simply for bites of information – a brief company history, portfolio of work and key contacts. Why are these often so hard to find at first glance?

The challenge for agencies trying to stand out with their website design is to achieve a balance between being functional and showcasing

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Barely there This website takes minimalism to a new level of pointless, being so minimalist that there isn’t anything useful on it.

Overly wordy This agency website simply has too much to say. Yes the internet is flooded with images and clever uses of typography can be refreshing, but if I’m overwhelmed with copy that is difficult to navigate and lacks contrast, I’ve already stopped reading and I won’t be coming back.

Lag, lag, lag Agency websites that try to add too many graphics, videos and icons every time I want to click, had better be worth my attention. Frankly, I’d rather not watch a video or wait 30 seconds every time I access a new section of the site. Testing the patience of potential clients is never a good strategy.

Playing it safe Having said all this, form and individuality is still important. This is the chance for an agency to really express itself without the constant pressure and frustration of a client on its back. Some agency websites are so staid that they become stale and un-engaging. This is no time to resemble characterless template WordPress sites – bring out the big guns and show us what you’ve got!

I don’t believe there’s a single solution to getting the balance right, but in this digital climate it’s an agency’s duty to constantly reassess ITS web design so it addresses both form and function.

Agency folks, by all means display creativity, but please stop giving me headaches every time I click on your site!

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