Marketing Magazine SG - AOTY 2016

MARKETING MAGAZINE SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION

AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2016

EDITOR’S NOTE METHODOLOGY JUDGES SPONSORS & PARTNERS OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR B2B AGENCIES BRAND CONSULTANCIES CONTENT MARKETING AGENCIES CREATIVE AGENCIES CRM & LOYALTY MARKETING DIGITAL AGENCIES EVENT MARKETING AGENCIES MARKET RESEARCH MEDIA AGENCIES MOBILE MARKETING PRODUCTION AGENCIES PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES SEARCH MARKETING AGENCIES SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCIES THE MARKIES

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Illustration: Kimberly Ong – kimberlamb.com (hello@kimberlamb.com)

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Rezwana Manjur, Deputy Editor rezwanam@marketing-interactive.com Vivienne Tay, Journalist viviennet@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 Johnathan Tiang, Sales Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Ee Kai Li, Account Manager kailie@marketing-interactive.com Erica Loh, Account Manager erical@marketing-interactive.com Laura Lai, Account Manager laural@marketing-interactive.com Ong Yi Xuan, Advertising Sales Coordinator yixuano@marketing-interactive.com Advertising Sales - International Sara Wan, Senior Sales Manager (Hong Kong) saraw@marketing-interactive.com Event Production Hairol Salim, Regional Lead - Events and Training hairol@marketing-interactive.com Event Services 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

Every competition – in order to stay relevant and engaged with its audience – must make changes from time to time. You see it everywhere: the Olympics is bringing back golf and launching rugby sevens this year; the Oscars recently expanded some of its categories to include more than five finalists; and if you're a fan of reality competition TV, you'll be familiar with how often shows such as American Idol, Top Chef or Survivor have mixed things up with new categories, judging criteria or new rules in general.

And the Agency of the Year 2016 is no different. One new AOTY category (B2B) and three new MARKies categories are all par for the course, but the real shift this year comes in the form of a completely new entry process; for the first time, finalists were not determined by a nation-wide survey, but strictly by our judging panel.

What makes this shift so significant is that 12 years ago, the Agency of the Year was entirely that and nothing else; a simple survey designed to gauge marketers' preferences regarding agency selection across key marketing services disciplines.

Three years on, the special edition was brought to life in the form of our first ever awards show. But the results were still completely based on the survey.

Five years later, in order to ensure that agencies were winning for the business they conducted over the previous year and not on name recognition alone, we added a second layer of assessment; and a judging process was born. The judging methodology remains unchanged to this day – agencies are evaluated equally on their overall performance, their body of work, their people

management and their general impact on the industry. But in order to get the opportunity to present to our judges, agencies still had to crack the top 10 (or top three for independents) in our annual survey.

Fast forward another five more years, and we have made the difficult, but necessary decision that we no longer need the survey.

Difficult because the survey was part of the awards’ DNA since inception, but necessary, we concluded, because of this simple and indisputable fact: if you think you're good enough to be Singapore's Agency of the Year, you should get to enter no matter what.

The rules have changed, but the game is the same; The Agency of the Year Awards is a platform for marketers to share their agency preferences with their peers.

We are honoured to have some of the best senior client-side marketers in the business on our jury, and hope it provides clients and agencies alike with a year-long practical synopsis of who really succeeded this year in the eyes of end-users.

Justin Randles, Group Managing Director jr@marketing-interactive.com Tony Kelly, Managing Director tk@marketing-interactive.com Marketing’s Agency of the Year is published 12 times per year by Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd. Printed in Singapore on CTP process by Sun Rise Printing & Supplies Pte Ltd, 10 Admiralty Street, #06-20 North Link Building, Singapore 757695. Tel: (65) 6383 5290. MICA (P) 180/03/2009. For subscriptions, contact circulations at +65 6423 0329 or email subscriptions@marketinginteractive.com. COPYRIGHT & REPRINTS: All material printed in Marketing 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 office.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in Marketing 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 198755 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 Marketing magazine, go to: www.marketing-interactive.com

Rezwana Manjur Deputy editor

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MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

Photography: Elliot Lee, Nikon Ambassador (Singapore) – 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

SAME GAME, NEW RULES

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METHODOLOGY

HOW THE FINALISTS WERE DETERMINED Since its inception, the winners of Agency of the Year have always won based on one constant: agencies are evaluated and selected by the end-users themselves – senior client-side marketers.

While that remains true to this day, the path to the AOTY shortlist saw a major revamp in 2016. Unlike previous years, where finalists were decided through an annual survey, the awards were made open to all agencies, and entrants could nominate themselves into any relevant category.

This shift towards a larger pool of entrants allowed for greater competition and a more level playing field, as less well-known agencies no longer had to worry about being excluded from the list based on a lack of awareness. Any agency that felt they stood a chance could now submit.

Staying true to the awards’ methodology, the entrants’ cases were then rigorously scrutinised by a jury of 23 senior client-side marketers from well-known brands across major industries in Singapore, including telecommunications, F&B, hospitality, travel, insurance, retail and banking and finance.

The judges (listed on pages 3-4) 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 any agency they had a direct working relationship with, either currently or during the evaluation period.

Criteria The entrants’ performances during the specified time-period of 1st January 2015 to 31st December 2015 were evaluated based on criteria that covered everything from business performance to greater contributions to the industry at large.

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%).

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THE JUDGING CRITERIA

How the winners were decided 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 independent agency (Local Hero) in each category were thus determined.

The agency with the most wins across all categories (or the highest percentage score if there was a draw) was duly granted the title of Overall Agency of the Year.

25%

25%

25%

25%

Performance Product People Perspective

WHY DID DENTSU SINGAPORE WIN OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR? POINTS SYSTEM

While any agency is eligible to win the Overall Agency of the Year title, this year’s top candidates boiled down to two agencies who ended on the same points tally: Dentsu Singapore and MRM//McCann. As depicted in the breakdown below, Dentsu Singapore clinched the honour by the narrowest

GOLD

4

SILVER

2

BRONZE

1

of margins, by receiving slightly higher percentage scores than its rival.

A POINTS TIE FOR OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR* AGENCY

GOLD

SILVER

BRONZE

TOTAL

Dentsu Singapore

2

1

0

10

MRM//McCann

2

1

0

10

AVERAGE

BREAKING THE TIE WITH PERCENTAGES DENTSU SINGAPORE

JUDGES SCORE

Brand Consultancy of the Year

78.33%

Content Marketing Agency of the Year

75.63%

Creative Agency of the Year

76.75%

76.90%

MRM//MCCANN

JUDGES SCORE

B2B Agency of the Year

68.33%

CRM & Loyalty Marketing Agency of the Year

75.00%

Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year

71.88%

AVERAGE

71.73%

* Ogilvy Public Relations, Ogilvy & Mather and Social@Ogilvy also combined for 10 points (and an average score of 75.29%) but do not constitute one agency under the awards’ criteria, as they do not operate completely under one P&L.

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THE JUDGES

YOUR AOTY AND MARKies JUDGES

Ana Lei Director of Marketing ABR Holdings

Stephanie Sng Director of Digital Marketing, Loyalty and Partnership AccorHotels

See Seow Ying Head of Marketing Burger King Singapore

Joleena Seah Director, Marketing & Communications Capella Hotel Group Asia

Yenn Lim Head of Marketing, Singapore Cerebos Pacific

Mayank Dutt Country Marketing Head Citibank Singapore

Priyanka Nath Digital & Social Media Lead Dell Singapore

Alicia Seah Director, Marketing Communications Dynasty Travel

Yen Ong Group Chief Marketing Officer ERC Holdings

Chester Tan Regional Lead CRM, Digital & Social Media FrieslandCampina APAC

Mark Liversidge Chief Marketer & Vice President APAC Hilton International Singapore

Lena Goh Chief Marketing & Communication Officer Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

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THE JUDGES

YOUR AOTY AND MARKies JUDGES

Joyce Tan Assistant Vice President, Marketing KidZania Singapore

Gaurav Gupta Marketing Director ASEAN Kimberly-Clark Asia Pacific

Agnes Lim Director, Marketing Communications Land Transport Authority

Alvin Lee Director Government and Public Affairs, Asia Pacific LEGO Singapore

Cindy Cheng Vice President, Head of Product Marketing & Customer Centricity Manulife Singapore

Vivian Sim Chief Marketing Officer National Gallery Singapore

Lee Kin Seng Director of Marketing Communications PARKROYAL on Pickering, Singapore

Jacqueline Ng Director, Marketing Planning and Partnerships Singapore Tourism Board

Lim Shoo Ling Director, Brand Singapore Tourism Board

Manisha Seewal Head of Marketing Tokio Marine Life Insurance Singapore

Nicole Worthington Chief Marketing Officer, Asia Pacific Jones Lang LaSalle

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SPONSORS

Overall Agency of the Year sponsor

Media Agency of the Year sponsor

CRM & Loyalty Marketing Agency of the Year sponsor

Market Research Agency of the Year sponsor

SMRT MEDIA SMRT Media is Singapore’s leading local OOH media company offering innovative media solutions across its diverse media spaces encompassing island-wide coverage on train stations, light rail, buses and taxis.

We have the largest digital OOH inventory in Singapore in addition to a growing network of over 213 trains, 99 stations, six bus interchanges, 1,282 buses and 3,593 taxis and 21.1 million passengers riding weekly, delivering unparalleled brand visibility to advertisers.

BBC BBC World News and BBC.com, the BBC’s commercially funded international 24-hour English news platforms, are owned and operated

by BBC Global News Ltd. BBC World News television is available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, and over 434 million households and 1.8 million hotel rooms. The channel’s content is also available on 178 cruise ships, 53 airlines and 23 mobile phone networks. BBC.com offers up-tothe-minute international news and in-depth analysis for PCs, tablets and mobile devices to more than 80 million unique browsers each month.

CPR VISION CPR Vision is APAC’s leading CRM, Loyalty and Digital agency and four-time winner of the CRM & Loyalty Marketing Agency of the Year since 2012. For 15 years, CPR has been a trusted partner of many of the world’s leading brands, helping gain maximum leverage from their data to build a sustainable and competitive advantage.

CPR has a refreshingly different approach to the traditional agency model, providing a unique blend of cutting edge creative and strategy that is underpinned by world class technology which enables CPR to be more agile and adaptive, with more effective and efficient solutions.

SSI SSI is the premier global provider of data solutions and technology for consumer and business-tobusiness survey research, reaching respondents in 100-plus countries offering the widest, most diverse access to audiences around the globe through its own panels, social media, online communities and affiliate partners.

Operating from 30 offices in 21 countries, and servicing over 3,000 clients worldwide, SSI is the only company to support every sample and data collection mode.

MARKies sponsor for Best Idea – Direct Marketing

MARKies sponsor for Best Idea – Out of Home Media

MARKies sponsor for Best Idea – Female Audience

DMROCKET DMrocket, a division of SingPost, aims to bring direct mail to the next level. It leverages the personalised and multi-sensory experience of direct mail, mixing it with the interactivity and performance of digital technology. At DMrocket, we help you make that vital connection with customers by using the language of the senses, delivered at real-time speed.

MEDIACORP OOH MEDIA Mediacorp OOH Media is the outdoor advertising arm of Mediacorp Pte Ltd. Appointed to manage all large format and digital screens in 321 Clementi, Bugis Street, Chinatown Point, iFly Sentosa, JCube, Jubilee Square, Junction 8, Orchard Gateway, Orchard Towers, The Star Vista, Westgate, as well as close to 1,300 bus shelters, on the move billboard trucks, coaches, WE Cinemas and various ambient advertising options such as 3D mapping projection.

NBCUNIVERSAL NBCUniversal International Networks, the international channels division of NBCUniversal, is one of the world’s premier entertainment portfolios, delivering quality content and compelling brands to over 176 territories in the world. The brands in the portfolio include Universal Channel, Syfy, 13th Street, Studio Universal, E! Entertainment Television, The Style Network, DIVA, Telemundo and Golf Channel. NBCUniversal International Networks is a division of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies.

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PARTNERS

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Event partner

Official wine partner

Official video production partner

SMSDOME At SmsDome, we believe that SMS has the power to enhance traditional marketing methods, bringing better results. We do it by creating touch-points that establishes direct communication with your customers.

We have a vision of creating successful customers with stronger brands through the power of SMS marketing. As such, we never stop innovating to find better ways to keep our services relevant – giving you instant targeted reach.

The reliability of our services is why companies in Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of Asia continue to trust us in what we do best – bridging our customers to their markets, simply.

CELLARMASTER WINE Cellarmaster Wines (S) Pte Ltd was created in 1996. And it has since become one of the most established and important wine importers in Singapore, committed to reliable business practices through integrity and foresight.

Cellarmaster Wines carries a qualitative portfolio of prestigious brands from all over the world, including South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Spain. Cellarmaster is also the exclusive importer of Riedel glassware in Singapore

GRAPHISS PRODUCTIONS From our humble beginnings in 2008, Graphiss Productions has proved to be a mainstay in the event and corporate video market. We are a team of passionate and dedicated professionals that come together to produce top quality work and help envision our clients’ ideas and concepts.

We offer a wide range of services that range from marketing and promotional videos for your company and products to training and interview videos.

We also offer event coverage in photography and videography for seminars, product launches, amazing races, and many more.

At Graphiss Productions, we take pride in bringing about the satisfaction you get upon watching your final product.

Let us tell your story, your way.

Official photography partner

Official beer partner

LIVE!STUDIOS Live!Studios pioneered Live Photography in 2003 when its CEO and founder, Willy Foo, wired his camera to a notebook carried in a backpack which was then wirelessly transmitted to the projector and web simultaneously. As the name suggests, it creates a lively and interactive event atmosphere.

Covering more than 700 events each year, they capture photos at precise moments and within seconds, project these images onto screens and have them printed out on credit card sized photocards for guests’ keepsake.

PERONI NASTRO AZZURRO Brewed in Italy to the original recipe since 1963, Peroni Nastro Azzurro exemplifies the traditions of Italian craftsmanship, passion and flair upon which it was formed. In Rome 1963, Birra Peroni first brewed what was to become its greatest and most famous export, Peroni Nastro Azzurro.

Created to reflect the emergence of Italian luxury in fashion and design, it was designed with the sharp, sophisticated beer drinker in mind.

Peroni Nastro Azzurro is gently brewed to give an intensely crisp, refreshing taste with that unmistakable touch of Italian style.

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OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

DENTSU SINGAPORE NUDGES AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION TO GRAB TOP HONOURS In what is a first in the 12-year history of Marketing magazine’s Agency of the Year Awards, Dentsu Singapore emerged the winner bagging the Overall Agency of the Year title.

The agency grabbed two golds and one silver across the Brand Consultancy of the Year, Content Marketing Agency of the Year and Creative Agency of the Year categories respectively.

The competition in no way was easy.

As explained in the methodology section of this magazine, there were two extremely strong contenders for the top spot this year – MRM//McCann and Ogilvy & Mather Singapore both winning the same number of trophies as Dentsu. It was down to the judges’ scores which made Dentsu the champions this year. (Refer to the methodology page to see how Dentsu won.)

The past 12 months for the agency have

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all been about streamlining and increasing business efficiency. It streamlined its thinking process to bring out Dentsu Singapore’s vision to “innovate the way brands are built”.

From proprietary brand innovation tools to the digitisation of day-to-day work, Dentsu Singapore is moving upstream. 2015 saw the fruits of these efforts. It won more commercial and government businesses, expanded its existing client scope, and upped its service offerings across the board, culminating in what the agency says was “the largest awards haul in a single year”.

2015 was also the year where Dentsu Singapore came to the forefront as one of Singapore’s brand-building powerhouses.

Many industry pundits termed 2015 the “year of convergence” as clients gravitated towards a single agency model to ease the burden of managing multiple agencies, given a fragmented media landscape.

Adding to this, Singapore was the only APAC market that received a negative growth forecast from Magna Global research. As an integrated agency, Dentsu seized the opportunity to differentiate itself. It not only focused on delivering upstream business solutions, and solving real business problems for its clients, but worked harder to help them translate campaigns into results.

Despite an uncertain and ultra competitive marketplace, Dentsu Singapore showed an impressive revenue growth for FY2015, as the year saw the agency win 10 new clients ranging from leading public sector organisations, upscale hospitality to healthcare and travel industries.

This diverse client base is a testament to Dentsu Singapore’s ability to create and deliver successful campaigns for prominent global brands.

At the heart of its existence is Dentsu

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OVERALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

“ The past 12 months for the agency have all been about streamlining and increasing business efficiency.

It streamlined its thinking process to bring out Dentsu Singapore’s vision to ‘innovate the way brands are built’. ’’ innovation navigator (DIN) – its proprietary brand innovation tool which was also ingrained into its culture and its way of thinking.

DIN ensured the agency worked with the top decision-makers/clients to help them derive their brand vision and then translate it into communications solutions.

The growth of the agency is mirrored by that of the holding entity Dentsu Aegis

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Network as well. The group has been growing its footprint globally through a slew of mergers and acquisitions.

Last year it made an initial 20% investment into Singapore-based creative agency Mangham Gaxiola to help expand the mcgarrybowen brand into Singapore.

The agency is now known as manghamgaxiola mcgarrybowen – a Dentsu Aegis Network company.

In Malaysia, it acquired Consider Digital which combined forces with Dentsu Aegis Network’s global performance marketing brand iProspect in Malaysia to form Consider iProspect. This was soon after it acquired Merdeka LHS in the market.

This year’s awards saw a total of 56 trophies given out amid the 800-strong audience to outstanding agencies in 14 categories of Agency of the Year Awards.

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B2B AGENCIES

LEWIS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Miek Gielkens, managing director, Singapore

THE WINNERS GOLD

LEWIS

73.33%

SILVER

MRM//McCann

68.33%

BRONZE

PHD Singapore

67.33%

LOCAL HERO

amc asia!

65.83%

THE FINALISTS Edenred Singapore Epsilon GetIT Comms Happy Marketer Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP The Hoffman Agency Asia Pacific

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Claiming top spot and winning gold this year is LEWIS. Commercially and operationally, 2015 was a great year for LEWIS in Asia Pacific.

The LEWIS marketing team provides both strategy and implementation resources to address most client marketing challenges.

Services offered globally span across brand, product and channel marketing.

Having dropped ‘PR’ from its name, it is now simply ‘LEWIS’.

From its beginnings in 1995 as a traditional PR agency, LEWIS has constantly and continuously strived to evolve. Today the company has a diverse portfolio of services covering public relations, print and digital design, creative multimedia, web and application development, SEM and SEO, social media and lead and demand generation.

LEWIS is a force to be reckoned with, proving to be one of the world’s largest and fastest growing employee-owned agencies, courtesy of its unique partner programme.

With no external shareholders, the people who work in the business, own the business.

The agency is seeing a huge increase in demand for paid media programmes – search engine marketing, online advertising and mobile programmes. It is this constant evolution that has enabled LEWIS to grow

every year since its inception.

Following the establishment of LEWIS in China in 2014, it expanded its APAC footprint in 2015 by investing into two owned offices in India. Covering two cities, Bangalore and Mumbai, the Indian office already carries both B2B and B2C brands. Singapore remains the APAC regional headquarters for the agency, which now has 27 wholly owned offices globally and 550 staff. In 2015, the company doubled its APAC headcount to 100.

Some significant milestones and investments for LEWIS in APAC include the relocation for new Singapore MD, Miek Gielkens from LEWIS Malaysia; the appointment of a new head of client engagement for APAC, Fairil Yeo; a new head of LEWIS Pulse APAC, Roman Kibe; and a new head of Malaysia, Ann Chong.

With the agency’s move into India, key hires included Rajiv Menon as head of Bangalore and Megha Thomas as head of Mumbai.

LEWIS hired its first ever digital specialist outside of the digital department into one of its core roles, enhancing its proposition of growing its senior leadership team in APAC, and giving a diversified background to its clients and team development.

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B2B AGENCIES

MRM//McCANN

In a wider perspective, overall business for the agency has more than doubled and the overall profit has increased immensely in the past 24 months.

From a new business perspective, the agency won many new clients. Some of these wins included Invisalign, Faber Peak, ResMed,

Far East Hospitality, Abbott and Nestlé. From a client retention perspective, MRM//McCann retained almost all of its clients in Singapore during the eligibility period. Continued assignments from its top clients drove a significant portion of its 2015 growth.

2015 marked its best performance ever from a creative perspective. From chefs and restaurant managers across Southeast Asia to IT decision-markers across Asia to chocolate lovers in the Philippines, MRM//McCann designed diverse B2B and B2C experiences across multiple platforms, which all shared one key creative tenet – to help brands play more meaningful roles in the lives of their customers.

HR initiatives in 2015 helped increased its team by 25 people and reduce staff turnover.

With a newly established policy to conduct all talent acquisition in-house, the agency also saved on recruitment consultancy fees.

Some key hires included Joel Acenas, who joined the team as head of the new digital media division; Menaka Seshakumar as head of the marketing automation practice; Jim Guzman to lead the social media and realtime marketing practice; journalist Keith Boi to drive its new content division; and Beatriz Ayrosa to co-lead project management.

it is able to attract and retain the best talent.

Staying away from the trawler-net approach to recruitment, it toured top universities to present PHD’s culture and career opportunities in a bid to attract fresh talent into the industry. Beyond industry contributions, PHD also believes in giving back to the community. PHD’s Big Hug was

formed as an annual charity initiative and in conjunction with PHD’s 25th anniversary celebration. As such, PHD Singapore rolled out Big Hug differently in 2015.

A series of initiatives were planned throughout the year with various contributions coming from individuals, teams and the agency-at-large.

Owned by : Interpublic Group Headed by : Nicholas Handel, managing director, MRM//McCann, Singapore

Clinching the silver award in the B2B category is MRM//McCann.

The agency put a continued focus on the business-to-business sector which now represents a significant amount of its revenues. It also made investments in marketing automation, CRM, media and UX.

PHD SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Media Group Headed by : Ang Wan-Gyn, managing director, Singapore

The winner of the bronze award for B2B Agency of the Year was PHD Singapore, which also celebrated its 25th anniversary globally. PHD’s heritage as the first planningfocused media agency has allowed it to differentiate itself, especially with its philosophy of putting communications planning first.

The results were apparent as PHD Singapore doubled in size in 2015. PHD is today one of the fastest growing media agencies in Asia Pacific. It is now mapping the purchase journey from end-to-end, managing tracking and the measuring of marketinggenerated opportunities.

Given PHD’s expertise in the B2B arena, more than 200 B2B campaigns were executed in 2015. The agency attributes its distinct culture and DNA as a differentiator in the industry and one of the key reasons as to why

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B2B AGENCIES

AMC ASIA! Owned by : Independent Headed by : Farin Salleh, general manager, Singapore

The winner of the Local Hero award for B2B Agency of the Year is amc asia!

2015 was a great year for the agency with significant improvements in productivity internally and externally with its client partners.

The year also proved to be the start of some amazing new partnerships where it won the confidence of several new clients such as Herbalife, IDA, National Gallery Singapore, Facebook and Samsung.

As a strategic events and experiential marketing agency, it has expanded its

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core offering – by going beyond events and bringing a new level of innovation to clients through the ability to design and conceptualise integrated campaigns that incorporate digital marketing as a key component.

As B2B campaigns formed a majority of its business revenue in 2015, some of the key projects included the Samsung Forum, HP Partner Forum, the Starwood Divisional Conference, Oracle Modern Business Experiences and the IDA Smart Nation Campaign, to name a few.

amc asia! prides itself on instilling full work and life integration to create a culture where creative, happy and satisfied employees look forward to contributing amazing work, an initiative called the Tao of Awesome.

It has been successfully running for four years since its inception in 2012.

To grow and develop the team, the agency has sent its members to overseas festivals, workshops as well as courses on digital marketing to meet with the demand – giving it a competitive edge to its pitches and campaigns.

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B2B AGENCIES

EDENRED SINGAPORE Owned by : Independent Headed by : JB Ray, managing director

Edenred Singapore enjoyed a great year creating sophisticated bespoke solutions for companies seeking to incentivise their customers, improve sales force performance and enhance customer loyalty with rewards programmes or social media-based digital relationships.

Its success story has been driven by the combination of a virtuous business model and a very powerful corporate culture. It combines the experience of its 50 years in business with the agility of a start-up, with a corresponding emphasis on expertise, creativity, responsiveness and open-mindedness.

Some incentives and rewards it offers include B2B and B2C rewards programmes and marketing services concerning the design and management of incentive programmes, including consulting and the design of pointmanagement technological platforms and analytical applications.

These solutions are integrated with a variety of technologies such as bar codes, QR codes, mobile apps and data analytics.

This not only provides clients with the ability to maintain market leadership, but also manage programmes which are simple and cost-effective.

In Asia Pacific, Edenred operates in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, with the team in Singapore focusing on B2B and B2C CRM and loyalty and rewards programmes for customers, dealers and employees.

Entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, performance, simplicity and sharing are the values that guide Edenred employees in everything they do.

Its employees are the fountains of creativity and performance, leveraging their passion for corporate services with close attention to the latest economic, social and technological trends.

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EPSILON

GETIT COMMS

Owned by : Alliance Data FHC. Headed by : Michael Kustreba, managing director, Asia Pacific

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Anol Bhattacharya, chief executive officer and director

Epsilon is a global leader in creating connections between people and brands.

2015 was a great year for the agency, with new investments in technology, which helped it navigate the ever-changing media landscape, along with key hires to strengthen its talent pool. Last year, Epsilon launched ShopperView, a new precision marketing solution for consumer packaged goods marketers.

This solution combines advanced data insights, industry leading cross-device media delivery and campaign measurement to increase campaign effectiveness through the power of one-to-one marketing at scale.

Epsilon ShopperView delivers a 360-degree insight into who consumers are, what they buy and why they buy. Conversant drives real-time media delivery of Epsilon ShopperView, providing a unique ability to match shoppers to all of their devices, cookies and cross-channel transactions with 95% accuracy, higher than anyone else in the industry. Conversant’s comprehensive one-to-one messaging is activated by years of historical online and offline data and 80 billion online actions per day to give marketers more opportunity to connect with the “always-on” consumer.

Epsilon made a key hire this year, with David Allen joining as managing director of international. In his role, he will be responsible for driving global expansion, leading strategy and overseeing the day-to-day business operations throughout the EMEA and APAC regions, including Australia, China, India, Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain.

It also launched Harmony Live, a new feature within Agility Harmony. Harmony Live allows users to insert contextually relevant content into their email marketing campaigns that adapts at the time of the email being opened open, based on subscriber preferences and relevant external events such as device, local weather and real-time information from social networks.

Agility Harmony is one of the first enterprise digital marketing platforms to offer native real-time content capabilities. With Harmony Live, digital marketers can elevate email calls-to-action with real-time interactive elements seamlessly.

GetIT Comms had a great 2015, with an increase in revenu while retaining key clients this year. The agency constantly acted as a strategic consultant to help clients gain traction among existing and prospective customers with a planned and focused marketing approach.

The Singapore-based B2B technology marketing solutions provider specialises in goto-market solutions such as account-based marketing, demand generation, prospect and competitive analysis, media planning and social media marketing. Clients include StarHub, Cisco, Dimension Data, SAS, Avaya, CyberSource, Visa and Maxis, among others.

New client wins include SAS, EMC, Maxis, Avaya and Cognizant.

Bhattacharya

Some key hires made at GetIT Comms this year were in India, with Jayan Narayanan as creative director; Sudhir Argula as country manager; and Vijay Ramachandran as content director. Dora Augustin was also promoted to art director and Joshua Johari as production director.

Its commitment to creating a holistic B2B experience is encapsulated in a few of its tools it uses to understand B2B marketing.

Its online B2B marketing journal B2Bento captures what is quintessential about B2B tech marketing in Asia, with a focus on Singapore, India and Asia Pacific as a whole.

It carefully curates content and news, covering the latest developments, views, how-tos and event coverage to empower the B2B tech marketer with an array of strategies, tactics and tools. This is further captured in its Back to Basics print B2B marketing journal and its distributed marketing resources under the Creative Comms licence.

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B2B AGENCIES

HAPPY MARKETER Owned by : Independent Headed by : Rachit Dayal and Prantik Mazumdar, managing partners

LUMINOUS EXPERIENTIAL MSLGROUP

THE HOFFMAN AGENCY ASIA PACIFIC

Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Tamsyn Barker, general manager

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Cassandra Cheong, managing director, Asia Pacific

Throughout 2015, Luminous Experiential Singapore continued to maintain strong longterm client relationships, while simultaneously winning many new clients drawn from a broad range of industry sectors, all with a focus on B2B marketing and communication.

Winning an array of key projects, both domestically and internationally, 2015 was an incredible year for Luminous Singapore.

Highlights included the opening of the integrated resort and casino, City of Dreams Manila; breaking Singapore Guinness World Records for Audi; working with three different financial institutions across the same event at Sibos; helping an iconic local institution UOB celebrate it 80th anniversary in grand style; and closing the year in fabulous fashion by running a 30-day exhibition for Louis Vuitton.

2015 proved to be a great year for Happy Marketer, having won client acclaim and increasing its B2B revenues by half.

As an independent B2B marketing agency, it saw a huge boost in commercial performance with increased year-on-year revenue.

With market-leading campaigns and exclusive Google qualifications, Happy Marketer helped redefine what marketing agencies should do in 2015.

It also strengthened its core offerings as Google’s only advertising, analytics and training partner in the region and developed a proprietary funnel for clients when it came to digital business transformation.

Some key hires were senior marketers Taru Jain as chief executive officer; Joe Escobedo as head of communications; and Belmond Victor as head of inbound marketing.

Happy Marketer developed frameworks to solve every major B2B marketing problem. These frameworks include digital transformation, user experience design, digital strategy planning, search strategy, social strategy and digital analytics.

They also launched an independent B2B training unit to upskill all of Asia with the launch of FutureMarketer in a collaboration with Maxential.

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In 2015, Luminous Singapore proudly conceived, produced and delivered numerous B2B experiences for audiences throughout the world, but of course, with a focus on Asia Pacific.

Reaching thousands of audiences globally, these tailor-made experiences were specifically crafted to engage, excite, entertain and educate while delivering a client’s B2B communication goals.

The Luminous team offers full-service experiential solutions in-house, including creative, strategy, content creation, logistics, production, 2D and 3D design, technical planning and execution, digital media, show direction and on-site management.

In 2015, it continued to conceive and produce outstanding campaigns and experiences, corporate, public and media events, galas, ceremonies and launches, conferences, corporate videos and digital media for a wide range of clients.

What a year for growth it has been for The Hoffman Agency Asia Pacific. It grew the business, doubled the team and surpassed career goals for its individuals.

Through empowering individuals, going wider and nailing digital tools, it managed to increase in new business leads, resulting in positive client growth. The agency eventually recorded a significant rise in profit from 2014 to 2015.

While it continued to engage with clients in the technology space, it also diversified with accounts from corporate and lifestyle sectors.

As an office of storytellers and content generators in its own right, the Hoffman Agency has in-house digital expertise and has won numerous awards over the past three years for its client work. In 2015, it introduced the Hoffman graduate trainee programme which sourced several great new additions to the team.

In partnership with NP and SP, it also took on the role of mentoring students during their final year projects to help them understand the intricacies of what a campaign entails.

Aside from industry work, the agency also found the time for company wide “give back”’ activities such as working in local soup kitchens or putting its skill sets to work through pro bono engagements with BoP Hub, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Wheels@Ubin.

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

DENTSU SINGAPORE Owned by : Dentsu Aegis Network Headed by : Rosalynn Tay, chief executive officer, Dentsu Aegis Singapore

Coming out on top with the gold award in the Brand Consultancy of the Year category is Dentsu Singapore.

With new client wins ranging from leading public sector organisations, upscale hospitality and healthcare and travel

THE WINNERS GOLD

Dentsu Singapore

78.33%

SILVER

DDB Group Singapore

73.50%

BRONZE

Brand Union

70.83%

LOCAL HERO

A. S. Louken Group

70.00%

THE FINALISTS Activiste antics@play DIA Brand Consultants Interbrand TBWA\Group Singapore The Bonsey Design Partnership

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industries, the most impressive growth of all was achieved by expanding the scope of work with existing clients.

After streamlining its thinking process to come closer to its vision to “innovate the way brands are built”, Dentsu Singapore moved upstream with proprietary brand innovation tools to digitisation for day to day work.

It designed and implemented its proprietary brand innovation tool Dentsu Innovation Navigator (DIN).

DIN not only became its brand innovation tool, but was also ingrained into its culture and way of thinking.

It ensured Dentsu worked with the top decision-makers/clients to help them derive their brand vision which is then translated into communications solutions.

Some key campaigns included Canon: Photo Face-Off which utilised smartphone cameras. It generated unprecedented results for the brand and is now an annual campaign for Canon in the region as a regional content platform.

Other successful campaigns were for Great Eastern Insurance, and Singapore Navy which generated more than a million views within a month; and Uniqlo Street Tales which combined real-time GPS technology with creativity which helped generate sales.

It was also the mind behind the Land Transport Authority of Singapore’s Graciousness campaign. Dentsu Singapore crafted five characters to champion the message of thoughtful behaviour among the commuters of Singapore. The entire campaign was strategised around a real-time content strategy which enabled the audience to engage with the thoughtful characters across multiple digital content platforms.

To innovate the way brands are built, Dentsu has created a diverse culture that lives and breathes creative thinking, investing heavily on employee training and leadership programmes. It drove the business through employee development programmes, forging digital partnerships with Google and collaborating with Twitter, Facebook and the Mobile Marketing Association to influence people capability, manpower planning/flows, recruitment, development and training with associated cost scenarios.

In December 2015, Dentsu Singapore organised a variety of CSR activities for employees to participate in by either spending a morning or contributing their support by helping to raise funds for the following – Cat Welfare Society, Food Bank, Fei Yue Senior Activity Centre or the Sunshine Welfare Action Mission.

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

DDB GROUP SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : David Tang, CEO, DDB Asia president and CEO, Singapore Winning the silver award for Brand Consultancy of the Year is DDB Group Singapore. The agency had a great 2015, with key client wins such as Johnson & Johnson, Ministry of Education “Teachers”, Changi Airport “Jewel”, SC Johnson, MediShield Life and the very lively Pioneer Generation Package campaign – done in local dialects.

With a team of more than 40 technologists, DDB has created five new waves of digital work: web, apps, social-tostore, portals and retail assets.

It has gone into upstream digital work, creating e-CRM apps, predictive logic, e-stores and store activation.

Mobile marketing has also been a key focus, where it created award-winning apps for McDonald’s, StarHub and RSAF, as well as white-label app solutions for its other clients, Courts, SG50 and Heineken. Beyond conventional websites, DDB has brought a new level of creativity to online engagement with sophisticated gaming, social content, infographic content and social commerce.

Its focus on e-commerce and earned media led to the launch of Track in February 2015 (rebranded from Rapp), with a new marketing focus on e-commerce and enterprise solutions for key clients StarHub, Courts and Keppel Land.

DDB has also contributed to nationbuilding projects with the SG50 and Pioneer Generation Programme.

In addition to these, it worked with A*Star and Exploit Technologies to brainstorm, review and consult on the development, adoption and go-to-market

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approach for interactive media and analytics products. The year was also met with some key hires, with David Tang becoming CEO for both DDB Asia and DDB Singapore.

Neil Johnson was also promoted to executive chairman for DDB Group Singapore.

Jeff Cheong became Tribal Asia head and Rowena Bhagchandani was promoted to managing director for DDB and Track.

In fresh talent, Paolo Agulto was hired as creative group head, while Clement Soh joined from Sephora as group e-commerce head.

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL, SINGAPORE

Digital marketers are now faced with management teams that are more and more, equating ‘performance’ with ROI and nothing else. And in the evolving digital landscape - with emerging technologies, alternative attribution models and savvier consumers as well as real threats to measurability and reach - including ad fraud and adblocking, how can marketers make their ad spend deliver?

Marketing Magazine is here to discuss these issues and the next stages of performance marketing at the second annual Digital Performance Marketing conference. Get involved and hear from digital experts from the region.

Speakers to be announced soon!

Pre-early bird rates (save 20% if you book by 18 June!)

Client-side marketers: SGD 790

Solutions providers: SGD 1,490

www.marketing-interactive.com/performance-marketing/sg Contact: Attending the conference: Bernadine Reyla: +65 6423 0329 +65 97735523 bernadiner@marketing-interactive.com

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Knowledge Partner: Sponsorship and advertising opportunities: Johnathan Tiang: +65 6423 0329 johnathant@marketing-interactive.com

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

BRAND UNION Owned by : WPP Headed by : Po Kay Lee, managing director

Coming in strong with the bronze award for Brand Consultancy of the Year is Brand Union, which saw a great year with new partnerships with tech start-ups intent on transforming the mobile and banking sectors.

It advises consumer brands on how to maximise a meaningful standout at point-ofsale today, while helping them to envisage how their category will look in five or 10 years time. This has helped government-linked organisations to rationalise and become more competitive.

Through the process, Brand Union has continually adjusted its own skills and modes of delivery to ensure readiness to lead client businesses through the disorientation of change to a position of future confidence, ever ready to adapt and compete in the changing landscape.

In 2015, Brand Union Singapore continued to strengthen its client base, resulting in its fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth. It remains a Singaporecentric business with over half of its revenues

in 2015 coming from brands based locally, including some of Singapore’s most influential organisations such as Singtel, SGX, Singapore Airlines and Temasek. With its Singapore portfolio, its international influence continued with clients such as GSK and Ooredoo.

In the past year it has managed the brand

transition of three of the region’s leading telco brands – Singtel, Indosat Ooredoo and Telekom Malaysia, as well as creating a new Malaysian mobile challenger brand, a firstmover online insurance business in India, and developing Indonesia’s first pure-play digital banking offer.

ZERO TO HERO You might think running an agency is tough, but try running across 10 kilometers of harsh terrain just to keep you and your family alive.

Ground Zero – Run for Humanity gives you a taste of what it’s like to live in a disaster zone and literally have to run for your life.

Go on, feel like a real hero. Sign up at www.groundzerorun.com using the special promotional code FPBRANDUNION and get 15% off the race fee.

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Organised by:

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

A. S. LOUKEN GROUP Owned by : Louken Group Headed by : Luke Lim, CEO and founder

Claiming the Local Hero title is A. S. Louken Group. Having spent 16 years in the business, A. S. Louken’s expertise spans market research, brand creation and enhancement, internal branding and training, and digital and brand activation.

From its birth in 2000, it has consulted for 1000 enterprises across Singapore and Asia, elevating them to market-leading brands.

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Revenue increased due to an increase in project size, diversity in the clients’ base and its value-added digital and brand activation services in support of its brand growth mission. The agency experienced robust growth in 2015 in revenue as it expanded the team, acquired bigger contracts, while improving efficiency. It has also seen a significant increase in the number of clients – local and overseas.

With a consistent client satisfaction score of 85% in 2015, client feedback was conducted twice during the projects’ middle and end-term stages.

Scores are calculated from a basket of indicators such as knowledge and skill,

attitude, project quality, communication and overall project management.

Providing a comprehensive suite of services for the brand growth needs of enterprises based in Asia, the agency’s expertise includes market research, brand creation, brand enhancement, internal branding, innovation strategy, design and communications, digital and offline brand activation. Key campaigns included HomeTeamNS – revitalising an NSmen association inside and out; Fagerdala – repositioning a foam manufacturer; Hegen and WTS Travel. Key hires were also made with Cleef Chong joining as senior project manager.

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

ACTIVISTE

ANTICS@PLAY

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Kim Faulkner, CEO and founder

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Winnie Pua, managing director

Activiste is a multi-faceted brand impact consultancy focused on orchestrating change for businesses and within organisations, with customised programmes to suit specific client needs. Key clients include the National University of Singapore, the National University Hospital, JTC Corporation, Motorola Solutions (Clarigo), Bank Danamon, Bank BTPN, Singapore Mediation Centre and Sampoerna School System, among others Working with a network of strategists, researchers, designers, communicators and functional specialists, it seeks to recast the work of strategy as a rich, people-centred and results-oriented activity that is analytical and creative. It offers integrated solutions encompassing market research – customer segmentation, brand equity studies, brand architecture and other services.

2015 was a great year for antics@play, scoring record figures for clients and itself, and retaining all of its retainer clients.

The agency rightfully finds a place in the top 10 brand consultancies in Singapore.

Key clients include Schroders, ColorWash, Essilor, Ascendas, IDA (Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore) and MCI (Ministry of Communications and Information). A handful of SMEs and MNCs also joined its portfolio such as Her Velvet Vase, Meiji and Reno Cube.

Starting in 2009 with two staff, antics@ play grew from a six-person team in 2014 to 10 in 2015, beefing up its creative, brand and operations teams as well as adding a dedicated PR arm. Its rebranding in 2015 was no minor facelift, with the shedding of integrated marketing services and focusing on being a brand and PR agency, where everything done is brand-led, play-inspired, strategy driven, process-oriented and experience-focused.

For 2016, it is pushing with the same, if not bigger hearts and playful spirits, to beat its own records and deliver even better results.

BONSEY DESIGN Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jonathan Bonsey, principal creative and executive officer Making it onto the finalist list is Bonsey Design. It sees itself an an independent brand architect dedicated to building iconic brands with sustainable impact.

It has a presence in the Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, China and Singapore markets.

In 2014, Bonsey Design partnered with Sydney-based international marketing collective The Jaden Group to launch Bonsey Jaden, a new digital branding agency in Singapore.

The birth of this new digital arm added a whole new dimension to the brand-building business of Bonsey Design, enabling the intimacy, constancy and connectivity of digital to amplify the power of brand design.

Revisiting Bonsey Design Jaden’s top moments for 2015, few of its favourites included the work it did for brands such as Epson, Asia’s Got Talent, Cetaphil, Pos Malaysia, Mediacorp and Cebu Pacific.

together… …we discover, develop and deliver physical and digital brand experiences with sustainable impact that drive business in Asia. bonsey design | jaden, brand architects™ of the customer experience.

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bonseydesign.com

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BRAND CONSULTANCIES

DIA BRAND CONSULTANTS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Nigel Smith, CEO

DIA Brand Consultants did well in 2015, with no clients lost and an increase in profit and revenue. It maintained its stronghold with a good mix of public and private sector clients, ranging from food and beverage, beauty services and publisher outlets.

Key clients include WDA – Singapore Workforce Development Agency, National Heritage Board, Sport Singapore, National Library Board – library@orchard, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Olam International and others.

As a regional strategic branding and design consultancy, DIA Group maintained a consistent team size of 26 staff. Quentin Berryman joined DIA as creative director in 2015, bringing with him more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.

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INTERBRAND Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jonathan Bernstein, general manager and executive director Interbrand has had a solid year of growth, deepening its relationships with clients, its thought leadership and talent.

Using research, analytics and creativity to gain a clear and deep understanding of unmet needs and opportunities related to brands, customers or markets, it helps to create value for businesses. The Singapore business for the agency covers Southeast Asia markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and China. Its key clients include Huawei, Standard Chartered, OSIM and Crystal Jade, to name a few.

It strengthened its new business, regional channel strategy and in-market client service support over the past year with new hires, and brought in new talent to enhance its digital deliverables and specialist verbal practice.

Its global network continues to recognise talent and promote from within with three senior promotions. Key senior hires in 2015 included Jaime Chua as director of client service; Riccardo Ottolenghi as business director; and Nitin Das Rai as senior consultant/verbal specialist.

TBWA\GROUP SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director TBWA\Singapore led the charge across Asia as the designated regional headquarters for the region across creative, production and digital.

It strengthened relationships with existing clients through Disruption® and delivered solutions across all aspects of client communication. There was increased organic growth of existing clients, with MasterCard becoming one of its top five regional clients, and Singapore leading the way for Apple, Airbnb and Nissan in Asia.

Key promotions included Philip Brett as president of Asia TBWA; Tuomas Peltoniemi as president of Asia, DAN; and Peter Short as general manager for eg+ Asia.

Following Ara Hampartsoumian’s appointment as MD for TBWA\Group Singapore in July 2014, key structures were put in place to improve operations. TBWA\ Singapore also invested heavily in data and analytics to provide more accurate, relevant and real-time intelligence with tools such as Synthesio, True Social Metrics, and Right Intel.

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CONTENT MARKETING AGENCIES

DENTSU SINGAPORE Owned by : Dentsu Aegis Network Headed by : Rosalynn Tay, chief executive officer, Dentsu Aegis Singapore

Taking home the gold award this year is Dentsu Singapore for the Content Marketing category. 2015 was the year that many industry pundits termed the “year of convergence” as clients gravitated towards a single agency model to ease the burden

THE WINNERS GOLD

Dentsu Singapore

75.63%

SILVER

Publicis Singapore

68.50%

BRONZE

King Content (SG)

62.50%

LOCAL HERO

QED Consulting

60.63%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising Brand New Media Singapore GetIT Comms KRDS Singapore Mediatropy Digital Agency Tribal Worldwide Singapore

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MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

of managing multiple agencies, given the fragmented media landscape.

As a leading integrated agency, Dentsu Singapore seized the opportunity to differentiate itself. Dentsu Singapore not only focused on delivering upstream business solutions and solving real business problems for clients, but worked harder to help them translate campaigns into results.

And the agency was not shy to showcase its achievements. New business wins were featured across digital and offline mediums to further portray its achievements as well as new appointments.

In fact, 2015 saw Dentsu Singapore win a number of new clients ranging from leading public sector organisations, upscale hospitality to healthcare and travel industries.

This diverse client base is a testament to Dentsu Singapore’s ability to create and deliver successful campaigns for prominent global brands.

The agency streamlined its thinking process to bring out Dentsu Singapore’s vision to “innovate the way brands are built”.

From proprietary brand innovation tools, to digitisation of day to day work, Dentsu Singapore is moving upstream.

The year 2015 saw the fruits of these efforts as the agency won more commercial

and government businesses, expanded its existing client scope, and upped its service offerings across the board.

2015 was the year where Dentsu Singapore came to the forefront as one of Singapore’s brand-building powerhouses.

Internally, the agency also designed and implemented its proprietary brand innovation tool: Dentsu innovation navigator.

The Dentsu innovation navigator not only became the agency’s brand innovation tool, but it was also ingrained into its internal agency culture and way of thinking.

The Dentsu innovation navigator ensured the agency worked with the top decision-makers/clients to help them derive their brand vision and then translate it into communications solutions.

To innovate the way brands were built, Dentsu Singapore also saw the need to create a diverse culture that lives and breathes creative thinking. The agency’s human resource strategy was based on uncovering the innovative thinking ability of its individuals. As such it invested heavily in training clients in-house.

“We didn’t focus on solely hiring award winners. We wanted to build a team of square pegs in a world of round holes,” the agency said.

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CONTENT MARKETING AGENCIES

PUBLICIS SINGAPORE Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Lou Dela Pena, chief executive officer 2015 saw an increasingly competitive landscape, challenging Publicis’ outlook for the year. This was because in the area of content marketing, creative agencies in Singapore were facing competitive pressure on two fronts.

On one end, independent specialist shops were and still are stealing share with competitive pricing and incredible agility on delivery; and on the other, media and PR agencies were fast attacking content creation briefs in an effort to grow their own share of the pie.

Publicis Singapore responded by building a new content marketing integration model.

This bagged it the silver award this year. How this integration works is the agency examined how content could play a role in each brief, and looked for opportunities to take client briefs beyond their original scope.

This led to more diverse approaches to briefs and problem-solving, as well as content

solutions that delivered amazing for clients.

The integration model allowed the agency to have content driving multiple marketing agendas. Singapore was established as a centre of excellence in digital marketing, excelling in social, digital and content marketing, and in turn, growing its specialist services in healthcare, luxury and technology consultation.

The agency also revisited its effectiveness, and set a new standard for success. It created a type of report card for success with clients.

Beyond brand and business metrics, it also measured the content’s effectiveness in helping lead the change for its clients in their own marketing transformation.

The agency also believes that ideas can

come from anywhere and anyone, so to get as many ideas out of its people, it now conducts ideation workshops every week on both client and pitch businesses. Senior suits, creative, social and content managers are all trained in ideation workshop techniques.

In 2015, the agency brought together a unique combination of people with diverse skills in data, creative and user experience to further elevate the quality of its social work and content. Key hires included two of Singapore’s most highly rated and respected young creative leaders – Troy Lim and Jon Loke who joined as co-ECDs. To shape and inform content from an editorial perspective, it brought onboard Carlo Reyes Coloma as creative content lead.

and platforms for social listening and SEO development, and King Content providing the entire suite of content marketing solutions, it is now a one-stop digital service provider.

From market and customer insights, analysis and building strategy to producing relevant content, leveraging amplification channels and providing in-depth postresearch and intelligence.

The agency also opened offices in Hong Kong and Perth, in addition to its offices in London, New York, Melbourne, Singapore and Sydney. The maturing of the industry also saw King Content Singapore restructuring

its overall focus and process in how it approached content marketing for its clients, moving from being an editorial content provider to strengthening its expertise in strategy and integrated planning.

In 2015, King Content also established, cultivated and leveraged strategic partnerships with complementary service providers. By collaborating on planning, ideation and amplification with LinkedIn, Outbrain, Getty Images and NewsCred, it is now able to offer clients unique insights and opportunities for optimisation and differentiation across a variety of platforms.

KING CONTENT Owned by : Isentia Headed by : Peter Bakker, head of Asia Taking home the bronze award in 2015 is King Content. With more and more businesses in the region discovering the value of content marketing in driving their business goals, King Content Singapore has carved out a comfortable position for itself.

The agency has more than doubled in size. It hired five new staff, witnessed a tremendous growth in regular accounts and added several blue-chip names to its portfolio. Globally, its acquisition by Isentia has also strengthened its position in the content marketing industry.

The combined effort of the two agencies now offers a 360-degree indepth solution across the entire content marketing ecosystem, providing the tools and capabilities to disrupt the industry through the combination of technology, creativity and strategy.

With Isentia providing the analytics tools

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CONTENT MARKETING AGENCIES

QED CONSULTING Owned by : Independent Headed by : Ryan Lim, principal consultant and founding partner, Natasha Zhao and Freda Kwok, principal consultants

QED Consulting is a digital management consultancy that helps businesses and organisations leverage on digital opportunities more effectively and drive growth by bridging the art of business with the science of digital. It is also the winner of the Local Hero award this year for the Content Marketing category.

The agency expanded its portfolio in 2015 beyond Singapore to Malaysia and the Philippines.

The growth was spurred by an increase in awareness and investment by organisations in the region in owning their content and digital communications capabilities. This need aligned with the

offerings of QED – a proponent and expert at helping businesses develop their internal competencies to better integrate digital.

Last year the agency saw no departures.

In fact, an additional headcount of operations executive was added. QED’s principal consultants – Ryan Lim, Natasha Zhao and Freda Kwok – are the drivers of both client acquisition and strategy development.

They also jointly develop the various proprietary tools and frameworks that QED uses as the foundation of its practice.

They are supported by a team of consultants and executives who oversee research and share responsibilities for managing projects.

The team is trained across expertise and exposed to varied industries to develop its adaptability and accelerate learnings.

Hotel Properties Limited, OCBC Bank (corporate communications) and SMRT Corporation (employer branding).

It continued to execute numerous iconic projects such as the branding and launch of Addiction Recovery College with NAMS – Singapore’s first college for addictions.

Some key client wins included pitching for and winning multiple government campaigns.

Within a short span of four years, it has managed to position itself as the independent content marketing agency with the largest portfolio of healthcare clients as well.

is acquisition and creation where an editorial plan, is delivered according to an agreed timetable.

Following that is platforms and publication, which is a content hub that allows for intuitive navigation and an organised structure to ultimately drive response from key audience targets.

This is all followed by outreach and distribution where a syndication plan distributes content across existing transmedia platforms. This is then coupled with engagement and amplification which is

a comprehensive programme of investment across key verticals to drive audiences into the content hub.

Then analysis and optimisation comes into play where an aggregated data solution enables the full tracking of audience activity that enables the optimisation of content publication, distribution and amplification strategies. Lastly there is outcomes and activation, a set of direct response mechanisms that allow target audiences to progress down the purchase funnel through awareness, interest and desire.

ADDICTION ADVERTISING Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director 2015 was a wonderful year for Addiction Advertising, with a 100% retention rate for key clients such as the National Healthcare Group, Agency for Integrated Care, National Addictions Management Service (NAMS),

BRAND NEW MEDIA Owned by : Independent Headed by : Damien Bray, CEO, Asia Pacific Another fierce competitor in the content marketing space is Brand new media (BNM).

It created a new structure for content marketing execution. The first was strategy and ideation where content concepts and engagement plans deliver ROI targets, meet commercial goals and satisfy audiences. Next

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CONTENT MARKETING AGENCIES

GETIT COMMS Owned by : Independent Groupe Headed by : Anol Bhattacharya, chief executive officer and director

Also taking a spot as a finalist is GetIT Comms.

The agency is a Singapore-based B2B technology marketing solution provider, specialising in content-driven go-to-market solutions, such as demand generation and account-based marketing.

It specialises in content marketing using infographics, e-books, visual explainers, sales enablement and interactive explorations.

One such campaign it did was with local telco StarHub. For the telco, it created an engaging experience to build its enterprise as well as the SME audience.

For SMEs, it produced monthly promotion creatives, eDMs and digital ads to drive traffic to StarHub’s online store.

The creatives generally followed a thematic approach based on seasonal offers and/or personas.

The agency’s strengths are in optimising PPC ad buys on Google and Facebook to maximise reach and lower cost-perconversion. On the enterprise front, the StarHub data centre campaign was created to promote next-generation modular data centres.

An e-book to help decision-makers understand the key considerations of choosing a data centre was created to generate leads supported by relevant agnostic blog posts to increase interaction.

KRDS SINGAPORE Owned by : KRDS SAS Groupe Headed by : Preetham Venkky, director

KRDS Singapore had a great year, making it to the finalists list after just three years in the local market.

First founded in 2008, the agency has expanded from an initial headcount of 10 to 120 employees, opening seven new offices throughout Europe and Asia.

Over the years, KRDS has had an extensive list of clients such as Exness, NETS, Singapore Kindness Movement, 1933 Singapore, BreadTalk and many others.

Driven by data, the agency launched the KRDS story analysis tool last year to help brands identify the most engaging posts for any given industry. The tool is made accessible to all brands and agencies and aims to provide brands with a report that unveils community management efforts being made by other brands on Facebook in real-time in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and India.

The tool calculates and ranks the most engaging posts for a chosen period of time via a specially created “KRDS SAT score” (based on the number of fans, likes, comments and shares for each story) and highlights posts from more than 400 brands and 17 industries such as tourism, beauty or FMCG. The tool automatically highlights the most engaging posts by putting them on top of the page for brands to discover which stories are performing the best.

TRIBAL WORLDWIDE SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jeff Cheong, president, Asia and head of Tribal Worldwide Singapore 2015 saw Tribal Worldwide continuing its efforts to strengthen its position as a communication agency which creates work that influences mindshare, purchase and loyalty. Born from a branding heritage with DDB’s influence, it was raised as a digital native.

Its focus for the past year was helping clients’ businesses to close the gap between social media and commerce, delving deep into content creation and distribution. This is to create a community centric focus.

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Some key clients and projects included the development of a new StarHub portal.

The moving of clients’ budgets from traditional spend to e-commerce solutions resulted in the implementation of online sales for the Hello Kitty toy from McDonald’s, which not only boosted sales, but also eliminated queues. It will soon start work on a new portal for Keppel.

Forming alliances with media platforms such as Mothership, The Smart Local and SGAG, it hopes to provide more holistic

MEDIATROPY Owned by : Independent Groupe Headed by : Astrid Boulle and Pierre De Luca, co-founders Making the finals this year is Mediatropy.

Last year was one of the best years for the agency since being created in 2011 as it enjoyed a growth which mounted to more than double the previous year.

In 2015, marketers demonstrated a heavy interest in developing their content strategy.

The way the agency approached it is that while content is king, quality is queen.

In other words, it really focused on making sense of its content to be able to deliver it to the right audience.

The agency embarked on a crusade against passable quality content and reviewed its offerings to include less quantity, but aimed higher with regards to relevancy, research, storytelling and execution.This was not always simple because many see a value in quantity and judging quality can be tricky.

However, with the right metrics and processes in place, it managed to propose the right offering – and it paid off for the team.

In terms of new business, the agency won the rights to work as the creative and media agency of the HSBC World Rugby Singapore Sevens. The account, it says, was a great win for the agency as it is expected to be one of the biggest sports event in 2016 in Singapore.

The agency has consolidated its presence as an innovative agency, providing customers with highly creative ideas, maintaining a tight control on quality and striving to over deliver.

communication solutions for its clients. The value placed on speed-to-market high quality video content production led to the creation of Feely Productions – an assembly of filmmakers, editors and producers that have been producing branded content for McDonald’s, DBS, Unilever, Ministry of Communication and Information and the Singapore Memory Project with speed and quality.

The emphasis on the enterprise solution, Adobe Marketing Suite, has been the focus for 2015 in Tribal.

The partnership enabled Tribal to further expand its digital expertise, allowing for more efficient working systems and tech solutions for it as a company, and in turn, for its clients.

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CREATIVE AGENCIES

OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE Owned by : WPP Headed by : Chris Riley, group chairman

THE WINNERS GOLD

Ogilvy & Mather Singapore

SILVER

Dentsu Singapore

76.75%

BRONZE

Publicis Singapore

72.50%

LOCAL HERO

BLACK ON BLACK

70.00%

77.50%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising atomz i!

BBDO Singapore DDB Group Singapore GOVT Singapore TBWA\Group Singapore

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2015 was a great year for the gold winner of Creative Agency of the Year. It grew by offering new services in video and content production, social, mobile, e-commerce, data, marketing automation and performance marketing.

Key clients include Unilever Comfort, IBM, Singtel, POND’S and Allianz.

Ogilvy & Mather Singapore pursued a strategy of partnership to realise its growth objectives through a new service development. Working with specialist partners to provide clients a single solution drawing on proven expertise, Ogilvy reached out to Verticurl for demand generation and marketing automation services, Pennywise Solutions, Ve Interactive’s technology platform and advanced signals-based analytics Sqreem.

To maintain its lead and help clients stand out during Singapore’s SG50 jubilee year, a competitive time for marketers locally, it came up with some notable projects in 2015 such as SG50: Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth (MCCY); #Shareacokesg: Coca-Cola; Comfort Softest: Unilever; Tasks For Toys: Toys”R”Us; SG50 Biggest Fan: MCCY and Airbnb and also 99% SME: Singtel.

Its mission to operate as a flagship agency is clear as day, with its persistence to strike out in the most competitive market in Asia and make itself a recognised worldclass global creative hub for the Ogilvy & Mather network.

Last year has also seen the agency dedicating time and effort to do some good in its community. This came through the launch of #ForceForGood, an agency wide regional initiative, which called for employees to identify causes close to their hearts and make a genuine impact on issues in local communities. There were 35 submitted ideas voted on by staff and narrowed down to three causes – welfare of foreign domestic workers, elder care and youth depression. By year-end, 30 staff had dedicated more than 3,600 unbillable hours.

O&M continued to lead ogilvydo.com – its global thought leadership platform. It grew its readership by more than 25% and remained a daily producer of valuable insights for clients, people and the industry at large. 2015 was the year it placed a focus on new content partnerships, along with expansions for “on the road” coverage to over 10 global events – publishing live on the ground in real-time.

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CREATIVE AGENCIES

DENTSU SINGAPORE

brand innovation tool: Dentsu Innovation Navigator (DIN). DIN not only became its brand innovation tool, but was also ingrained into its culture and way of thinking. It ensured that Dentsu worked with the top-decision makers/clients to help it derive their brand vision which is then translated it into communications solutions.

Some key campaigns included Canon: Photo Face-Off which utilised smartphone cameras. It generated unprecedented results for the brand and is now an annual campaign for Canon in the region as a regional content

platform. Other successful campaigns included Great Eastern Insurance; Singapore Navy which generated over a million views within a month; and Uniqlo Street Tales which combined real-time GPS technology with creativity to help generate sales.

It was also the mind behind the Land Transport Authority of Singapore’s Graciousness campaign. Dentsu Singapore crafted five characters to champion the message of thoughtful behaviour among the commuters of Singapore. The entire campaign was strategised around a real-time content strategy which enabled the audience to engage with the thoughtful characters across multiple digital content platforms.

To innovate the way brands are built, Dentsu has created a diverse culture that lives and breathes creative thinking and invests heavily on employee training and leadership programmes. It drives the business through employee development programmes by forging digital partnerships with Google and a collaboration with Twitter, Facebook and the Mobile Marketing Association to influence people capability, manpower planning/flows, recruitment, development and training with associated cost scenarios.

an entrepreneurial mindset of looking at a client’s business as if it was its own.

Over 80% of total revenue was derived from digital scope and projects. Profitability improved a remarkable 10 percentage points over the previous year, which firmly placed the business on a sustainable path to growth.

In 2015, the agency also brought together a unique combination of people with diverse skills in data, creative and user experience to further elevate the quality of its social work and content. Key hires included two of Singapore’s most highly rated and respected

young creative leaders – Troy Lim and Jon Loke joined as co-ECDs. To shape and inform content from an editorial perspective, it brought onboard Carlo Reyes Coloma as creative content lead.

The agency also launched a personal appraisal and learning system over the past year called PAL. It is an on online platform designed to help staff keep track of their progress. It’s a platform for ongoing work appraisals and assessments to ensure a constant feedback loop on performance – not just twice a year.

Owned by : Dentsu Aegis Network Headed by : Rosalynn Tay, chief executive officer, Dentsu Aegis Singapore

Coming in second with the silver award in the Creative Agency of the Year category is Dentsu Singapore.

New client wins range from leading public sector organisations, upscale hospitality and healthcare and travel industries. The most impressive growth of all was achieved by expanding the scope of work with existing clients.

Dentsu Singapore moved upstream with proprietary brand innovation tools to the digitisation of day to day work. It designed and implemented the proprietary

PUBLICIS SINGAPORE Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Lou Dela Pena, chief executive officer

Clinching the bronze award in the Creative Agency of the Year category is Publicis Singapore.

In 2015, Publicis moved from a traditional agency retainer-model to an entrepreneurial “partner-trust” model, where it challenged itself to earn every new brief and project from clients. Partner-trust is the belief in being in constant consultation with clients to foster a real understanding of their business challenges.

It transformed itself in two core areas – specialists and a new agile model.

First, it bolstered its ability to deeply understand client problems by developing specialist expertise in digital, healthcare and luxury marketing to better approach unique problems.

Second, a new agile model allows it to change the way it operates, adopting

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CREATIVE AGENCIES

BLACK ON BLACK Owned by : Independent Headed by : Matthew Qwah, managing director 2015 saw Black on Black making a critical decision to transit by allocating part of its efforts into new businesses to build the next generation of accounts.

And this move paid off with the exercise winning it five new clients.

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Black on Black was founded on a traditional agency model specialising in print and TVC advertising and has been helping most players in the fast-moving consumer goods industry since 2009 in terms of product launches.

Despite the challenges faced by a diminishing focus on the traditional model of advertising, it was fortunate to experience significant growth even with a reduction in manpower.

Relying on the power of collective thinking, the agency moved on to be more

solutions-driven using the creative process to its advantage and slowly releasing production work to client’s in-house teams or low-cost suppliers. There was an increased focus on making a creative impact and contribution to clients and the industry.

Going from an initial team of 14 to eight showcases its ability to do more with less.

This lay in the hiring of talented individuals and ensuring they were able to work constructively with one another in the boutique agency. It believes it is able to run the agency more effectively with 10 commandos rather than 100 regular soldiers.

With its philosophy of fearlessness, 2015 was a year of transformation for Black on Black as it took on various obstacles to adapt to the ever-changing marketing and advertising ecosystem.

It successfully took its traditional expertise and evolved it into products and services such as immersion marketing, digital engagement and design and advertising.

To ensure its talent was well-managed, it focused on building an “agency without walls” and a flat hierarchy.

This is done through the hiring of the right people and the running of a politically free environment. It advocates complete trust, honesty as well as equality and freedom of speech and expression.

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CREATIVE AGENCIES

ADDICTION ADVERTISING Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director

2015 was a wonderful year for Addiction Advertising, with a 100% retention rate for key clients as it continued to position itself as the independent content marketing agency with the largest portfolio of healthcare clients.

Within a short span of four years, it maintained this positioning by welcoming new additions – Takeda Pharmaceuticals, NTUC Health and St Lukes; taking care of the latter’s rebranding campaign.

This brings its total stable of healthcare clients to 18, resulting in a total of 14 new projects and a go-to name for healthcare clusters locally.

Key clients gracing the Addiction portfolio include the National Healthcare Group, Agency for Integrated Care, National Addictions Management Service (NAMS), Hotel Properties Limited, OCBC Bank (corporate communications) and SMRT Corporation (employer branding).

The agency continues to execute numerous iconic projects such as the branding and launch of Addiction Recovery College (client: NAMS) – Singapore’s first college for addictions.

Other key client wins included pitching for and winning three government campaigns and a campaign from China Life Insurance.

It also pitched for and won two agency of records, one being for Standard Chartered Bank as a tier-two agency which looks after its BTL creative and content needs.

This was also the case for LIXIL International (a sanitary company that owns brands such as Grohe and American Standard), taking care of their creative and content needs for APAC.

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ATOMZ I! Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lily Chia, founder and managing director

2015 marked atomz i!’s 15th year of business and also the best performing year since its incorporation. The agency has continued to grow from strength to strength, making a breakthrough in the same year by clinching a global retainer account for premium paper brand, PaperOne™.

Atomz i! believes that great creative ideas that work come from insightful thinking into communication and marketing problems or challenges. With a strategic team which looks into this, it helps clients distil the clutter and identify creative solutions.

Key client wins for 2015 included Singapore Armed Forces, Westgate, MDA’s digital TV campaign, NEA, CapitaLand Malls Asia (Bugis Junction) and the Keep Singapore Clean campaign.

Clients that it has worked collaboratively with, such as Westgate Mall, have also retained it as their exclusive creative agency for three years in a row.

In managing the team over the past 15 years, it recognises the diversity and strengths of each team member; it builds on the strengths of individual team members and embraces the weaknesses.

Experienced and talented key personnel lead the forefront with Lily Chia as founder and managing director; Chew Lip Heng as managing director who has overseen operations over the past decade; Albert Lee as creative director who heads the creative studio; Stephen Chong, its account and strategy director who leads the client servicing team; and Xu Zhiwei, strategic planner who leads the strategy and business development team.

BBDO SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jean-Paul Burge, chairman and CEO, BBDO Asia

BBDO Singapore’s 2015 was a remarkable one, with key client wins and the significant growth of existing clients.

It retained all key clients and gained new projects for SK-II and P&G. Some key clients and projects included Smirnoff SEA, Tim Tams SEA, Shapes SEA, Credit Suisse SEA and Daimler FS SG. It secured four expansions of global network clients such as Bosch AP, Clarityn AP, SAP SEA and gained projects for SK-II, and Pampers & Olay for P&G. To strengthen industry relations, general manager Joe Braithwaite joined the executive committee of 4As Singapore (Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Singapore).

Its industry reputation team connected with IAS (Institute of Advertising Singapore) to facilitate collaborative efforts in growing the industry. Its initiatives for alcoholic beverage clients include Tiger’s “Unofficial Official History” campaign which showed the brand knows Singapore better than anyone else – even parts Singaporeans themselves didn’t know about. It reframed the sentiment of Guinness’ bold taste into something positive – Beer Gao which positions the lager as the most flavourful beer.

Inspired by the insight that Singaporeans love shortcuts, it created the character “Uncle Sim” and the “So Simple Tips” series on an easier way of life, and an easier way to pay – with Visa payWave.

Some innovative new capabilities include Pulse, a holistic and flexible content offering that allows BBDO to meet the diverse consumer and client needs of today.

It comprises a dedicated social wall, a team of social advocates, social monitoring tools and core planning models. Shoot is its in-house content production facility, specialising in producing good, fast and cost-effective content. Spark provides user-centric experiences that solve clients’ business problems through the power of data, technology and creative innovation.

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CREATIVE AGENCIES

DDB GROUP SINGAPORE

GOVT SINGAPORE

TBWA\GROUP SINGAPORE

Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : David Tang, CEO, DDB Asia president and CEO, Singapore

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Leon Lai, group managing director

Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director

DDB Group Singapore surged ahead in 2015, coming in as a finalist for Creative Agency of the Year. It has been a stronghold across digital technology, shopper marketing, e-commerce portals and data analytics.

It has gone from a creative agency to a marketing powerhouse. The agency, with its T-divisions, has become a regional hub for clients across Asia, with its creativity, tech, data and shopper marketing expertise powering other DDB Asia offices.

Its strategy lies in its depth of specialised skill sets – in tech innovation, data, e-commerce and shopper marketing – where its T-shaped talent, with specialised skill sets, work in cross-matrix teams to produce the greatest marketing solutions for its clients.

The agency saw new business growth in 2015, with business wins for Johnson & Johnson, Ministry of Education, SC Johnson, MediShield Life and the Pioneer Generation Package campaign done in local dialects.

In addition, DDB in Singapore partnered its London agency Adam & Eve DDB and won the global AOR business for Unilever Wall’s ice-cream. The two best DDB shops, in Asia and Europe respectively, worked together to win the global assignment.

In 2015, its TracyLocke division also helped it win the global SC Johnson business and Heineken – globally and then in Singapore.

Its top five clients grew by 26% in top-line revenue. DDB also launched a state-of-theart Adobe-powered portal and e-shop for StarHub; award-winning apps for McDonald’s and the RSAF; plus social-to-store activations for Unilever.

David Tang was appointed CEO for DDB Asia which proved the mettle of the Singapore agency. This is the first time ever an Asian network has built its regional strategy out of its Singapore office, with Tang holding a double role.

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2015 represented a sterling year for GOVT, a finalist at this year’s Creative Agency of the Year awards. Its expansion plans have been going smoothly, opening its second full-service office in Kuala Lumpur in 2014, and aligned with a representation partner in Hong Kong in 2015.

Its series of custom-built relationships and networks helped form key partnerships in audio-visual, technology, event production, social and even public relations. Its local network and persuasiveness to convince clients to take on third party vendors, brought it far in distinguishing its offerings from larger lead agencies.

Some new business wins for the year of 2015 included regional accounts such as A&E Networks’ History Channel and Lifetime Channel, as well as General Mills Southeast Asia’s Häagen-Dazs. Local wins were Airbnb Singapore, Fraser and Neave’s Ice Mountain, Nestlé’s Maggi, APB’s Strongbow Cider and Desperados, and Uniqlo.

Its work with client Pernod Ricard’s Absolut Vodka led to the expansion of its relationship with Pernod Ricard Singapore to include Glenlivet and G.H. Mumm champagnes, joining its alcoholic spirits portfolio.

Its high win rate in RFPs was an indication of clients moving towards an activation agency preference. It pitched and won the Maggi portfolio and was invited to pitch for Milo. It was appointed by NTUC Income as the activation agency of record, alongside roster agencies BBH (ATL) and Germs (digital).

TBWA\Singapore led the charge across Asia as the designated regional headquarters for the region across creative, production and digital. With an increased focus on existing clients, it strengthened relationships through Disruption® and delivered solutions across all aspects of client communication.

There was increased organic growth of existing clients, with MasterCard becoming one of its top five regional clients, while Singapore is leading the way for Apple, Airbnb and Nissan in Asia. Other key wins included Singapore Tourism Board, NTUC FairPrice and NTUC Enterprise.

Key appointments were made and key promotions included Philip Brett as president of Asia TBWA; Tuomas Peltoniemi was promoted to the role of president of Asia for DAN; and Peter Short became general manager for eg+ Asia.

Following Ara Hampartsoumian’s appointment as MD for TBWA\Group Singapore in July 2014, key structures were put in place to improve operations.

There was an increased focus on building a stronger digital and strategic leadership team with Eero Aalto joining the ranks as head of digital for DAN Singapore and Natalie Gruis as head of planning.

Additionally, a focus on data and analytics led to the recruitment of top-class digital, social, analytics and experiential expertise.

TBWA\Singapore also invested heavily in data and analytics to provide more accurate, relevant and real-time intelligence with tools such as Synthesio, True Social Metrics and Right Intel to name a few.

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CRM & LOYALTY MARKETING

MRM//McCann Owned by : Interpublic Group Headed by : Nick Handel, managing director, Singapore

THE WINNERS GOLD

MRM//McCann

SILVER

Digital Arts Network

72.50%

BRONZE

Ascentis

70.00%

LOCAL HERO

Ascentis

70.00%

75.00%

THE FINALISTS Capillary Technologies Edenred Singapore Epsilon Happy Marketer LEWIS Mashwire Wunderman

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Bagging gold this year in the CRM & Loyalty Marketing category is MRM//McCann.

The agency has placed a continual focus on clients with highly considered purchase cycles, such as technology, business-to-business and health, along with an investment in disciplines such as analytics, marketing automation, CRM, media, UX and social media.

To put this into a wider perspective, in the past 24 months, the overall business for MRM//McCann Singapore has more than doubled and the overall profit has increased greatly. MRM//McCann retained all of its clients in Singapore over the past year and also grew organically from some of its core key clients.

The agency also bagged CRM duties for Unilever Food Solutions as it consolidated both its digital and CRM activities with MRM// McCann. Unilever Food Solutions is also the B2B arm of Unilever’s food brands.

Another great campaign the agency launched was Hershey’s Happygrams, which is a real-time social media programme which listens to the ups and downs of users’ everyday lives as shared on social media status updates, and then responds with Happygrams (personalised messages of support and cheer written on virtual Hershey’s chocolate bars). Fans were encouraged to make and send their own

Happygrams on a microsite and the best of these were printed on special Hershey’s chocolate wrappers and made available at participating stores.

MRM//McCann was the agency behind the Red Cross campaign. Integrating traditional media, on-ground activations, PR, digital, social and film into one mobile app, the Red Cross Connection was part of a blood donation campaign to encourage Singapore youths to use their social networks to find donors for specific blood types as well as spread the word for blood donation. It drove over 120,000 new donations. Overall, the agency also saw an impressive growth rate which was made feasible by an increasingly sophisticated talent management strategy.

In 2015, nine key HR initiatives helped attract 25 new people and reduce staff turnover by 16%.

From a talent perspective, the agency scoured the globe for its latest batch of specialists. Joel Acenas joined the team as head of the new digital media division; Menaka Seshakumar as head of marketing for the automation practice; Jim Guzman to lead the social media and real-time marketing practice; journalist Keith Boi was brought on board to drive its new content division; and Beatriz Ayrosa to co-lead project management.

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CRM & LOYALTY MARKETING

TBWA\ DIGITAL ARTS NETWORK SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director

By implementing new innovative business models such as the digital and e-commerce engine for MasterCard and several other forward-thinking initiatives, TBWA\DAN Singapore experienced the best new business year in 2015. As such it takes home the silver award in the CRM & Loyalty category this year.

The marketing landscape has changed significantly in the past few years. Today’s consumers in Asia are more connected than ever, which warrants new approaches to marketing, especially when it comes to loyalty. Data and insights are now driving the marketing for its clients. The challenge for most agencies is that big data is useless unless you use it right now.

TBWA\DAN entered 2015 with an audacious vision to rethink the way a modern creative digital company would work. The

Hampartsoumian

strategy for 2015 was to build a strong digital agency model to sustain its growth, especially in real-time marketing initiatives.

The agency wanted to build on 2014’s strong new business success by developing its business organically through solid relationships with existing clients.

To make all this happen, the agency launched Disruption LIVE – an agency model for the digital world to capitalise on CRM and loyalty opportunities for clients.

The agency also hired data strategists, data scientists and content creators to its teams. And it has made key leadership hires to support its growth.

For MasterCard, a B2B brand that doesn’t hold any consumer CRM data, the agency had to find a way to communicate directly with consumers despite not knowing who they were. As such, the team developed a social CRM model that uses the latest data tools, and a process for MasterCard to connect to people without having their contact details.

The solution? A digital and e-commerce engine. A data and analytics-driven social CRM business model that tracks trends and insights as they happen, and collaborates with MasterCard’s merchants, and issuing banks, to reach the right customers with the right content, at the right time.

this is a fundamental core of its business.

Some offerings of the agency include e-commerce, digital marketing and creative services, business process outsourcing, supply chain management, business analytics and loyalty and rewards. Some of its clients include Metro, DFS, Estée Lauder, Y3, Belif,

Marella, Jimmy Choo, Tissot, The Face Shop, TAG Heuer and others.

Ascentis’ strategy is to continue to innovate and create tools which constantly provide its customers and consumers with the best of services and rewards. When it comes to CRM, the agency looks to integrate clients’ existing POS systems or other customer acquisition channels. This allows brands to easily identify, capture and collect customer information.

This is followed by a consolidation of all customer data collected from various engagement touch-points to gain insights to impress and re-engage customers at all stages of the journey with the brand.

These are then used in real-time to create personalised and targeted communications for various channels.

After all, with a unified view, the right tools can be employed for better loyalty and increased advocacy.

ASCENTIS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Bryan Tan, Chief Operating Officer Taking home the bronze and the Local Hero award is Ascentis. The agency is focused on practising what it does best – building strong relationships with its customers.

Playing in the loyalty field, a loyal base of clients is important for the agency. As such, it strives to build good relations with clients and

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CRM & LOYALTY MARKETING

CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES

EDENRED SINGAPORE

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Anant Choubey, VP & business head, India and South East Asia

Owned by : WPP Headed by : JB Ray, managing director

Advances in digital technology are reshaping the world of consumer marketing and retailing. The potential for real-time connectivity with customers – especially through social networks and mobile access – has generated seemingly endless possibilities for personalised products, services and communication. The integration of mobile and digital, especially search and social, is becoming essential for a better customer experience.

Capillary helps clients understand consumers’ digital behaviours and the best ways to use a digital strategy, channels and tools. Its omni-channel offerings, built on the foundation of the intelligent customer engagement suite of solutions and combined with the power of a digital marketing and commerce platform, enable clients to achieve this integration.

It provides clients with an integrated suite of digital marketing solutions – CRM, loyalty, search and online marketing, customer insights, and predictive intelligence, along with online, mobile, and social commerce, engagement and experience, combined with powerful omni-channel and o2o capabilities.

Epsilon is a global leader in creating connections between people and brands.

Earlier this year, the company hired David Allen as managing director of international.

Allen will be responsible for driving global expansion, leading strategy and overseeing the day-to-day business operations throughout the EMEA and APAC regions.

Last year, Epsilon launched ShopperView, a new precision marketing solution for consumer packaged goods marketers.

This solution combines advanced data insights, industry leading cross-device media delivery and campaign measurement to increase campaign effectiveness through the power of one-to-one marketing at scale.

It also launched Harmony Live, a new feature within Agility Harmony. Harmony Live allows users to insert contextually relevant content into their email marketing campaigns that adapts at the time of them being opened, based on subscriber preferences and relevant external events such as device, local weather and real-time information from social networks.

With Harmony Live, digital marketers can elevate email calls-to-action beyond static content and command attention with real-time interactive elements.

management, contests management, gamification, customer service, influencer engagement and social ad campaigns are some of the many ways Happy Marketer looks to help its clients.

Late last year, Nanyang Business School (NBS) reappointed Happy Marketer as its digital marketing agency of record in Singapore. Meanwhile, NUS School of Computing appointed Happy Marketer for a year to handle its strategy, content and community management, campaign

management, design and reporting/ measurement. The Time Place, Indonesia’s largest luxury watch retailer also reappointed Happy Marketer as its social media marketing agency after a closed door pitch.

Happy Marketer has helped grow The Time Place’s Facebook fan base to more than 150,000 followers to date.

Globally, Fastacash, provider of a global social payments platform, appointed Happy Marketer as its global digital marketing agency after a closed door pitch.

Last year, the training arm of Happy Marketer and digital training and consulting firm Maxential, combined their strengths to create FutureMarketer.

FutureMarketer offers digital marketing learning programmes that help business leaders and marketing practitioners transform their business and become better marketers in a digital age.

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Rachit Dayal and Prantik Mazumdar, managing partners

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Owned by : Alliance Data FHC, Inc Headed by : Michael Kustreba, managing director, Asia Pacific

Edenred, inventor of the Ticket Restaurant meal voucher, designs and delivers solutions that improve the efficiency of organisations and enhance the purchasing power of individuals. It has made it as a finalist this year.

In Asia Pacific, it operates in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. Edenred in Singapore focuses on B2B and B2C CRM, loyalty and rewards programmes for customer, dealers and employees.

Edenred creates sophisticated bespoke solutions for companies seeking to incentivise their customers, employees and teams, improve sales force performance and enhance customer loyalty with rewards programmes or social media-based digital relationships.

The incentive and rewards family of solutions contains B2B and B2C Rewards programs; marketing services concerning the design and management of incentive programs, including consulting and the design of point-management technological platforms and analytical applications.

Edenred’s success story has been driven by the combination of a virtuous business model and a powerful corporate culture.

HAPPY MARKETER

A finalist in the CRM & Loyalty category is Happy Marketer. The agency’s clients come from mainly aviation, hospitality, education, financial services and retail and F&B industries. Some of the services the agency provides are in the fields of social media marketing, search engine optimisation, conversion optimisation, web analytics, digital advertising and websites and apps.

The agency was founded in 2009 and is known as a fast-growing digital independent consulting firm based in Singapore.

Fan generation, channel set-up, campaign

EPSILON

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CRM & LOYALTY MARKETING

LEWIS

MASHWIRE

WUNDERMAN

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Miek Gielkens, managing director

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jeff Ng and Teo Hon Wui, co-founders

Owned by : WPP Headed by : Neeraj Sundarajoo, group managing director

Commercially and operationally, 2015 continued to be yet another significant year for LEWIS in APAC. Since the company has no external shareholders, it believes the people who work in the business own it. From its beginnings in 1995 as a traditional PR agency, LEWIS has been constantly evolving.

Today the company has a diverse portfolio of services covering public relations, print and digital design, creative multimedia, web and application development, SEM and SEO, social media and lead and demand generation.

LEWIS’ clients are looking for integrated communications campaigns. The agency is seeing a huge increase in demand for paid media programmes – search engine marketing, online advertising and mobile programmes. It is this constant evolution that has enabled LEWIS to grow every

year since inception. As one of the world’s largest independent PR agencies, LEWIS has a long history of reinvesting its profits in the development of its product and service offerings and this continued in 2015. In Q3 2015, the agency refreshed its brand to reflect its full spectrum of global marketing communications services. It dropped “PR” from its name and is now simply LEWIS. The LEWIS marketing team provides both strategy and implementation resources to address most client marketing challenges.

Locally, services span brand, product and channel marketing. They include go-to market strategy and planning, lead generation programmes, including field events, target account programmes, webinars, conferences, and inbound and outbound campaigns, sales enablement and marketing operations.

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Mashwire is a home-grown integration agency that integrates digital and creative services across new and traditional marketing platforms. It was founded in 2013 by two individuals with experience (and a great passion) in branding, marketing, creative and technology.

In a short span of three years, Mashwire has achieved significant results as a local agency in the competitive landscape. With its integrative approach, it has helped clients across industries to upscale their searchability online through both marketing and optimisation efforts.

Its clients consist of MNCs and SMEs. Some of the brands include Dulux, Nestlé infant nutrition brands (Nestlé NAN, Cerelac, Gerber), F&N, Bayer, Under Armour and others.

The agency believes content is the key ingredient to unify the consumer experience. By creating and curating content ecosystems across multiple communication touch-points, brand engagement increases with consumers, resulting in an increase in trust, links, personalisation and social for the brand. This in turn optimises brand search.

Mashwire creates content through two categories – digital services and creative services. The team constantly looks for ground-breaking technology and the execution of ideas from overseas, bringing them in for local clients, yet at a budget clients can afford.

Technologies such as augmented reality and holography have been implemented in campaigns cost-effectively, allowing its clients to showcase and send the message the brand wants to bring about.

Knowing the end consumer and building strategic insights leading into creative has been at the core of how Wunderman has been approaching solutions for brands.

The agency believes in the power of the individual; what they say and do as part of their consumer journey drives how they engage with information pertaining to brands. Wunderman studies these behaviour patterns to find the right time and relevant content to converse with consumers.

At Wunderman, the agency has devised a 5D approach to building CRM solutions for clients – discover, define, design, develop and deliver.

Discover includes undertaking an audit to analyse the existing brand ecosystem, data, processes and tools by discussing with relevant stakeholders, including focus groups.

Based on the information from the discovery phase, Wunderman compiles and defines the strategy enlisting recommendations, including technical, functional and marketing requirements.

Following through the CRM plan is designed based on the strategy defined. The design sketches the role of every touch-point across the consumer journey.

In tune with design, creative assets are developed with appropriate tracking, tagging and analytics methodology to then be deployed and delivered across the different channel touch-points.

One of the agency’s key initiatives in 2015 was to make Wunderman one of the best places to work.

At Wunderman, the emphasis is placed on teamwork for resource planning and hiring where the HR team works closely with the traffic manager and various stakeholders.

Besides promotions, the agency also encourages leaders to share good feedback and create career tracks for employees.

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DIGITAL AGENCIES

DigitasLBi Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Annette Male, managing director, Singapore

In 2015, DigitasLBi doubled the size of its business and retained all of its clients. As such the agency takes home the top position in the Digital Agency of the Year category.

One major piece of work the agency was involved in was the relaunch of Hotel Jen’s brand positioning. DigitasLBi developed an integrated communication campaign that showcased young and upcoming talent,

THE WINNERS GOLD

DigitasLBi

76.88% 75.00%

SILVER

TBWA\ Digital Arts Network Singapore

BRONZE

Mindshare

72.50%

LOCAL HERO

Happy Marketer

66.25%

THE FINALISTS KRDS Singapore MRM//McCann Nurun Singapore Ogilvy & Mather Singapore SECTION Tribal Worldwide Singapore

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artists and artisans, local start-up products and services.

The campaign #NextJen invited guests to be part of the new concept, making the hotel a platform for a new generation and inspiring guests with #ThatJenFeeling.

The campaign also unveiled a launch film to inspire guests to explore different sides of their personality by checking out the new Hotel Jen Tanglin. Key markets for the campaign included Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the UK. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts was also another client the agency bagged in partnership with several other agencies under the Publicis Umbrella. DigitasLBi will lead the relationship with support from advertising agency BBH and media agency ZenithOptimedia. The integrated team, all part of Publicis Groupe, will work on brand strategy, creative strategy and execution, digital platforms, social media, customer relationship management, and media planning and buying across global markets for the Shangri-La, Hotel Jen, Kerry Hotels and Golden Circle brands.

Last year, DigitasLBi hired Annette Male as managing director for Singapore and Southeast Asia to bolster its capabilities and drive business growth in the region.

She is tasked to drive value and digital

transformation for DigitasLBi clients’ businesses in Singapore, SEA and several APAC markets such as Australia, China, India, Japan and Hong Kong.

Locally, it is also appointed Knox Balbastro as regional associate creative director; Lauren Ahearn as business director; and Lawrence Lee as strategy lead.

Male, managing director at DigitasLBi Singapore and SEA, said: “After a fantastic 2015 when we doubled the size of the office, we want to continue building on our success and growing our scale in 2016.

“By bringing this talented trio onboard, we will further our ability to support our clients on their individual journeys of digital transformation here in Singapore and across APAC.” The hires follow a series of recent client wins for DigitasLBi Singapore, including UOB, Pernod Ricard and Unilever.

Balbastro joined from Isobar where she has spent the past two years as a senior copywriter with responsibility for the agency’s creative output on Singapore accounts such as the Republic of Singapore Navy, Singapore Exchange (SGX), FRANK by OCBC and Uniqlo.

Going forward, the agency hopes to maintain its speed of growth while simultaneously launching the work that has been developed over the course of 2015.

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DIGITAL AGENCIES

TBWA\ DIGITAL ARTS NETWORK SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director TBWA\ Digital Arts Network Singapore has experienced tremendous growth over the years and this has been driven by large regional wins for clients such as MasterCard, Caltex and Airbnb.

This has resulted in the agency taking home the silver award this year.

The agency’s objective is to build a strong foundation for a long-term relationship with these new regional clients, and to grow these accounts organically. Its vision is to create a modern operating model to meet the changing demands of connected consumers for its key clients. As such, TBWA\ DAN entered 2015 with an audacious vision to rethink the way a modern creative digital company would work.

To make this happen, the agency launched Disruption LIVE – an agency model for the digital world. It made investments into modern data and insights technology and hired data strategists, data scientists and content creators to its teams. Disruption LIVE optimises clients’ marketing daily by

using data and insights and driving clients’ businesses through digital and social media.

Every day, agency spotters identify trends on behalf of brands, and these are the start of a three-step process: 1. Insight mining – insights are gathered for the next step.

2. Opening briefing – where agency teams across departments meet with clients to examine insights and decide which to act

on. The output is an open brief, which executes into the last step.

3. Audience planning – where teams find the most optimal channels for the ideas to live.

Data from every execution then feeds the next insight and the cycle repeats itself daily. To support this, the agency also invested in newsroom technology and real-time data and publishing tools.

a first-of-its-kind programmatic buying unit called ULTRA for Unilever in ASEAN, which aims to drive digital media quality measures around complete viewability, transparent brand safety, high in-target delivery and strong fraud avoidance.

It has also been an eventful year for Mindshare in terms of hires for key positions. Jacob Kvist was appointed as chief investment officer, tasked with driving Mindshare’s trading and investment strategy for the APAC region. Kevin Rooney was

appointed chief growth officer, tasked with overseeing all aspects of growth across the agency. Karl Cluck was appointed chief client officer for APAC, while retaining leadership over Mindshare’s Japan, Korea and Taiwan cluster. James Lewin also rose to the role of head of innovation for Mindshare APAC, while Amy Kean was named regional strategy director.

Most recently, it tied up with video ad tech company Unruly to unveil a manifesto for brands looking to beat ad blockers.

MINDSHARE SINGAPORE Owned by : WPP Headed by : Melissa Tang, managing director

Taking home the bronze award in the Digital Category is Mindshare Singapore.

The agency had a very busy year in 2015 as it launched several new initiatives such as the future adaptive specialist team (FAST), which aimed to provide data-led, adaptive marketing services to brands.

FAST comprises six services: data management, performance marketing, programmatic strategy, real-time marketing, digital analytics and managing big data, all going towards demonstrating Mindshare’s ability to constantly and quickly adapt to the needs of the day. The media agency also built FAST services specifically for five sectors: consumer packaged goods, banking, consumer healthcare, telecommunications and automobile to drive business in emerging markets.

In February 2016, Mindshare launched

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DIGITAL AGENCIES

HAPPY MARKETER Owned by : Independent Headed by : Rachit Dayal and Prantik Mazumdar, managing partners Taking home the Local Hero award is Happy Marketer. The agency was founded in 2009 and is known as a fast growing digital independent consulting firm, based in Singapore.

The agency partners with clients from six major industries. These are aviation, hospitality, education, financial services and retail and F&B. Services provided by the agency include social media marketing, search engine optimisation, conversion optimisation, web analytics, digital advertising and websites and apps.

The agency helps clients in fan generation, channel set-up, campaign management, contests management, gamification, customer service, influencer engagement, social ad campaigns and many other areas.Recently, Happy Marketer was tasked to handle digital marketing duties for maestro Zubin Mehta’s symphony concert.

KRDS SINGAPORE Owned by : KRDS SAS Headed by : Preetham Venkky, director Just three years in the market and KRDS Singapore is already making waves.

The agency has won over the hearts of local marketers to make it onto this list. It was first founded in 2008 and since then KRDS has expanded from 10 to 120 employees and

MRM//McCANN Owned by : Interpublic Group Headed by : Nicholas Handel, managing director, Singapore Making it onto the finalists list this year is MRM//McCann. 2015 was nothing short of exceptional for the agency.

In 2015, several key HR initiatives helped attract 25 new people and reduce staff turnover for the agency. The agency hired Joel Acenas as head of its new digital media

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The agency managed all the social media marketing and video advertising for Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra concert which happened at the Esplanade Concert Hall on 7 January 2016.

Late last year, Nanyang Business School (NBS), a school under Nanyang Technological University, also reappointed Happy Marketer as its digital marketing agency of record in Singapore.

And venturing out of Singapore, The Time Place, Indonesia’s largest luxury watch retailer, also reappointed Happy Marketer as its social media marketing agency after a closed door pitch.

Over the past year, Happy Marketer has helped grow The Time Place’s Facebook fan base to more than 150,000 followers.

Globally, Fastacash has also worked with Happy Marketer.

has opened seven new offices throughout Europe and Asia. KRDS has consistently registered triple-digit annual growth and in 2011, AXA PE, the leading European private equity firm, took an equity stake in the company.

Over the years, KRDS has had an extensive list of clients such as Exness, NETS, Singapore Kindness Movement, 1933 Singapore, BreadTalk and many others. Last year the agency also launched its KRDS story analysis tool to help brands identify the most engaging posts for any given industry.

The tool is made accessible to all brands and agencies and aims to provide brands with a report that unveils community management efforts being made by other brands on Facebook in real-time in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and India.

The tool calculates and ranks the most engaging posts in a chosen period of time via a specially created “KRDS SAT score” (based on the number of fans, likes, comments and shares for each story) and highlights posts from more than 400 brands and 17 industries such as tourism, beauty and FMCG.

division; Menaka Seshakumar as head of the marketing automation practice; Jim Guzman to lead the social media and real-time marketing practice; journalist Keith Boi to drive its new content division; and Beatriz Ayrosa to co-lead project management.

Building on the success of the programme in 2014, the MRM//Digital University programme was also updated.

The agency strengthened its onboarding programme with the launch of initiatives such as the buddy programme, goal-setting in week one, and regular feedback throughout the

probation.

Through its online tool, career navigator, the agency was able to automate its performance management process. The tool allows both individuals and managers to write and submit annual reviews and plan their goals online.

It also launched a series of health and wellness initiatives with the belief that healthy employees tend to be happier and more productive. These initiatives included free health-screening, ergonomic workshops, Pilates, zumba, and much more.

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DIGITAL AGENCIES

NURUN Owned by : Publicis Groupe Groupe Headed by : Joanne Theseira, general manager; Jonathan Ng, creative partner With more than 40 digital shops in a very small and saturated market, the newly launched Nurun knew it had to define a clear role for itself to drive growth.

To position itself for growth, it focused on reinventing customer journeys through technology to reveal new avenues of growth for clients. Through technology, data, and design thinking, it has helped deliver innovative ideas that seek to optimise or reimagine the way brands interact with consumers.

Through innovative campaigns, the agency is transforming businesses through the most personal and immediate technology – the mobile phone. An example of this was when it helped Audi extend the showroom experience through virtual technology. It used SG50, the nation’s biggest celebration, to show Singapore how far it has come.

As Singaporeans were driven in an Audi through Singapore’s civic district, users saw and travelled back in time down those same streets as they had been in 1965 through a fully interactive GPS-tagged, 3D virtual experience. By being part of a national conversation in a way that truly added value to proud Singaporeans, Audi was able to seal its position in the market as a technologically advanced car brand. For Nurun, innovation is an ongoing process of translating an idea into a product or service that creates value for clients.

OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE Ogilvy & Mather Singapore’s 2015 approach acknowledged the fact that the only thing harder than getting to the top is staying there.

This is a sizeable challenge for any agency in Singapore which is a rather cluttered communications market of more than 250 established and emerging competitors; all the while with a growing importance in keeping up with all things digital.

It refined its digital offering around three pillars: customer engagement, technology partnerships and continuous commerce.

These gave a clear focus to its investments in product and service innovations, partnerships and transformational talent Last year, it appointed Chandra Barathi as head of technology at Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, and VP of technology for OgilvyOne Asia Pacific. It also promoted Chris Riley to the position of chairman of O&M Group Singapore to replace Fiona Gordon, who had led the operations since 2011.

In a hyper-dynamic landscape where technology and delivery mechanics are constantly changing, it’s impossible to be “best in breed” in everything. So Ogilvy & Mather Singapore pursued a clear strategy of partnerships to realise its growth objectives through new service developments.

Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jeff Cheong, president, Asia and head of Tribal Worldwide Singapore

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Owned by : Independent Headed by : Nelson Lee, partner and head of new business

Owned by : WPP Headed by : Chris Riley, chairman

TRIBAL WORLDWIDE SINGAPORE

Tribal Worldwide Singapore continues to strengthen its position as a communication agency that creates work that influences mindshare, purchase and loyalty.

Its focus last year was helping client businesses to close the gap between social media and commerce. It also looked to delve deep into content creation and distribution and create a community centric focus for the work it does.

Winning over the trust of clients, the agency was able to move clients’ budgets

SECTION

from traditional spend to e-commerce solutions. One such case was channelling the sale of the famous Hello Kitty toy from McDonald’s. Not only did they sell more toys online, they eliminated the infamous long queues.

Another great initiative by the agency was for the Pioneer Generation Package campaign which initially had a complicated health policy to communicate.

That led the agency to think of serious content creation to reach the hardest-to-

Making it to the finalists list this year is Section. If marketing is truly about understanding consumer behaviour and turning it into your favour, most companies are still not seeing or leveraging the potential of digital, says the agency. And it aims to change just that.

One recent client Section brought on board was Jack’s Place. The agency was appointed ahead of a revamp where Jack’s Place looked to reintroduce the restaurant as the definitive destination for steak lovers. As it celebrated its 50th anniversary, Jack’s Place launched an integrated campaign, “Steak & Symphony”, which rolled out in March.

Another one of Section’s clients was Bata. Section tied up with Bata to create an integrated digital campaign called “Have We Met’. Aiming to reconnect with younger consumers, the campaign included a microsite to extend online dedicated engagement and reach. Bata’s targeted social media marketing also included a short film.

Section developed a digital platform for users to share a personal message to a friend and select a pair of their preferred Bata shoes.

reach audience – the pioneers who spoke little English or Mandarin.

The agency grew an in-house content team with script writers and content creators to generate content for social, broadcast and roadshows to reach this audience.

Native content creation and advertising is beginning to find its way into marketing effectiveness, but Tribal Worldwide Singapore has been in this area and led collaboration with key opinion leaders for almost five years.

But the tide has changed and a new wave of influential platforms have emerged.

As such, the agency formed alliances with leading platforms such as Mothership, The Smart Local and SGAG to provide more holistic communication solutions for clients.

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EVENT MARKETING

SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT Owned by : Independent Headed by : Daniel Tan and Luke Lee, directors

In the decade since its establishment, Single Point of Contact has spearheaded multiple prominent campaigns in Singapore, including “Families for Life Celebrations”, “Singapore Food Festival”, “Singtel Hawker

THE WINNERS GOLD

Single Point Of Contact

71.25%

SILVER

Visual Studio Singapore

70.83%

BRONZE

The Events Artery

70.00%

LOCAL HERO

Single Point Of Contact

71.25%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising amc asia!

Grid Kingsmen Ooh-Media Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP Octagon The Event Company

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Heroes”, “Dairy Farm SG” and “UOB Gamification”.

SPOC opts for solutions that deliver commercial and brand results; solutions for clients that yield results in both quality and quantity; and pulling in sales and building up a healthy brand at the same time.

At a time when technological changes pose as an increasing challenge to connect with consumers, brands are beginning to explore new ways to reach out to their audiences. What used to be easily achieved by television, newspapers and radio has since evolved and expanded into several other media platforms such as social media, digital and customised outdoor sites, and that is essentially what SPOC aims to do.

SPOC acts as a single point-of-contact for providing integrated marketing services to strengthen brands across all fields be it creative, events or new media.

By addressing all their key needs, this approach frees up resources for clients to focus on strategic planning in the pursuit of long-term sustainable growth and profit.

With a team of driven, passionate and dedicated staff, SPOC gives 100% of their hearts, minds, bodies and souls in their projects, helping them create work to be proud of and turning the seemingly

impossible into reality. By setting clear incentives and career progression route maps, SPOC’s staff are empowered to do their best towards their career goals with the knowledge that recognition and reward for their efforts will be at the end of the road. The company believes in appraising and highlighting the team’s key achievements and difficulties to identify areas of improvement.

After each project, SPOC has post-event reviews, where together, it reviews and identifies key points of learning, sharing difficulties it faced in each of the respective areas and what can be done to improve; this practice helps make sure each event is better than the last.

All new hires have to go through a specifically structured orientation programme run by its own staff members that instils the company’s perspective into each individual, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

SPOC also stands out from the crowd as it believes in telling the clients “No”.

By promising what is realistic, working together and fine-tuning its plan for success, SPOC’s 360-degree open communication approach ensures that clients understand, respect and appreciate the way it works – hence, building a strong win-win partnership.

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Lighthouse Events, the events management division of Lighthouse Independent Media, has been bringing Lighthouse’s conferences, awards shows and internal meetings to life since 2006 - over 40 events annually in multiple formats through numerous markets across Asia. Staffed by a team of experienced and dedicated event professionals, Lighthouse Events is commited to understanding and delivering its clients’ strategic objectives. Lighthouse Events has the expertise and experience to conceptualise and manage any customised event, making sure its clients’goals are met on every occasion.

Call us if you need a partner for:• Venue Sourcing • Destination Management • Event Conceptualization • Supplier Management

• Registration Services • Branding & Graphic Design • Event Production/Logistics Support

Contact us with your event brief today.

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EVENT MARKETING

VISUAL STUDIO SINGAPORE

Over the past decade, it has worked for several prominent companies, including DP Information Group, Changi Singapore and SPH Magazines. Visual Studio provides a holistic service for a wide spectrum of clients,

ranging from multi-national companies, government and statutory boards to small and medium enterprises, learning institutions and charitable non-profit organisations. The agency looks at the sequential stages of concept, planning and execution; supported by its in-house design and carpentry facilities, ensuring swift on-site responses and efficient problem-solving for its clients.

The biggest form of satisfaction from work comes from keeping clients happy, the agency believes. Not only does it want clients to be happy, its staff ’s happiness comes out as one of the top priorities as well. The agency believes the happier its staff, the easier creative ideas come to them and the more productive the workplace.

Visual Studio believes in thinking more than just about itself, and instead thinks about the bigger picture. It recognises the importance of building credibility among clients and connecting with other like-minded professionals, exploring new technologies and sharing business problems and solutions. By adding extra elements such as audience insights, field research and developing a brand-specific voice, it believes these can give its final products that extra kick they need to reach the top.

what it will see, feel, touch and remember from the event.

By engaging audiences intellectually and emotionally, the agency translates content on the ground by creating an authentic experience, often through inspiring speakers and topics, collaborating with artists, writers, thought-leaders and pundits and matching brands with their network of influencers and celebrities.

Connecting people through business travel events, the agency helps clients grow their businesses by inspiring their audience.

Through its regional partner network, it provides premium destination management, hospitality and secretariat services.

The Events Artery believes in creating a positive work environment in its office. As part of its team-building efforts, the agency’s

20-man team of producers, designers and co-ordinators often attend workshops and interactive activities where they can learn through play.

In the past year, the agency assessed and reviewed its services to make it bigger and better. Utilising a human-centred approach, it launched a customers’ insight campaign, where it conducted personal face-to-face interviews to understand the clients’ perception of their brand and their own strengths and weaknesses as well as discuss their challenges, business needs and buying behaviour.

After converting the gathered information to critical insights, it identified ways to improve to better serve its clients and achieve their business potential and opportunity.

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Larson Ong, account director and Raymond He, production director

Since 2002, Visual Studio has aimed to provide events management services that integrate design elements to make eyecatching campaigns that effectively sell the brands and engage audiences.

THE EVENTS ARTERY Owned by : Independent Headed by : Wai Mayleng, managing director Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, The Events Artery has helmed many large scale events, including Shine Festival and events for the Health Promotion Board. It promises to connect clients to their target audiences through the power of live events.

It believes in doing everything with heart and passion and giving the audience the best experience it can receive because it believes that people will forget the things you said and did, but not how you make them feel.

By working with clients to effectively strategise the most suitable plan to suit their needs, the agency crafts stories, formulates key messages, identifies challenges and opportunities and measures the results after the campaigns. With the goal in mind to build the right platform to achieve their business goals, be it product launches, brand activation events, festivals or conferences, it aims to build audience-centric events, circling around

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EVENT MARKETING

ADDICTION ADVERTISING Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director

Addiction Advertising is made up of a creative, results-oriented, passionate and unconventional bunch.

It continues to successfully position itself as the independent experiential event agency with the largest portfolio of healthcare clients. Addiction Advertising has an extensive portfolio of healthcare and healthcarerelated clients which includes the Ministry of Health, Agency for Integrated Care, the National Healthcare Group, Singapore General Hospital, NTUC Health and Takeda Pharmaceuticals, which the agency grabbed late last year.

The agency believes its best product is its talent. With only a single goal in mind, evangelising experiential events, the agency takes it upon itself to lead the experiential event revolution, recruiting talent who live and breathe events. It believes creating great products will result in happy clients.

KINGSMEN OOH-MEDIA Owned by : Kingsmen Group Headed by : Danny Lim, managing director; David Tay, executive director Despite having a lean team, Kingsmen has multiple large-scaled events under its belt, including Ferrero Asia, BMW and OCBC. The agency believes strongly in possessing the right mix of people as the key to success in this business.

Given the high working demands the industry requires with unpredictable hours and overnight set-up time, attracting and retaining talent is an ongoing challenge.

The marketing industry is no doubt demanding. Hence, Kingsmen aims to provide a balanced, sustainable and motivating

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AMC ASIA!

GRID

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Bernard Oh, group CEO and executive creative director

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Terence Kuek, senior director

Headquartered in Singapore with offices all over Asia, amc asia! understands its clients’ objectives and creates one-of-a-kind campaigns and strategic events.

The agency goes beyond events and brings a new level of innovation to its clients through the ability to design and conceptualise integrated campaigns, incorporating digital marketing as a key component. The agency has also been growing and developing its team through overseas festivals, workshops and courses on the relevant fields, giving it a competitive edge in its pitches and campaigns.

Amc asia! strives to push boundaries of conventional norm through new technology and innovation and create an immersive, interactive and experiential journey for its audience. It takes pride in being one of the few agencies that’s able to balance creativity and innovation even with budget constraints.

It believes creativity shouldn’t be compromised and it works towards creating the most effective experience that best serves the client’s budget and objectives.

Amc asia! encourages its team to upgrade its skills and continue learning and has even designed a scholarship for staff who want to explore higher level learning.

working environment to keep the team energised and improve overall productivity.

Kingsmen also believes in rewarding its employees and recognising their efforts regularly. In 2015, several members of its staff received promotions.

Kingsmen’s approach focuses on establishing a desired consumer experience with its clients and following through with a steadfast commitment towards delivering the promised experience through design, operations management and technological

A local creative agency with almost 30 years of an operational track record, Grid has a holistic process that ensures that creative work is always held to a high standard and matched with attentive client servicing.

This has proven successful as Grid has been gaining a growing core of clientele whose loyalty is attributable to quality and cost-effective results.

Grid has a familial and mutually supportive working environment, with a HR department that runs a regular schedule of activities to encourage team bonding and the general welfare of staff.

The team focuses equally on the creative and business aspects of the agency’s work while looking to match the clients’ needs, budgets and timelines.

A key aspect of Grid’s longevity and long-term success is a dual focus on the creative and business side of operations. The agency looks beyond the initial briefing to understand clients’ perspectives and goals – therefore shaping its internal direction for creative solutions and production methods to better fit in with them.

Grid also recently rebranded with a new logo and brand mark to reflect the company’s journey, which is summed up in its all-new mobile-ready website.

applications. Its commitment to delivering successful outcomes makes its service exceptional. Kingsmen constantly explores and taps on the latest in interactive, social and out-of-home media to introduce effective marketing ideas and platforms for different audiences, thereby, activating brands and creating links to engage customers.

With years of industry knowledge and a wealth of activation experience, the team is led by a group of dedicated leaders who focus on creating unique brand experiences that leave lasting impressions, employing combinations of out-of-home media platforms, advertising mediums and interactive elements to reach out to mobile audiences.

But the agency believes, regardless of whatever platforms and mediums are used, it is ultimately about delivering the experiences that the audiences love.

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EVENT MARKETING

LUMINOUS EXPERIENTIAL MSLGROUP Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Tamsyn Barker, general manager

In the past year, Luminous Experiential maintained its strong long-term client relationships, while simultaneously winning many exciting new clients that were drawn from a broad range of industry sectors because of its ability to produce great strategic and creative solutions across diverse industries throughout Asia.

In the past year, Luminous Singapore delivered numerous live experiences for audiences in Singapore specifically crafted to engage, excite, entertain and educate. Events executed by the group aim to effectively understand the client’s audience and deliver a targeted brand message.

Due to the high quality of work produced, the staff is instilled with a sense of pride and purpose.

The company leadership recognises its greatest resource is its people. As such, the directors keep in close contact with the team and a carefully managed workload is put in place to ensure staff remain energised, motivated and empowered.

In response to clients’ needs and the desire to offer unique solutions, the agency constantly pushes itself creatively, strategically and technically to produce truly innovative experiences and market-leading projects.

Driven by passion and pride, the innovation, creativity, attention to detail and precision in the company transcends into the events it organises, working towards making each event flawless and a success.

The agency is overwhelmingly driven by passion and pride for the outstanding quality of the event experience it delivers and that’s what has won the hearts of marketers for the agency over the years.

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OCTAGON SINGAPORE

THE EVENT COMPANY

Owned by : Interpublic Group Headed by : Ben Hartman, managing director, SEA

Owned by : Freeman Headed by : Ian Terry, managing director

In the past year, Octagon Singapore has doubled its number of clients. Built on people and ideas, the agency believes in passionately finding, developing and investing in the best in the industry. Octagon believes having people with a shared passion and complementary skills helps drive the company forward, while going the extra mile for clients.

It aims to think ahead, stay positive and stand up for what it believes in. Octagon staff are encouraged to engage beyond their laptop screens and to participate in regularly organised team bonding events and volunteering events. It believes healthy people are happy people, and happy people do better work.

In the past year, Octagon moved to a new and bigger office that reflects each employee’s personality in terms of design and productivity. The company believes that memories are built from great experiences around the things you are passionate about and that passion is the world’s most valuable currency. It aims to work with brands that understand the power of passion and want to

use this passion to change behaviour. From researchers to strategists, creative, account management and event producers, the team works tirelessly to align its clients’ objectives with fan passion for events across Southeast Asia by engaging fans and delivering measurable results.

The Singapore office is also one of the fastest growing Octagon offices in the world.

The agency also believes the local industry is still in its infancy in much of this region and it is the responsibility of agencies as leaders to educate and grow the sector as a whole.

At Octagon, the agency doesn’t talk just about its perspective on the world, but acts on it with passion.

Since its establishment 25 years ago, The Event Company has helmed countless events.

Fuelled by a strong passion for its craft, much of the work at the company revolves around people. By creating a seamless and positive client experience focused on the desired outcome of its clients, the agency has shown to deliver on connecting brands to people, and people to people.

In the past year, the agency has delivered countless experiential events, reaching thousands of audience members and provided event services to a wide range of industries, government and corporate sectors, demographics, cultures and ethnicities.

The agency believes the customer is at the heart of everything it does.

Through the delivery of strategic and engaging event experiences, the company helps its clients to create conversations that humanises brands, which inspires action, changes behaviour, perceptions and relationships; bringing brands to life through deeper and more meaningful connections.

The Event Company’s event experience product is defined by the quality and impact of the experiences it conceives, crafts, creates and executes and is evaluated by the audience’s reaction to it.

The agency then aims to make events better through technology and hyper personalisation.

With its people being its only and most precious asset, they unite and share a passion for the agency’s clients and the quality of the events and experience they provide, truly believing they can accelerate a client’s business one event at a time.

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MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

THE NIELSEN COMPANY SINGAPORE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Joan Koh, managing director Nielsen has maintained its top spot as the leading market research agency in Singapore again this year.

A global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers “watch and buy”, it had a strong performance in 2015 and has posted a strong start to 2016, underpinned by its consistent, resilient

THE WINNERS GOLD

The Nielsen Company (Singapore)

SILVER

Ipsos

73.75%

BRONZE

Millward Brown

72.50%

LOCAL HERO

Consulting Group – Asia Insight

70.75%

76.25%

THE FINALISTS Agility Research and Strategy Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants Blackbox Research Kadence International Market Probe Asia Pacific SKIM

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business model. This means Nielsen has now delivered 39 consecutive quarters of constant currency revenue growth.

Across both its watch and buy segments, it does two things: provides clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance.

It focuses on driving the adoption of total audience measurement across all devices and platforms, and total consumer measurement across all channels, including e-commerce.

It continues to better serve clients through measurement and analytics, leveraging on data assets, data science and technology.

In line with the Singapore government’s efforts to support and drive the growth of small-medium enterprises (SMEs), Nielsen collaborates with companies and public agencies for funding support on market research and education on marketing intelligence.

It explored changing trends and patterns with C-level business leaders across sectors

and industries at the FT-Nielsen ASEAN Cities Summit 2015 leadership forum; launched the Bricks and Clicks Shopper Trends report on the rising trend of Singapore omni-channel shoppers to retailers; along with more than 20 thought-leadership reports on consumer and market trends.

In 2015 it carried out an extensive consumer study for a global face cream brand to improve success in product innovation and reduce cost in concept testing.

Another of its significant work was a widespread consumer study for a telco to understand customers’ usage, engagement patterns, needs and lifestyles which helped to develop its marketing campaigns.

It also deployed a measurement solution to evaluate the effectiveness of a country wide campaign for a government agency; and came up with a customised price pack optimisation solution for a consumer packaged goods client solving service quality and data inconsistencies.

People-wise, Nielsen continues its strong emphasis on the employee experience, and a diverse and inclusive culture. It aims to continue to reinvent and stay agile to help clients tackle business issues and connect with their consumers via Nielsen’s differentiated path-to-performance and expertise in innovation, marketing effectiveness and sales effectiveness.

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14/5/2016 4:09:54 PM

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MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

IPSOS Owned by : Ipsos SA Headed by : Joseph Chua, managing director, Singapore

In 2015, Ipsos adopted a slogan to symbolise its new philosophy of “Game Changers”. The tag line represented what it wished to accomplish as an organisation; proactively changing the nature of market research by delivering on four core principles – security, simplicity, speed and substance.

By implementing client-first and peoplecentric strategies and policies around this new philosophy, it was another stunning year for Ipsos in Singapore. The Ipsos Social Media Exchange, which was set up in Singapore in 2013, serves as a hub for APAC.

This unit specialises in social business intelligence through the use of social listening and online communities for consumer research. In 2015, this unit was integrated with its qualitative research specialist unit as a strategic move to provide richer context and quicker insights to clients.

Its success can also be attributed to the clustering of the Singapore and Malaysia offices in 2014.

This was done primarily to mirror many of its clients’ structures who have interests in both markets, as well as to leverage on the Ipsos global hubs in Kuala Lumpur.

A growing hub destination, March 2015 saw the launch of Ipsos Interactive Services – its online research specialists – in Kuala Lumpur. Over the course of the year, it has managed several projects across APAC, and grown to house 48 online research specialists.

2015 also saw the launch of a revolutionary research platform – insight cloud – an “always-on” digital platform that offers clients the ability to collect and connect insights that are curated with every piece of research. Insights are continually built on and brought alive in multi-media richness on a dynamic platform that encourages collaboration across the client organisation,

as insights become the cornerstone of their business decision-making process. Insight cloud was launched for multiple clients in 2015 in Singapore.

In 2015, Ipsos celebrated its 40th anniversary, retaining its heritage as one of the last few independent research agencies worldwide, and initiating the “new way” philosophy. Ipsos in Singapore opened as AMI 21 years ago and was rebranded as Synovate in 2003, and in 2011, Ipsos merged with Synovate to create the third-largest market research firm in the world and the Singapore office has been operating under the Ipsos brand name ever since.

A major milestone for the company, it took the opportunity to thank both its people and clients who had helped to bring it so far. The full day event was titled “Then.

Now. Next.”

Along with Ipsos staff, it was graced with the presence of key clients. There were four interactive rooms, each taking on different decades from the 1970s to the 21st century.

Each of these rooms walked participants through the significant changes that have taken place over the past 40 years that have impacted the world of branding, marketing, loyalty and product innovation.

development process, and offered a range of LINK solutions that were cost and timeefficient. LinkNow for TV and digital was introduced as a faster and cost-efficient solution to provide businesses the flexibility to use pre-testing when needed as a quick evaluation. A LinkNow database for Singapore was created to continue the legacy of innovation that is relevant for the market.

A focused sales approach also helped the agency grow its new business and also its conversion rate from proposals to projects.

It achieved this by equipping sales folks skills through a Sales Academy training which

made it easier to initiate conversations, engage clients and eventually win new business.

In 2015, it rolled out an all-encompassing engagement plan to retain and motivate its people. The plan focused on career growth, employee empowerment and employee engagement. In terms of work, its research, AdReaction: Video Creative in a Digital World, launched in October 2015 to help marketers understand how to create a video that is effective in a multi-screen world. Consumer Theatre was rolled out to help clients develop brilliant brand communications through powerful human insights.

MILLWARD BROWN Owned by : WPP Headed by : Priti Mehra, managing director, Singapore

Established for 40 years, and in Singapore since 1997, Millward Brown continues to push the boundaries of traditional research with its approach to client engagement and product innovation to reflect the changing needs of clients, while investing in talent.

2015 was a challenging year for many of its clients and for the agency itself.

It took the tougher trading conditions in its stride and as growth slowed down, it continued to focus on partnering clients through these tough times.

The agency was able to hold its market share by focusing relentlessly on clients’ needs and helping them during a time of uncertainty.

In 2015, it strengthened its creative development footprint, expanded its expertise to an early stage creative

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At Ipsos we have been privileged to work with innovative clients who have seen beyond the norm, who have been bold and who have pushed past the boundaries with us. Clients who have trusted us to walk down the non-traditional research routes together. Without their faith that ours is a true partnership, our success in 2015 could not have been achieved.

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR CLIENTS

GAMEÂ CHANGERS www.ipsos.com.sg

MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

CONSULTING GROUP – ASIA INSIGHT Owned by : Independent Headed by : Adrian Tan, managing director

Founded in 1996, Asia Insight celebrated its second decade with a strong performance in 2015. The year saw the team deliver on its commitment of “turning insights into foresights” for its clients by strengthening its consulting expertise with senior-level strategic hires, upskilling team capabilities with an improved talent training programme and improving consultative and executional capabilities with new research product solutions. In 2015, Asia Insight continued to

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strengthen its relationships with clients across a range of key industries such as automotive, telecommunications and technology, FMCG/F&B and the government sector.

The growth was driven by a number of factors such as new hires with direct client-side experience, and expertise in key growth areas such as technology, the internet and new tech and better client engagement activities, backed by specialised training programmes.

Asia Insight is an independent full-service market research consultancy. Headquartered in Singapore, Asia Insight conducts customised research across Asia, covering major capitals and also lower-tier cities.

Since 1996, its marketing and strategic insights have helped global brands such as Daimler, Estée Lauder, Hewlett-Packard and Philips embrace their potential within Asia and throughout the world.

Asia Insight works with clients to nurture a partnership that adds value with insights – those that matter to their business. Armed with its pioneering spirit, it often seeks new ways to deliver more effective ways to measure, explore and share knowledge. This pursuit of excellence has resulted in a steady stream of client-relevant products.

The agency’s primary objective is helping clients excel and win in their markets. However, Asia Insight is also active as a contributing member of the research community. Making a social stand during the Singapore Haze in October 2015, and concerned with the impact on Singaporeans, Asia Insight conducted a published study titled “Haze-omics”. The survey measured how the haze had impacted Singaporeans’ health and lifestyles and also how consumers were prepared to change their shopping behaviour, among other things.

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14/5/2016 4:11:29 PM

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MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

ACORN MARKETING & RESEARCH CONSULTANTS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Sum Ooi Leng, director Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants is the largest independent Asian research network in 10 Asian countries.

Its focus has been on the building of strategic long-term partnerships with clients, not just in Singapore, but across Asia. More than half of its business revenue continues to come from its vintage clients with more than 15 years of relationships.

Staff training and retention are a key focus for the agency as people are its greatest asset. It believes in building competency and leadership at all levels, with annual regional in-house training for researchers and operations staff to upskill.

Some key training in 2015 included the young executive training programme – regional training for new researchers held in Bangkok; the Acorn boot camp – regional training to upskill mid-tier researchers; and effective project management training – for operations staff to improve on their capabilities in using modern techniques to enhance their productivity. The agency is looking at expanding its Asia foothold by setting up another Acorn office in ASEAN.

AGILITY RESEARCH AND STRATEGY Owned by : Independent Headed by : Ali Mirza, executive director; Amrita Banta, managing director Agility Research and Strategy provides clients with access to the affluent suite, a unique system of tools and processes developed through years of research.

These clients primarily have a vested interest in affluent consumers and their path to purchase.

It also provides syndicated research done every quarter across Asia, Europe and the US, surveying up to 3,000 consumers to measure the pulse of the emerging and affluent Asian consumer.

It launched its own LuxeTalk panel to interview affluent and high-net-worth individuals for its research.

In 2015, it saw its research solutions expand to cover a range of offerings that complement each other and strengthen its positioning as a leading player in the affluent research segment.

One of the significant works done by the agency was for Star Cruises. Together with Star Cruises it launched the first ever comprehensive study on cruise travel in Asia – an incredibly fast-growing travel trend in the region.

BLACKBOX RESEARCH Owned by : Independent Headed by : David Black, managing director Continuing its path to steady growth, major revenues for Blackbox came from existing and new clients.

Further consolidating the position of Blackbox in 2015, it expanded its offerings across a wide spectrum of categories, including public policy, financial services and retail/property.

It also strengthened its position in the digital research space through its innovative community products and social navigation approach that combines social media metrics and survey data. Its competence in communications research in providing clients with relevant and useful data, along with its high-level advisory services with respect to content development, is also acknowledged within the industry.

Being strong advocates of collaboration, Blackbox successfully continues to partner with several brand agencies, management consultants and advertising creative teams to provide actionable insights to clients.

These partnerships ad value to a client’s work and helps agencies to cross-learn, innovate and create a superior product.

Its stakeholder work continues to grow and provide valuable analysis to several major local institutions.

KADENCE INTERNATIONAL Owned by : Independent Headed by : Philip Steggals, managing director, Singapore Rather than being a “traditional” market research agency, Kadence acts as a research consultancy, putting itself at the heart of clients’ businesses.

It employs many classic research techniques (focus groups, telephone interviews and web research) but does not sell standardised approaches to clients. Instead, it takes the time, care and attention to understand the business issues before designing a bespoke solution, often supplementing traditional approaches with innovative techniques. It calls this its consultancy mindset.

Throughout its projects, it focuses on generating insight, recommendations and

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business opportunities from its research. In essence, producing a “catalyst for innovation” for the client, ensuring their investment in research keeps them and their stakeholder groups busy over the months to come.

However, beyond its consultancy, what is perhaps even more vital for its clients is clear communication. Consultancy, if poorly communicated, has little to no value, the agency believes. It has invested heavily in its deliverables to clients, generating marketleading info and video-graphic content to convey its findings with as much clarity as possible. It’s this “communication culture” that has proven to be the bedrock of its ongoing successes over the past 12-24

Steggals

months. Despite the numerous offices in its global group, Kadence Singapore operates as an independent SME. In early 2015, it introduced its campaign “Insight Worth Sharing” – a new company tag line and brand position – as a way of clearly articulating its proposition.

It is an expression of the two pillars of Kadence’s communication philosophy – its high quality business insight allied with its innovative market-leading output.

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MARKET RESEARCH AGENCIES

MARKET PROBE ASIA PACIFIC Owned by : Independent Headed by : Saji Kumar, managing director Market Probe has been in the business of designing and implementing customer experience management (CEM) programmes in various sectors such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and utilities and telecommunications for nearly 40 years.

The core of its thought leadership is its approach to customer loyalty and advocacy.

SKIM SINGAPORE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Robin De Rooij, director, Asia Pacific In 2015, SKIM Singapore managed to build a strong relationship with two highprofile FMCG multinationals, Unilever and Coca-Cola. It also worked together with the consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners and by the end of the year, had gained another high-profile FMCG client in Asia: L’Oréal.

This is the universal pursuit of all businesses and is the central focus of all CEM programmes. It is a full-service global market research firm with offices in eight countries.

Founded in 1976, it provides full-service strategic guidance and business solutions to major international companies. It specialises in stakeholder measurement programmes focused on customer satisfaction and brand marketing research.

Market Probe believes in the importance of four basic guiding principles in terms of how it views itself and its client relationships: quality, service, teamwork and innovation. To the agency, these aren’t mere terms. They are

concepts that have helped guide it to be one of the fastest growing research companies in the world.

Its customer satisfaction and brand expertise reaches businesses around the globe. In addition to its headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it has offices throughout the US and in Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, India, Singapore and China with in-house facilities for field services by web and phone.

It believes in building a worldwide presence so it can continue to successfully serve its multinational clients in an everchanging marketplace.

All in all, in its first year of operations SKIM Singapore interviewed more than 10,000 consumers in countries across the region.

The strong marketing culture of its clients and the repeat business it was able to establish from the start in 2015 is a testimony to its team’s drive and passion for quality work in terms of client servicing, research methodologies and marketing recommendations, it says.

SKIM Singapore used a couple of novel market research solutions in 2015 in Asia.

First, it launched a solution for brands to

test and maximise the effectiveness of their communications at point-of-sale. Using a MaxDiff methodology, it was able to find in a clear, robust and highly actionable way which specific messages clients should use for their brands to be most motivating for consumers to buy them.

In addition to a robust methodology, the novel aspect of the solution that SKIM Singapore introduced (called SKIM Semantic) came from the act that it was a standard one for all brands and clients.

This standard approach also helped in bringing project costs down for clients.

Insights are more valuable when cut and made to shiine.

At Kadence we create insights that are more engaging, more accessible and therefore more valuable.

We call this Insights Worth Sharing. Find out how by emailing Singapore@kadence.com

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MEDIA AGENCIES

MINDSHARE SINGAPORE Owned by : WPP Headed by : Melissa Tang, managing director

Mindshare Singapore saw a busy 2015 in which it launched a slew of new initiatives, one of which was its solution suite, future adaptive specialist team (FAST), which aims to provide data-led adaptive marketing services to brands.

FAST comprises six services which are: data management, performance marketing, programmatic strategy, real-time marketing, digital analytics and managing big data, all going towards demonstrating Mindshare’s

THE WINNERS GOLD

Mindshare Singapore

76.67%

SILVER

ZenithOptimedia

75.67%

BRONZE

Havas Media Singapore

73.33%

LOCAL HERO

The Media Shop

66.67%

THE FINALISTS Maxus Mediatropy Digital Agency OMD SINGAPORE PHD Singapore Starcom Media Singapore Vizeum Singapore

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ability to constantly and quickly adapt to the needs of the day.

The media agency also built FAST services specifically for five sectors: consumer packaged goods, banking, consumer healthcare, telecommunications and automobile to drive business in emerging markets. It allows clients to adopt and implement adaptive marketing strategies covering programmatic, performance marketing, customised data alliances, digital analytics, data management platforms and real-time marketing.

In February 2016, Mindshare launched a first-of-its-kind programmatic buying unit called ULTRA for Unilever in ASEAN, which aims to drive digital media quality measures around complete viewability, transparent brand safety, high in-target delivery and strong fraud avoidance.

Working actively on campaigns, Mindshare Singapore helped Prudential Singapore’s recent campaign, “Relationship Reconnect”, reach its target audience through broadcast, Facebook and YouTube, programmatic and outdoor media.

The campaign saw six Singaporean couples: husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, spending four minutes quietly looking at each other and sharing their emotional reactions. The social experiment video aimed to evoke emotions with its target audience, while connecting them with the fundamental premise of Prudential’s business.

It has also been an eventful year for Mindshare in terms of key hires, having appointed a number of key positions.

Jacob Kvist was appointed chief investment officer, tasked with driving Mindshare’s trading and investment strategy for the APAC region. Kevin Rooney was appointed chief growth officer, tasked with overseeing all aspects of growth across the agency.

Karl Cluck was appointed chief client officer for APAC, while retaining leadership over Mindshare’s Japan, Korea and Taiwan cluster. His responsibilities include driving adaptive marketing propositions along with the agency’s regional client team leaders, and the establishment of the performance marketing “FAST Hubs”.

James Lewin also rose to the role of head of innovation for Mindshare APAC, while Amy Kean was named regional strategy director.

Most recently, it tied up with video ad tech company Unruly to unveil a manifesto for brands looking to beat ad blockers.

The APAC future video manifesto advises advertisers on how to future-proof their video advertising and deal with the rise in adblocking, predicted to wipe off $41.4bn from the global economy in 2016.

The manifesto sets out seven pillars to help brands understand why ad blocking is on the rise and what they can do to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

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MEDIA AGENCIES

ZENITHOPTIMEDIA Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Helen Lee, managing director

ZenithOptimedia had a great 2015, concluding the year with 10 new businesses to its portfolio, headlined by its prestigious win of Singapore Airlines’ global business.

The agency’s strong foundations for success are evident from its long-time clients such as Borneo Motors Group (19 years), CDL Group and LVMH Group, both of which have been with ZenithOptimedia for nearly a decade.

ZenithOptimedia offers traditional media agency services such as media planning and buying, as well as strategy and consulting

HAVAS MEDIA SINGAPORE Owned by : The Havas Group Headed by : Melvin Lim, CEO, Singapore and Malaysia

From being a challenger brand in the industry to emerging as one of the fastest growing media agencies, 2015 proved to be a great one for Havas Media Singapore, as it had massive new business wins, strong talent influx, impressive industry accolades and a diversification of offerings.

The agency won all 13 of its major pitches it was invited to – winning key accounts such as Singtel, Changi Airport, Capitaland, Warner Bros and Gardens by the Bay. Havas Media Singapore continued to develop and strengthen its offering in

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services, digital strategy, SEM, SEO, analytics, sponsorship, branded content and digital creative. These services are provided with the help of programmes such as Ninah, Performics, Newcast and Resultrix.

The agency’s vision remains to provide clients with a far wider variety of their marketing needs than it has ever been able to do in the past.

This led to ZenithOptimedia creating its unique strategic product, owned first, which is based on the premise that a client’s owned media assets are more powerful than their

accordance with its digital-at-the-core philosophy that focused on integration through intersection and creativity, technology and data.

The agency put together a new team to fulfil its vision of providing a comprehensive content marketing solution to clients that could be executed end-to-end. A successful product from this initiative was POSB’s multi award-winning Neighboursfirst.sg digital storytelling platform.

Additionally, the agency saw a continued emphasis on the importance of integrative minds. The company ensures the planning, strategy and social teams from the creative and media departments make decisions together to create the best fusion of ideas to solve its clients’ business problems.

In 2015, the agency launched a new division of Havas Media called Havas Sports & Entertainment, which has since secured two

paid assets. Owned first became the best encapsulation of how ZenithOptimedia has transformed as a business over the past year – it says it is no longer just a traditional media agency focused solely on paid channels.

With the plans to transform the skills of its talent to achieve stronger crosschannel synergy in its media solutions, ZenithOptimedia staff had to undergo training to better adapt within the integrated media landscape. Additionally, media planners had to pick up a new area of specialisation, be it content, digital or search so they did not remain in the comfort zone of being media generalists.

The agency also made several key hires in 2015: Nik Vyas as head of Newcast (content); Lindsey Poon as senior manager (strategy); Dawn Lee as associate director, Performics; Arielle Yap as senior manager, Newcast (content); and Susanna Mak as media director (planning).

Last year saw the continuation of its training programmes, such as “live my life”, in which junior to mid-level talent got to participate in cross-market exchanges and literally live the life of their counterparts in other parts of the world – four from the Singapore office took part.

new clients, including ASEAN Para Games and Standard Chartered Marathon.

Adcity, a geo-marketing or out-of-home arm of Havas was also in the works to offer platform-based analytics-enabled OOH solutions for advertisers.

Bringing together the right people for the right job was the key objective in Havas Media’s recruitment process.

The agency made nine key hires over the past year, including appointing Jacqui Lim as managing director; Thomas Goh as managing director (digital); Russell Lai as executive director; and Mindy Ang as media director.

Havas Media encourages its staff to upgrade their skill sets by sending star performers to multiple industry training programmes.

Staff members are also sent for relevant courses with progressive partners such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Encouraging a balance between work and play, Havas Media saw the entire agency heading to Bali for a well-deserved R&R retreat last October.

It was the first out-of-country incentive trip rewarded to its staff since 2011.

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MEDIA AGENCIES

THE MEDIA SHOP Owned by : Independent Headed by : Gary Tang, co-founder and executive director; Jessica Toh, co-founder and regional business director

The Media Shop has enjoyed seven joyous years in the industry, and has maintained strong relationships with its longtime clients such as Dan Stevenson, Oanda Asia Pacific and CA Technologies.

2015 was a great year as The Media Shop managed to win over eight reputable clients to work on their marketing campaigns, including Extra Space Asia, Costa Coffee and Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

The agency analyses data, provides insights to its clients and crafts effective campaigns with the help of the Nielsen Media Index, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings, comScore Media Matrix and the Global Web Index.

Campaigns are also closely monitored and optimised by cutting under-performing segments while scaling well-performing ones using Google Analytics, DoubleClick,

MAXUS Owned by : WPP Headed by : Desh Balakrishnan, managing director Priding itself as the only media agency “born in the digital age”, Maxus helps clients to get the best from today’s increasingly complex and confusing communications landscape.

Client relationships are a big priority for Maxus, and the agency constantly aims to get

MEDIATROPY DIGITAL AGENCY Owned by : Independent Headed by : Astrid Boulle and Pierre De Luca, co-founders Mediatropy had a great 2015 and consolidated its presence as an innovative agency, providing customers with highly creative ideas, maintaining a tight control

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Hootsuite and Socialbakers.

An outstanding campaign by The Media Shop over the past year was one created for NETS to promote NETS FlashPay. The campaign rolled out across outdoor locations with billboards, bulkheads, crowns, trains and buses, and was supported by print, geo-located mobile advertisements, programmatic display ads, point-of-sales activities and accompanied by social

media postings. The NETS FlashPay campaign stretched from point-of-sales to outdoor to the web, which plastered the NETS’ image and messaging across the city and was successful in elevating the benefits of NETS FlashPay over its competitors’ offering.

Seven years since its inception, The Media Shop has grown steadily and the agency believes in nurturing its staff to excel and build better skills to benefit the team.

10/10 from and for its clients which include Subaru, Costa Cruise and Frasers Centrepoint Properties and others.

Other notable projects included Shiseido’s digital campaign to launch its new product, Shiseido Ultimate. 2015 also saw Maxus make a key partnership with the Singapore University of Technology and Design on a project titled “Light & Play”, which focused on building hardware units that store energy generated from a children’s playground to use it to power a village.

In April 2015, Maxus launched a marketing

command centre, MESH, which reads environmental signals in real-time to help its clients react in real-time to all the chatter around the brand. The platform also allows the Maxus teams to leverage on the data to become trusted advisors to its clients.

The agency’s APAC team also welcomed several key hires such as Nathan Cook as head of trading in APAC, who brings with him 17 years of experience in the field. Sandeep Pandey was appointed effectiveness head of Maxus APAC, while Rose Huskey took on the client leadership head position in APAC.

on quality and striving to over-deliver. The agency is welcomed with trust from the hospitality industry with Starwood and HPL two long-standing clients.

Mediatropy was appointed the creative and media agency of record for the HSBC World Rugby Singapore Sevens, and also won pitches for OPI, Clio and Sally Hansen in the past year. One key campaign Mediatropy worked on was the “Might I Suggest” campaign for Starwood’s luxury collection.

The key objective was to establish the brand as a destination authority and educate

its customers of its concierge services. The campaign utilised digital media to deliver content, and used geo-targeting and timetargeting banners to help people visualise their stay at the destinations.

Another was Clio’s promotional campaign for its new “Kill Brow Collection”, which focused on reaching young women with an interest in shopping and fashion and make-up products. Mediatropy designed a microsite and partnered with social influencers to produce videos, while ads ran on Facebook, YouTube and display networks.

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MEDIA AGENCIES

OMD SINGAPORE

PHD SINGAPORE

Owned by : Omnicom Media Group Headed by : Chloe Neo, managing director

Owned by : Omnicom Media Group Headed by : Ang Wan-Gyn, managing director

OMD started 2015 with the plan to stay relevant, authentic, bold and ahead of the curve to be a solutions-focused agency.

Its strong local presence has been further consolidated with new clients such as NTUC Enterprise, Ministry of National Development, Land Transport Authority, and Pandora.

OMD also works with some of the world’s most iconic brands, proving its ability to adapt and service the most challenging global client briefs. Its key clients include McDonald’s, Apple and Intel, who have been with the agency since its operations in APAC 14 years ago.

The agency has an unwavering commitment to deliver sharp insights, smarter ideas and stronger results for its clients’ growth – taking them beyond traditional media boundaries of planning and investment to go deeper into creativity, marketing and technology.

OMD has continued to better its unique operating system, VISION, which helps to nurture innovative work. The live platform, available to clients and teams, focuses on business outcomes rather than media metrics, harnessing the knowledge of the entire network to produce consistent solutions that drive business growth.

With 2015 marking the agency’s 25th anniversary globally, PHD had a great year with the objectives to produce enviable award-winning work, be the agency that clients want to work with, and to attract the brightest talents and the most curious minds.

PHD Singapore continued to deliver work and ideas that have helped its top clients greatly over the past year such as Ferrero Rocher, GSK and F&N. It also continued to enhance SOURCE, its global planning operating system that links its network offices by empowering cross-border teams to plan campaigns in real-time through gamification.

A key campaign from PHD was one for Johnnie Walker, which saw a partnership between the agency and lifestyle portal Mr Porter, allowing the full Wager 2 campaign to reach a hyper relevant and receptive audience which quickly outperformed its predecessor’s success.

interest data - and other initiatives for client Marina Bay Sands.

As of October 2015, Vizeum’s team boasts a headcount of 15, having made seven new hires in 2015, which is a strong indicator of its growth momentum. One of its key hires was Wohlstand Cheah, the first mobile director hired in the region.

Vizeum prides itself with two forms of staff development programmes: Route 500, a programme for all Dentsu Aegis Network

employees globally, aimed to identify future leaders and help them build their capabilities; and the learn and develop programme, a quarterly training programme which leverages on Vizeum’s strategy of “People.

Technology. Results”.

These staff initiatives saw benefits as its annual staff satisfaction survey showed Vizeum Singapore employees were one of the most satisfied compared with other Vizeum offices in the world.

“We approach this complex world by focusing on ‘People. Technology. Results’. We never lose sight of the fact that consumers are real people and that understanding their lives and motivations is more important today than ever before. We focus on how technology can drive competitive advantage and transform consumer journeys into highly personalised, relevant brand experiences powered by data,” said the agency.

Owned by : Dentsu Aegis Network Headed by : Shrivathsa Raghunathan, MD and Hui Cheng, Yang, business director

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Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Patricia Goh, managing director, Singapore Over the past year, Starcom Mediavest Group (SMG) has done well in winning over new businesses. New clients include the National Environment Agency, Land Transport Authority, Ricola and AIA. These add to the list of clients SMG already has, which includes long-standing clients such as Richemont, Far East Organisation, Nippon Paint and Kellogg’s.

People-wise, SMG puts its staff through Enneagram training, which is aimed at raising self-awareness and building team understanding. The training programme understands diverse personality types and finds solutions to work with each type.

SMG’s team heads and management also attended the seven habits of highly effective people leadership programme, and successfully incorporated these values into the corporate culture.

Singapore employees also attended drone training, which covered basic operations of how to fly a drone, navigate the skies and how to create content for client campaigns using the drones.

SMG’s purpose is to architect connected experiences to lead the velocity era of marketing.

VIZEUM SINGAPORE

Vizeum Singapore saw three critical developments in 2015: further developing its already leading consumer insight system, CCS, a bespoke partnership with Facebook, and a data visualisation tool to significantly improve business KPIs. Vizeum saw the win of several new businesses and renewed its relationships with clients such as CIMB Bank and Burberry Group for an additional two years.. The agency also rolled out “search powered social” - a re-targeting programme that matches user’s search data with Facebook

STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP

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MOBILE MARKETING

MRM//McCANN Owned by : Interpublic Group Headed by : Nicholas Handel, managing director, Singapore

The past year has been nothing short of amazing for MRM//McCann. It has continuously focused on clients with highly considered purchase cycles, along with an investment in disciplines such as mobile, analytics, marketing automation, CRM, media, UX and social media to help drive a

THE WINNERS GOLD

MRM//McCann

71.88%

SILVER

Digital Arts Network

64.17%

BRONZE

Mindshare

60.63%

LOCAL HERO

Section

59.38%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising Capillary Technologies Codigo KRDS Singapore Mediatropy Digital Agency Tribal Worldwide Singapore

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high category-busting revenue and profit improvement. In the past two years, the overall business for the agency has doubled and profit has increased tenfold.

With locations worldwide, MRM// McCann’s philosophy guides its approach to creating moments that matter to people and brands. Through insights gathered and an engaging creative that is enabled through technology, the agency builds seamless connected experiences that result in profitable relationships.

At MRM//McCann, it believes its obligation to clients is coupled with its obligation to society. Globally, the agency gives back to the community as it tries to advance the welfare of the planet by supporting meaningful programmes and causes because it believes that by doing good, everyone will feel good.

It has designed diverse experiences across multiple platforms to help brands play more meaningful roles in the lives of their customers. Through the use of various platforms, including traditional media, onground activations, PR, digital, social, film and mobile apps, a MRM//McCann campaign drove an astounding number of new blood donations for the Red Cross Connection,

inspiring Singaporean youths to donate blood and find donors for specific blood types.

Hershey’s Happygrams is another of the agency’s prominent campaigns in the past year – a mobile-optimised, real-time social media programme that listens to users’ everyday lives and responds with personalised messages of support and cheer written on Hershey’s chocolate bars.

MRM//McCann was voted a great place to work with a strong sense of camaraderie by almost all of its employees.

With several initiatives such as a buddy programme, goal settings and regular feedback, the agency automates its performance management process, and along with free health screenings and frequent sports events, the team is kept healthy both physically and mentally.

The agency’s contribution to the industry revolves around thought leadership in the areas of multi-channel marketing, creativity and technology; reaching out to graduates considering a career in marketing.

The company also had a recruitment fair last year, where it invited 20 students to spend time with each department and offered three lucky students one-month internships within the agency.

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MOBILE MARKETING

TBWA\DIGITAL ARTS NETWORK SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director

In the past two years, TBWA\DAN has experienced tremendous growth, driven by large regional wins for clients such as MasterCard and Singapore Airlines.

Its goal for the past year was to build a strong foundation for a long-term relationship with new regional clients and grow the accounts organically. With a vision to create a modern operating model for the agency to meet the changing demands of mobile and to connect consumers on behalf of key clients, the agency had to cope with the drastically changing market landscape using creative new methods.

According to the agency, consumers in Asia are now more connected than ever; which calls for new approaches for marketing.

As such, the agency kicked off the year with a vision to rethink the way a modern creative digital company would work and aim

MINDSHARE SINGAPORE Owned by : WPP Headed by : Melissa Tang, managing director

Mindshare Singapore saw a busy 2015 in which it launched a slew of new initiatives, one of which was its solution suite, future adaptive specialist team (FAST), which aims to provide data-led adaptive marketing services to brands.

FAST comprises six services: data management, performance marketing, programmatic strategy, real-time marketing,

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to build a strong agency model to sustain its growth, especially in real-time marketing initiatives. The ultimate goal was to meet the changing demands of mobile and connect consumers with brands. Recently, the company launched a new agency model for the digital world.

Making investments into modern data and insights technology, the agency hired data strategists, data scientists and content creators to its teams. It also made key leadership hires to support its growth and transformed Singapore Airlines into a mobilefirst web experience to drive the e-commerce business to new heights.

The main focus for 2015 for TBWA\ DAN was to build strong relationships with its existing clients, and it has been proven successful by driving revenue and increasing profitability. At TBWA\DAN, the agency takes pride in its people. Through a training partnership with Google and IDA, the agency has seen a growth in staff numbers with a focus on growing its digital talent.

By hosting presentations and negotiation skills workshops, it provides its staff with the best possible training to equip them with handling a client’s needs. Additionally, the agency hosts an employee feedback

digital analytics and managing big data, all going towards demonstrating Mindshare’s ability to constantly and quickly adapt to the needs of the day.

Working actively on campaigns, Mindshare Singapore helped Prudential Singapore’s recent campaign, “Relationship Reconnect”, reach its target audience through broadcast, Facebook and YouTube, programmatic and outdoor media.

The campaign saw six Singaporean couples: husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, spending four minutes quietly looking at each other and sharing their emotional reactions. The social experiment video aimed to evoke emotions with its target audience, while connecting them with the

assessment system, which allows the team to understand the mood of the agency in all key areas and take correctional measures.

fundamental premise of Prudential’s business.

It has also been an eventful year for Mindshare in terms of key hires. Replacing CEO Nick Seckold was Melissa Tang, previously managing partner of Mindshare Singapore and head of exchange. She has held the role for a year. Before that, she was business director at Mindshare. She has been with the agency since 2008.

Jacob Kvist was appointed chief investment officer and Kevin Rooney was appointed chief growth officer. Karl Cluck was appointed chief client officer for APAC and James Lewin also rose to the role of head of innovation for Mindshare APAC, while Amy Kean was named regional strategy director.

Most recently, it tied up with video ad tech company Unruly to unveil a manifesto for brands looking to beat ad blockers.

The APAC future video manifesto advises advertisers on how to future-proof their video advertising and deal with the rise in adblocking, predicted to wipe off $41.4 billion from the global economy in 2016.

The manifesto sets out seven pillars to help brands understand why adblocking is on the rise and what they can do to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

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MOBILE MARKETING

SECTION Owned by : Independent Headed by : Nelson Lee, partner and head of new business Section sells itself as a digital creative agency that creates conversations, crafts experiences and builds relationships with clients. With this internal mindset, skill set and attitude of a client organisation, the agency provides items or events the consumer can physically interact with.

Over the past 12 months, the agency has expanded significantly in terms of its client base and new business wins, and produced bigger and better campaigns that are integrated to engage a mobile-ready audience which requires a multi touch-point strategy.

The agency believes that mobile deserves more respect and that understanding mobile responsive design and development doesn’t make one a mobile agency; instead, it is

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having a deep understanding of what the very definition of mobile means in our lives.

Mobile is increasingly the first touchpoint for everyone and can contain insightful consumer data.

Section takes pride in harnessing the power and beauty of mobile in terms of data, experience and function to provide value to customers and businesses.

By strategically tapping into the mobile platform, the agency is able to understand where its users are, how and when they consume their data and what the popular mobile devices are. This data is important in helping a client to shape its business and how content should be created.

At Section, things run in a slightly different manner. It operates with a mission control strategy that enables contribution and makes full use of talent at all levels.

The agency is designed in an open, coworking office space where the management blends in with the team. Combined with tools for open communication between teams

and projects, it creates an open discussion space that takes everyone’s opinions into consideration.

With a flexible work-life arrangement and a simple leave application process, the agency provides a conducive and happy working environment for its staff to enjoy their work.

Section is also building up its team with the hire of Hamzah Alsagoff to lead its effort to win more clients who seek convergence in today’s complex marketing landscape.

With this hire, Section aims to deliver world-class strategic planning and servicing that will help new and current clients grow their business.

Alsagoff will work to support the business and to drive the organisation’s growth strategy in Singapore and across the region.

He has more than 20 years of marketing communication convergence skills and experience. He has through-the-lines 360 strategic and hands-on communication knowledge and exposure.

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MOBILE MARKETING

ADDICTION ADVERTISING

CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Anant Choubey, VP and business head, India and Southeast Asia

This four-year-old independent mobile advertising agency is creative, resultsoriented, passionate and unconventional.

With a unique concept of “embracing your desires and fuelling your obsessions”, Addiction aims to form a “support group” to listen to its clients’ needs and support them with relevant solutions.

With its large portfolio of healthcare clients, the agency has seen perfect retention rates for its key clients such as National Healthcare Group, OCBC and SMRT, while winning several government campaigns with Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Building & Construction Authority.

At Addiction, it believes its greatest strength is its talent. With a single goal in mind, to evangelise mobile, the agency takes it upon itself to lead the mobile revolution and recruit talent who live and breathe mobile and individuals who truly understand the potential of mobile marketing and how it can change the connected world forever.

The agency believes with the passion and happiness in each employee working at Addiction, the best quality of work will be produced.

Conceptualised by three partners who loved the industry, but hated the politics, the culture at Addiction is to be friends before colleagues, to work hard and play hard and to be supportive of each other. Internal politics can result in conflict and unhappiness, which is avoided at Addiction. With a fair and rewarding system for the staff, the agency has annual company incentive trips to inspire the team for the betterment of its art.

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CODIGO Owned by : Independent Headed by : Adrian Ng, founder and technical director; Subha Naidu, creative director

With the retail sector in Asia undergoing a transformation, mobile commerce and engagement becomes increasingly important in attracting customers. Retailers are investing in mobile tools to drive consumer loyalty and retention across online and offline channels.

Capillary believes in mastering mobile and social customer engagement.

With its growing presence in Southeast Asian markets, the agency has used capital infusion to expand its product suite. In the past year, the agency has undertaken significant portfolio expansions in the areas of multi-channel commerce enablement, online-to-offline, predictive analytics and customer experience.

The agency has the ability to analyse data collected from stores, online, social or mobile and combines this with machine learning and predictive modelling; channelling this information to help clients’ sales, marketing and operations. By combining big data with a cloud-based campaign engine, Capillary delivers personalised offers to consumers in real-time, significantly increasing both loyalty and sales.

With the highest standards of capabilities, experience and a deep understanding of international businesses, the agency has helped manage over 200 customers in 30 countries. The agency has integrated all major technology trends of the decade into their campaigns, including mobile, cloud, social, local and big data.

At Capillary, each employee is taught to lead and follow in each project, equipping all with the skills to execute under the most urgent and business-sensitive constraints.

The agency promotes innovative thinking in employees and encourages them to come up with new ideas to help its customers, even coming up with a contest initiative where the top prize was a high-end bike.

Handling everything for mobile and the web, including social media, development, ideation, strategy, design, post-launch measures and problem-solving, Codigo does it all. It aims to solve clients’ digital needs with a sense of usability, design and innovation.

In the past year, Codigo has blossomed from a small fledgling mobile studio in Singapore into a well-known mobile development company across Southeast Asia and Australia, winning a few awards in the process. By integrating functions with a simple, beautiful user experience and a modernised design in its apps, the agency has developed applications for Singapore GP, Comfort Taxi and WWE, with much success, topping the charts several times.

Codigo’s mission is to bring consumers connections, convenience and entertainment through mobile. By bringing this vision to life, the company has managed to connect with Singaporeans of all demographics, from students to working adults, helping them achieve a higher level of flexibility and even set up businesses.

Since 2015, the agency has set up a product development arm, expanded its project management, mobile development and content developer team and kept up a high staff retention rate, with most of them suggesting they are happy with the working environment.

With the belief its knowledge should be passed down to the future generation of media professionals, it has also partnered with schools, including Lasalle and Temasek Polytechnic, to create technological advances that will make a difference in people’s lives.

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MOBILE MARKETING

KRDS SINGAPORE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Preetham Venkky, director

Founded in 2008 in Paris, KRDS expanded into Singapore only recently.

A leading social and mobile agency in Europe and Asia, KRDS boasts a range of expertise from community management, creation and optimisation of Facebook ad campaigns, site socialisation and branding.

Recently, the agency has been involved with campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and more recently, Weibo and WeChat.

Since its launch in Singapore in 2013, the team has grown from three members to 16.

While the agency’s focus has been on social and mobile, its expertise is in full stack digital. The agency aspires to be digital storytellers and makes a lot of decisions through the backing of data. With its dedicated team of social media experts, the agency provides consultancy on social media strategies with a specific focus on Facebook.

Besides just developing exceptional social media applications that help brands enhance their user experience on social media platforms, KRDS finds the best solution to build its clients’ reputation and maximise their reach on Facebook.

In the past year, the agency has spearheaded many campaigns for clients such as Wall’s, BreadTalk and Singaporean Tourism Board. With the belief that social media marketing needs to be about narrating a story in the most interesting way, the agency aims to engage users with an interesting experience that is put together with exciting content and a defined strategy.

The agency’s goal is to succeed in the mobile native app market by providing the user with a first-class experience.

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MEDIATROPY Owned by : Independent Headed by : Astrid Boulle and Pierre De Luca, co-founders

In the five years since its establishment, Mediatropy has built up its presence as an innovative agency that provides customers with creative ideas with high quality and an aim to over deliver.

Its efforts in content production and marketing has paid off as many large-scaled hospitality clients, including Starwood and HPL, have stuck with them to deliver work.

Mediatropy invests in technology such as Beacons and Wi-Fi analytics to build interactive experiences on mobile devices.

The agency insists on simplification to perfect the user experience, helping it to deliver outstanding mobile apps, websites and digital campaigns. The agency has since increased its efforts for making content on mobile devices more relevant, while ensuring responsiveness, adaptation and contextualisation as all this contributes to a great end-user experience.

At the agency, the team adopts a laidback culture, where everyone is different. All focused on quality and creativity, they have managed to avoid the culture of long hours prevalent in the industry. The agency believes it sells passion and creativity and that likeminded people will work well together. Hiring fresh graduates from university, the agency nurtures and trains its staff to high standards.

Moreover, the agency adopts a reward system for employees that do well.

The agency believes in defending its point of view, often participating in debates and gatherings with publishers and media owners, bringing its learnings from its past campaigns and clients to educate the industry and generate more value to its customers.

TRIBAL WORLDWIDE SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jeff Cheong, president, Asia and head of Tribal Worldwide Singapore Tribal continues to strengthen its position as a communication agency that creates work that influences mindshare, purchase and loyalty. Raised as digital natives, the agency sees itself as a disruptor and history maker, as opposed to “advertising people”.

In 2015, the agency focused on closing the gap between social media and commerce for its clients by delving deeper into content creation, distribution and creating a community-centric focus in the work it produces.

The agency has been involved in several big campaigns, including ones for Volkswagen, StarHub and Keppel. With an in-house content team with scriptwriters and content creators, the agency has now also formed alliances with leading platforms such as the Mothership, The Smart Local and SGAG to provide holistic communication solutions for its clients.

By staying ahead of the competition and aiming to become an agency of the future, Tribal continually looks at ways to evolve, be it by building technology that connects and transforms or rethinking boundaries with collaborations. Additionally, the agency does digital innovation consulting; offering businesses transformation consulting that includes workshops and prototyping models that bring ideas to life.

With tested solutions that have thrived in real-life client projects, it has changed the way Tribal develops solutions for its clients.

In an age where content is king, it is pivotal that videos and copies are of the highest quality, and that is what Tribal aims to do to maintain its standing in the industry.

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PRODUCTION AGENCIES

SHOOTING GALLERY ASIA Owned by : Independent Headed by : Sebastian Tan, group managing director, Freddy Kee, group executive producer for TVC, Raymond Goh, group executive producer for print

THE WINNERS GOLD

Shooting Gallery Asia

70.83%

SILVER

Freeflow Productions

67.50%

BRONZE

Williams Lea Tag

66.25%

LOCAL HERO

Shooting Gallery Asia

70.83%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising IMMERSE Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP Monimedia Reel Loco Productions The Co-organization Visual Studio

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Shooting Gallery Asia bags the gold and Local Hero awards once again. The agency had an amazing year last year as it met its agenda to be a one-stop production house with an Asia-centric focus.

Established in 1987, the production house provides services in TVC and film production, commercial photography, 3D CGI, capture and printing, digital imaging and original content creation.

Together with its content development and producing arms of the agency, The Flying Kick Asia and Shooting Gallery Motion Pictures, it creates original content for its clients. Armed with Wishing Well Asia, it also delved deeper into the digital imaging landscape.

Its strong presence in many countries across Asia – from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Shanghai, New Zealand, the Maldives and Manila, and Paris – makes it a force to be reckoned with as it’s consistently recognised for its international outlook and experience.

It was one of the agencies behind the recent viral Prudential “Relationship Reconnect” campaign video which pulled on the heartstrings of its viewers, based on the experiment which involves eye contract for four minutes to raise emotional connection and empathy.

Other notable recent campaigns included Michelin Tyres, produced in China for Asia.

It features a young boy’s close relationship with his father and the need for experience and adventure. It was also the force behind other spots such as Subaru’s “Un-park Your Life” and SC Global’s Pure Imagination – Jamie Cullum. Other impressive campaigns included its creation of the print ads for Resorts World Sentosa’s “Halloween Horror Night” and the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s “One Force” campaign.

With clients such as Ford Automotive, PT Amerta Indah Otsuka and Galaxy Entertainment, it is not hard to see why Shooting Gallery Asia has international appeal.

It is currently in the process of acquiring and setting up motion control capabilities in its Singapore and Shanghai studios. It remains true to its services and offerings, which has helped it gain several loyal clients despite changing media ecosystems shaped by evolving consumer behaviours and emerging technologies.

Despite the obstacles in an ever-changing creative landscape, the company is poised to navigate this challenging, yet exciting environment. Shooting Gallery Asia’s focus continues to be serving its clients as a single stop for all media production needs – both traditional and digital.

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PRODUCTION AGENCIES

FREEFLOW PRODUCTIONS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Roslee Yusof and Mark Chua, managing partners & directors 2015 was a year packed with SG50 content for Freeflow Productions, the winner of the silver award for Production Agency of the Year. Not only did it aim to cut through the clutter and meet the high demand for jubilee content, it wanted to create stories which connected, were shareable and loved by its audience.

It set out to create branded content which not only entertained, but also evoked emotion rather than “skippable” commercials which induce boredom in this generation.

Key client projects Freeflow Productions has undertaken include StarHub, McDonald’s, Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). Long-term client Temasek Holdings has continued to work with the production company for the past eight years due to its good work in the industry.

Working with different agencies to create new, original and heart-warming content, 2015 saw Freeflow Productions getting repeated assignments such as Singtel’s “People behind the Extraordinary” following the good

working relationship with Ogilvy & Mather in its “You’re the Boy” campaign for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

Some notable campaigns Freeflow Productions had a hand in included StarHub’s “Home by Homes”; SEA Games Opening; Singtel’s “People behind the Extraordinary” and FairPrice’s “For the Heroes in Our Lives”.

The word “courage” often comes up

TAG WORLDWIDE SINGAPORE Owned by : Deutsche Post DHL Group Headed by : Todd Handcock, CEO; Melissa Chan, business director, Asia Pacific Winner of the bronze award for Production Agency of the Year is Tag Worldwide Singapore. Following an acquisition in 2011, which combined the capabilities of Williams Lea, a global provider of marketing solutions, and Tag, an

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international provider of marketing execution and production services, the agency is now able to deliver greater value to its clients.

With pioneering roots and a rich experience in production services, it offers a comprehensive portfolio of integrated

when the production house talks about creativity. It takes courage to create real stories, where talents are not actors, but simply being themselves.

The agency’s commitment and motto of making commercials less “commercialised” has led it far and allowed it to break free from the norms and bring forward the right messaging.

services and solutions in the brand services sector. Holding true to this commitment, Tag Singapore has established itself as an Asia Pacific hub serving various brands within the Asia Pacific region.

As a multilingual, multicultural organisation, as well as the trusted partner of many of the world’s most recognisable brands, it also effectively delivers brand messages for clients in more than 180 countries and in more than 200 languages.

Not afraid to get down and dirty, Tag Worldwide Singapore produces results, whether in terms of client growth or new business wins. Getting down to the nitty-gritty also means strengthening the trust that important client relationships are built on.

Key hires and promotions this year include Melissa Chan, business director of Asia Pacific.

Its resourceful use of leading technologies, local market expertise and deep knowledge of clients’ industries allows it to offer a wide range of integrated marketing and production solutions, namely, online design and production, print production, strategic sourcing, copywriting, broadcast post-production, transcreation and artwork adaptation.

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PRODUCTION AGENCIES

ADDICTION ADVERTISING Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director Last year was a great year for Addiction Advertising as it continued to execute numerous iconic projects.

One such work was for the launch of Addiction Recovery College with the client National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) – Singapore’s first college for addictions.

It celebrated the year with a 100% retention rate for key clients such as the National Healthcare Group, Agency for Integrated Care, NAMS, Hotel Properties Limited, OCBC Bank and SMRT Corporation.

Some key client wins included pitching for and winning three government campaigns – from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Building & Construction Authority and a campaign from China Life Insurance.

Within a short span of four years, it has positioned itself as the independent content marketing agency with the largest portfolio of healthcare clients by welcoming new additions – Takeda Pharmaceuticals, NTUC Health and St Lukes; taking care of the latter’s rebranding campaign.

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IMMERSE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jeffrey Tang, managing director IMMERSE started operations 11 years ago as a small independent digital creative agency in Kuala Lumpur.

Today, it is recognised as one of the top agencies in Malaysia.

The year 2015 saw an increased focus to build a stronger leadership team to support the growing clientele and expansion into Singapore.

It warmly welcomed Yippie Yip back and promoted her to the position of account director after one year’s sabbatical leave.

Its video production service started as a support service for motion graphics animation, but it has been a core business pillar for the past four years ago where the script, storyboarding, pre-planning, shoot and post-production editing are all done in-house.

The company also appointed Lee See Yin as general manager in February 2016. With 17 years of experience under his belt, he is a veteran in the digital marketing world.

The agency’s focus has always been to be different in terms of culture and to strike a true work-life balance.

LUMINOUS EXPERIENTIAL MSLGROUP Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Tamsyn Barker, general manager

Throughout 2015, Luminous Experiential Singapore continued to maintain strong longterm client relationships, while simultaneously winning many new clients drawn from a broad range of industry sectors.

Winning an array of key projects, both domestically and internationally, 2015 was an incredible year for Luminous Singapore.

Highlights included the opening of the City of Dreams integrated resort and casino in Manila; breaking Singapore Guinness world records for Audi; working with three financial institutions across the same event for Sibos; helping an iconic local institution, UOB, celebrate it 80th anniversary in grand style; and closing the year in fabulous fashion by running a 30-day exhibition for Louis Vuitton.

The Luminous team offers full-service experiential solutions. In 2015, it continued to conceive and produce outstanding campaigns and experiences for clients.

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PRODUCTION AGENCIES

MONIMEDIA Owned by : Independent Headed by : David Francois, managing director Coming in as a finalist for Production Agency of the Year is Monimedia. Since the agency’s start in 2004, it has been providing strategy, creative and technical services to brands and agencies worldwide.

Some key clients include Jack Wills, Escada, The British Council, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, The Meritus Hotels, Crocs, Estée Lauder, Cartoon Network, National Geographic Channel, True Religion and VF Asia.

Long-term clients include adidas and The British Council. In 2015, the agency also worked with clients such as Gold Heart and Calvin Klein.

Monimedia delivers fully integrated digital marketing solutions to the consumer brands in Asia. Combining leading webbased technologies with the experience and talents of an international creative design team, it helps clients reach digital marketing objectives.

As a digital brand experience agency, monimedia provides digital campaign management in mobile marketing, social and search marketing as well as e-commerce services. This is done through a suite of professional services such as creative, digital and marketing strategy, social marketing, mobile marketing, search marketing, e-commerce, production and others.

VISUAL STUDIO SINGAPORE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Larson Ong, account director and Raymond He, production director Coming in as a finalist is Visual Studio, which has been around since 2002.

The company has long aimed to provide events management services that integrate design elements to make eye-catching campaigns that effectively sell the brands that engage audiences.

Over the past decade, it has worked for several prominent companies, including DP Information Group, Changi Singapore and SPH Magazines.

Visual Studio provides a holistic service

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REEL LOCO PRODUCTIONS

THE COORGANIZATION

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Shaun Yeo, creative business director, Joey Chan, executive producer

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Ng Kim Hwee, creative director; Mel Lee, account director

2015 was a great year for Reel Loco Productions with a significant achievement being its expansion of its service offerings last year. This has given clients the option to broaden their video campaigns with augmented reality technology, which allows the audience to interact with 3D simulations through the downloadable ARMedia Player App. In its 15 years of production, it has kept itself abreast with market changes and storytelling trends. The agency constantly strives to innovate and find new avenues to recommend target-specific platforms when it comes to showcasing its offerings. Some key clients for the agency include Resorts World Sentosa for the Halloween Horror Nights 2015, Citroën and Expedia SEA. Reel Loco Productions pushed itself further in live action cinematography and animation through its Halloween project for the third year running. It constantly tries to tell a good story relating to lifestyle or one with mass-appeal. Last year it engaged more with consumers directly, aside from the usual B2B clientele, through the regular production of PSA messages published online, and saw an increase in social media engagement.

for a wide spectrum of clients, ranging from multi-national companies, government and statutory boards to small and medium enterprises, learning institutions and charitable non-profit organisations.

The agency looks at the sequential stages of concept, planning and execution; supported by its in-house design and carpentry facilities, and ensures swift on-site responses and efficient problemsolving for clients.

The Co-Organization as an agency is invested in clients’ initiatives and therefore has a desire to make things great for a client’s brand. The agency works closely and personally with every client on every project to deliver hands-on creative and strategic solutions. The agency uses a multidisciplinary approach in its thinking process and execution.

The agency is small and nimble, and hence, is exposed to a broad array of tactics and learns quickly when to use each tool to solve clients’ challenges.

It is also focuses on client goals and this is critically important because marketing is being redefined each day.

When it comes to executing great strategy and creative work across many disciplines, the agency is supported by specialised partners in the fields of digital technology, audio-visual production, interior design and experiential production.

This model gives the agency the flexibility to bring in the best talent and allows it to adapt its team to fit each job.

Collaborations have always formed the backbone of the agency’s approach; it is the reason for the agency’s name – The Co-Organization.

Visual Studio believes in thinking more than just about them, but instead thinking about the bigger picture. It recognises the importance of building credibility among clients and connecting with other like-minded professionals by exploring new technologies and sharing business problems and solutions.

By adding extra elements such as audience insights, field research and developing a brand-specific voice, it believes it can give clients’ final products that extra kick needed to reach the top.

The biggest form of satisfaction from work comes from keeping clients happy, the agency believes. Not only does it want clients to be happy, its staff ’s happiness comes out as one of the top priorities as well. The agency believes the happier their staff, the easier creative ideas come to them and the more productive the workplace.

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Sponsors & Partners

For enquiries on entry submissions, contact Nadiah Jamaludin +65 6423 0329 nadiahj@marketing-interactive.com For sponsorship opportunities, contact Johnathan Tiang +65 6423 0329 johnathant@marketing-interactive.com

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

OGILVY PUBLIC RELATIONS Owned by : WPP Headed by : Ee Rong Chong, managing director, Singapore

THE WINNERS GOLD

Ogilvy Public Relations Singapore

SILVER

Text100 Singapore

71.75%

BRONZE

Cohn & Wolfe

70.00%

LOCAL HERO

ASIA PR WERKZ

69.00%

76.25%

THE FINALISTS Edelman Public Relations Singapore LEWIS Mutant Communications PR Communications Ruder Finn Asia The Hoffman Agency Asia Pacific

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Ogilvy Public Relations has the ambition to be the most influential public relations network in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

To achieve this, the agency’s work must have both a local impact and global influence; must attract and retain the best talent; and must meet and exceed its budget commitments, it says.

Some notable wins for Ogilvy over the past year include the Singapore Police Force, Central Provident Fund Singapore, KimberlyClark, BlackBerry and Resorts World Sentosa.

This adds to its list of top clients such as UPS and Canon which have been with Ogilvy for 13 and 11 years respectively.

The agency offers creative storytelling through expanding its creative capabilities with a new visual storytelling unit, which is complemented by Hogarth & Ogilvy, the agency’s in-house global production powerhouse, which has done PR projects for CPF and Singapore Science Festival.

Putting its “central, not peripheral” strategy to work, Ogilvy PR bolstered its offerings by providing integrated work across channels, specialisms and geographies.

Integrated campaigns have also been delivered for Canon, IHG, Asia Pacific Breweries, Traffic Police and NSCS across internal and external channels.

The agency worked on Coca-Cola’s #ShareACokeSG campaign during SG50, encouraging locals to promote its usergenerated content and receiving brand

love in return, which gained all-time high consumption and brand-love metrics.

Ogilvy PR constantly reviews itself to make sure it is working with the best technologies and partners.

This is ensured through bespoke social intelligence platform 20/Twenty, centralised media and the influencer database influencer index, customer relationship solution SugarCRM and analytic tool sqreem.

From a team of 20 in 2006, Ogilvy PR today has 80 employees representing 11 nationalities.

The agency views training as a priority for its staff, putting them through situational leadership workshops and “next level leaders”, which helps to engage and empower senior account managers in growth, development and the welfare of the agency.

Its key hires include Erwin Nah, the new creative strategist with the visual storytelling unit; Anne Yong, the new senior designer; and Jacob Wilczynski with corporate and crisis management.

2015 also saw Ogilvy organise its first ever all-agency overseas meeting in Vietnam, involving everyone in business planning.

There is also a “non-negotiable day” for staff to prioritise personal passions, time with family, dates, exercise – anything nonnegotiable and to stick to the commitment.

Weekly yoga and occasional durian parties are also held in the office.

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

TEXT100 SINGAPORE Owned by : Next 15 Communications Group Headed by : Marc Ha, senior vice-president Since 1981, Text100 has grown steadily, gradually moving past the singular focus of top-line growth by balancing growth with revenue mix. This strategy is carried out by diversifying its client mix to reduce client conflicts and increase new client opportunities, as well as growing the diversity of consulting revenues beyond traditional PR services.

The agency has retained its long-time clients, including Gartner (15 years), Lenovo (nine years) and Adobe (seven years). The agency also signed new clients, including notable ones such as Far East Organization, Veritas, ACI and Lenovo Mobile.

“Integrated” has become the catch-all word to describe the evolution of the marketing and communications industry today, and Text100’s integrated communications journey began five years ago. It has since merged with Bite Communications in Asia Pacific, recruited editorial, digital and creative talent, done massive retooling and training, as well as reorganising roles and functions.

Today, Text100 Singapore has the native capabilities to offer a full suite of earned, owned, social and paid services under one roof, showing its progress as an integrated communications agency.

The agency developed the crisis communications framework in Asia Pacific for Lenovo, and ran crisis readiness workshops to help the organisation become crisis-ready.

Another key project was a food retail survey for DHL. It activated the survey through PR and digital marketing, comprising a microsite, survey report, eDMs, press publicity and micrographics.

Text100 believes people are at the centre of its business. From competitive compensation to career development and managing employee morale, Text100 has implemented a combination of tangible and soft policies to benefit its staff.

2015 also saw more than 20 training sessions held for its staff across wide-ranging topics such as PR, social media, paid media, content marketing, storytelling and people management.

An ongoing performance management programme also helps to structure, document and track the career development of each consultant, where performance reviews are conducted via feedback from clients, peers and managers.

As Text100 understands that PR agencies have struggled with dedicating time and resources to marketing themselves properly, it has made concerted efforts to take a more programmatic approach to its marketing and communications out of Singapore, sharing its thought leadership and expertise via contributed articles and social media channels.

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16 June

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore

Find out more at www.marketing-interactive.com/analytics/sg/ Knowledge Partner

Exhibitor

Rates Client-side marketers: SG$ 990 Solutions providers: SG$ 1,890

For more information, contact: Nirah Aziz, project manager +65 6423 0329 niraha@marketing-interactive.com

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MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

COHN & WOLFE SINGAPORE Owned by : WPP Headed by : Karen Ho, group managing director, Southeast Asia Since its inception, Singapore has been identified as a key driver for Cohn & Wolfe’s success across the APAC region. Much of its success is attributed to the agency’s mantra “Dig Deeper. Imagine More”, and it has retained its top clients in the past year.

Cohn & Wolfe Singapore (C&WSG) was equally successful in adding clients to its already impressive portfolio of technology, consumer and corporate accounts such as Aliyun, Audio-Technica, SHARP, Vita Coco and InterCall.

C&WSG has been known for its strong technology PR capability thanks to its start-up days as a technology boutique agency.

Today, it’s a fully fledged communications agency with specialised teams covering the technology, consumer and corporate communications sectors. The agency has also evolved away from being “just traditional PR” with its movement towards an integrated marketing communications (IMC) model.

Staying true to its mantra, the agency has embedded research and insights as well

as IMC as key strategic processes across client work and ideation. It developed an edutainment campaign for SHARP’s new air purifier launch to combat the brand’s challenge of low awareness and brand recall.

C&WSG used extensive research to reveal interesting, but little-known facts to provide thought-provoking trivia to the public.

Utilising an IMC approach, C&WSG created the first ever indoor skydiving reality series on YouTube for iFly’s “So You Think You Can Fly” campaign, leveraging PR, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, online influencer engagements, blogger relations and Facebook and Google ads to amplify and raise awareness for the activity as a safe and accessible sport. C&WSG made some strategic hires in 2015. Melvin Kwan and

Vernon Neo were hired as the new IMC lead and IMC consultant respectively, to boost the agency’s integrated capability. To seize opportunities beyond technology PR, the agency also hired Garry Moss and Aaron Tan as consumer lead and senior account manager respectively. The agency also supports the advancement of the PR industry as well as grooming the next generation of PR practitioners. It has been mentoring and nurturing graduate communications students from Murdoch University for the past five years, while also giving frequent educational talks to university and graduating students at various institutions.

C&WSG believes a nurturing culture is key and organises monthly sessions for junior staff to discuss, share and learn together.

YOU SAY YOU’RE A RABBIT, BUT CONSUMERS SEE A DUCK. THAT’S A PROBLEM. Whether you’re a rabbit or a duck, we’ll uncover the unexpected to make sure your brand puts its best foot forward – furry or webbed.

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

ASIA PR WERKZ Owned by : Independent Headed by : Cho Pei Lin, managing director Asia PR Werkz saw a great year in 2015, with 11 new wins, including SG50, SAF50, Kidzania and Singapore Science Festival 2015.

The agency also holds several long-standing accounts such as The Boys’ Brigade Share-aGift Project (11 years), Lamborghini (11 years), and Families for Life Council (10 years).

The past year saw Asia PR Werkz launch several market-leading projects, such as the Hello Kitty Shining Star Jet Launch for EVA Air and the whole of the SG50 media management.

The approach to promote SG50 was three-pronged: awareness, engagement and action. Asia PR Werkz went beyond mainstream local media to reach Singaporeans, identifying the following media groups: community publications, online and bloggers, trade publications, international media and special interest media.

The agency adopted the key strategy of creating and maintaining a one-stop integrated platform for all SG50 news and content which served as the go-to guide

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for all media groups who needed the latest materials and updates on SG50, inspiration and ideas for media stories. Mynewsdesk was a platform built at the end of 2014, a creation after working with clients to explore all possible options to create and maintain a one-stop integrated platform for all SG50 news and content.

Throughout the year of SG50, specific story pitches were developed and discussed with different media outlets, while reporters and journalists were also given SG50 memorabilia and invited to related events as participants as well.

Towards its staff, it allows internal transfers between its five different teams in the agency, whereby each is led by a different director. Once a year, each employee also attends corporate courses not related to PR, but are helpful to their work, such as

time management, productivity and selfmotivation.

Encouraging team building among employees in the agency, the entire team takes an afternoon off together every quarter, partaking in activities such as “makan” (eating) sessions, getting CPR lessons and certifications, and an on-site photography class for everyone.

Sharon Koh joined as a director and shareholder of the agency, one of its key hires of 2015.

The agency also retained six candidates under its graduate recruitment programme, promoted three staff to senior associate positions and two to associate managers.

Besides regular updates on its Facebook page and online newsroom, the agency contributes to the industry in terms of mentorships during internships.

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

LEWIS

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Amanda Goh, CEO, Singapore

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Miek Gielkens, managing director, Singapore

Supported by a team of more than 90 executives, 2015 to 2016 saw a pivot to Edelman Singapore’s ambition to be an indispensable global hub for the firm.

Building on its reputation as corporate, crisis and government communications specialists, it started to arm all consultants with the data analytics that come with marketing rigour, yet emotional sensibility of storytelling.

Edelman evolved its understanding of deeper relationships with multi-stakeholder communications, promoted earned storytelling with a social-by-design mindset and protected client reputations beyond just crisis and risk with a longer term view of social issues. These plans came about from four key areas of its business – category, company, culture and consumer.

Its creative team diversified its offerings to include social content, videos, websites and more, while the agency’s health businesses also diversified to include health technology, biotech, food and nutrition policy, wellness, digital and data visualisation.

The agency made several key hires and appointments in 2015 to help the office’s growth with new and successful offerings, enhancing its senior bench to best meet the needs of new clients’ CEOs, CMOs and CCOs. Juliette van der Burgt was appointed as the new director and head of the Singapore consumer marketing business, while Delicia Tan was named senior director and lead client strategist for major client engagements in Singapore.

With a strong focus on developing its staff, Edelman Singapore places many invested hours into learning and development.

Training is focused on situation leadership, coaching and management, mentorship and areas of specialty, including reputation management, strategic planning, and creative strategy and activation.

Many new initiatives were also rolled out to encourage work-life integration.

These included new flexi-working policies, extended maternity and paternity leave, a family friendly environment, family days and a “work well mind body and soul” campaign which saw every full-time staff receive a wearable device to track team and individual fitness performance.

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EDELMAN

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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Gielkens

Commercially and operationally, 2015 continued to be a significant year for LEWIS within the APAC region. The agency touts itself as one of the world’s largest and fastest growing employee-owned agencies.

Some key appointments for LEWIS in APAC included Fairil Yeo as the new head of client engagement; and Roman Kibe as head of LEWIS Pulse APAC. The new Singapore managing director, Miek Gielkens, was also relocated from LEWIS Malaysia.

Last year also saw the agency refresh its brand to reflect its full spectrum global marketing communications service, dropping “PR” from its name; and now simply being known as LEWIS. Today, the agency has a diverse portfolio of services covering public relations, print and digital design, creative multimedia, web and application development, SEM and SEO, social media and leads and demand generation.

To ensure LEWIS continues to provide a workplace that is innovative, engaging and exciting, the firm holds annual staff surveys.

The 2015 survey pointed to a need for engaging training for the team, more social activities, and a more dynamic internal communications approach.

As a result, the agency ran three regional training programmes for APAC, carried out an enhanced international proposition which enabled every staff member to visit and work from another office in the region, and expanded its mentor programme, which gave staff access to counsel, guidance and advice from a senior member of the team who they did not ordinarily work with.

Social activities also increased, including escape room games, barbecues, karaoke, and even a day out on a yacht was planned.

COMMUNICATIONS Owned by : Independent Headed by : Joseph Barratt, CEO, Singapore Mutant Communications, an agency specialising in highly targeted public relations and content marketing campaigns, experienced significant change and growth throughout 2015. The past year saw the company investing heavily on increasing staff count and strengthening its position in the market.

Mutant believes that a successful PR campaign should not only encompass media relations, but also a great content and social media strategy. As such, the agency strengthened its expertise with teams solely focused on these three distinct areas as well as hiring staff with specialist skills in PR, content, social media and marketing.

2015 saw Mutant execute some exciting campaigns for a variety of clients, an example being BlisMedia, for which Mutant developed and executed “The Golden Shaker 2015”. It was a competition involving the top media agencies across Singapore. With the help of a world-renowned bar tender, each agency was asked to create a unique cocktail that best represented the team and brand at BlisMedia’s private bar – The BlisBar. The event was documented by Marketing magazine and promoted across social media with the main purpose being to establish BlisMedia as a market leader. It was also a great opportunity for BlisMedia to have quality face-time with its top clients in an intimate and relaxed setting.

The campaign took client networking to another level and was very well-received by the target audience.

The Mutant team consists of a great selection of experienced individuals who not only are excellent at what they do, but have great personalities to go with it. The culture at Mutant is relaxed and fun with a strong focus on high performance coupled with a work-life balance.

Through operational changes over 2015, there are now dedicated teams in place looking after specific clients as well adding core operational departments, including finance and marketing.

Key hires included former Human Resources magazine editor Rebecca Lewis as account director; Lara Kanga as account director; and Jane Leung, who was hired to head Mutant’s content marketing team.

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PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES

PR

RUDER FINN ASIA

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Eric Chi-Ming Chan, managing director

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Yu Poh Leng, senior vice-president and general manager, Singapore

COMMUNICATIONS

Heading towards its 25th anniversary this year, PR Communications has grown from a “one-man band” to a full strength of 11 today. The agency boasts a reputable track record in designing effective communication programmes for its clients.

In 2015, PR Communications secured key clients such as Aston Martin and Deliveroo, while retaining long-standing clients such as Samsonite, which has been with the agency for more than eight years.

PR Communications prides itself as an agency that only offers clients a wellresearched communication strategy and programme. With its expertise across brand and lifestyle marketing, corporate reputation, eco-PR and even issue and crisis management, it adopts the “best team approach”. The agency fully utilises the rich and diversified knowledge of its team to achieve the desired results for clients.

Besides the use of an adaptation of a traditional publicity programme, PR Communications has also now included other mediums of communication such as social media, content strategies such as viral videos and the incorporation of influencer programmes to help brands communicate with their audience in diversified ways.

A key campaign the agency worked on was for Aston Martin, where it designed and developed an integrated marketing plan which included a traditional publicity programme, a social media plan and a content-driven strategy, with the use of online videos. The three elements combined made the brand communication much more impactful and memorable.

PR Communications believes its biggest asset is its team, which constantly provides fresh ideas, strategies, programmes and sourcing for new clients.

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Since its inception in Singapore in 1996, Ruder Finn Singapore has become one of the fastest growing offices in the Ruder Finn Asia network – in manpower and revenue.

The firm was also instrumental in profiling a series of start-up clients, including Grab, PropertyGuru and HappyFresh.

The agency won various new business pitches over the past year while boasting some long-time clients.

Instead of the traditional “top down” pyramid staffing structure, Ruder Finn Singapore inverted the pyramid. Senior, then mid-level hires were added to ensure clients had access to the most experienced counsel, at the same time providing the firm with a competitive advantage.

The new hires included Tham Kok Wing, with more than 25 years of PR experience; Chomaine Chai, former GM of an international PR consultancy firm in Malaysia; and Tanya Amador, a PR professional of the arts sector for more than 10 years.

Its key product offerings include the Ruder Finn start-up division, which allows the firm to offer strategic counsel and marketentry expertise to start-ups in Singapore.

Combining team members’ technology and investor relations expertise, Ruder Finn offers creative, business-building services and support to start-up clients.

A second key product is SONAR, a proprietary social media crisis simulation system that allows participants to experience the dynamic environment of a fastdeveloping social media issue or crisis in real-time.

Additionally, 2015 saw Ruder Finn blaze new trails in the healthcare sector, winning healthcare clients such as Baxalta and Pfizer.

The team continues to do high-level work, including research and the writing of white papers and the development of regional campaigns.

In 2015, Ruder Finn Singapore saw its staff empowered and encouraged to help shape its company culture.

The financial figures of the firm are shared with staff to ensure a sense of personal involvement and ownership in the consultancy’s growth and success.

THE HOFFMAN AGENCY ASIA PACIFIC Owned by : Independent Headed by : Cassandra Cheong, managing director, Asia Pacific The Hoffman Agency, or “The Hoff ”, empowers its consultants to determine the agency’s direction, client portfolio and new business pipeline. Consultants possess the autonomy to pursue the clients they wish to work for, tapping into the strengths, talents and prowess of each individual.

The Hoffman Agency also “hunts” for its clients, resulting in its wide-spanning list of clients – from the corporate, consumer, finance, travel and technology sectors. This approach introduced the agency’s acute, analytical, yet creative approach, to all its work.

With HA-Parachute, The Hoffman Agency formed an arm in the agency to help new companies build their communications department from scratch, becoming the go-to team for all necessary communication needs when setting up anywhere in the region. With HA-Visual, the agency created a content studio that develops everything from infographics to the production of videos for clients.

HA-Digital saw a digital team being formed with digital-savvy representatives from each office globally to manage activities on various platforms. HA-Conversations is a lunch-time initiative where journalists are invited to the office for an informal sharing session to help employees find out more about the stories journalists are interested in, and when best to approach them for follow-ups.

To build better camaraderie among employees, the agency carries out many office activities and reward and recognition initiatives which ensures a positive vibe and employee engagement.

The Hoff also believes that other than garnering media coverage for its clients, a PR agency needs to get people to understand what it does. To that end, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are used by the agency to give audiences a look at the office life #InsideHA. Partnerships with Nanyang and Singapore Polytechnics were formed to mentor students during their final year projects to help them understand the intricacies of campaigns and to think out of the box.

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SEARCH MARKETING AGENCIES

HAPPY MARKETER Owned by : Independent Headed by : Rachit Dayal and Prantik Mazumdar, managing partners

THE WINNERS GOLD

Happy Marketer

70.83%

SILVER

PHD Singapore

66.67%

BRONZE

Performics

65.00%

LOCAL HERO

Happy Marketer

70.83%

THE FINALISTS Addiction Advertising Capillary Technologies Clickr Media Mashwire PurpleClick Media SEO Agency VISIBILITI

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Since its inception in 2009, Happy Marketer has been a leading digital consulting firm based in Singapore.

It is one of the few independent digital firms in the country that offers a range of services covering every aspect of digital marketing, including search, paid media, social media, web analytics, marketing automation, conversion optimisation, branding and design – all under one roof.

The agency prides itself with its key offerings such as social media marketing, search engine optimisation, conversion optimisation, web analytics, digital advertising and the custom design of websites and apps.

The agency was reappointed by a number of clients following pitches, including NUS School of Computing, Fastacash, The Time Place and Nanyang Business School (NBS). Last year, Happy Marketer was also tasked to handle digital marketing duties for maestro Zubin Mehta’s symphony concert, which took place in Singapore.

It was the second consecutive year the agency managed the digital duties for the performance.

Its other top clients include Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Kaplan Singapore and Standard Chartered Bank.

Earlier in 2016, Happy Marketer was named HubSpot’s first gold certified agency partner in Singapore. The agency has helped

leading brands attract visitors, increase leads and secure customers as one of Singapore’s first HubSpot resellers.

Happy Marketer also joined hands with Maxential to create FutureMarketer, which offers digital marketing learning programmes that help business leaders and marketing practitioners transform their business and become better marketers in the digital age.

Happy Marketer stays up to date with the latest SEO best practices to help its clients rank above their competitors, and to help optimise its clients’ websites.

The agency is the certified partner of both Google Analytics and Adwords, as well as an authorised reseller of Google Analytics Premium.

To help its clients rank high on the search engine landing pages, Happy Marketer uses a method called KARATE, which focuses on all aspects of SEO that are required for a welloptimised website.

KARATE consists of the following aspects: Keywords, architecture, relevance, authority, technical and extra listings.

The Happy Marketer’s team, known as the #HappyTribe, consists of more than 40 members today, spread across India and Singapore. The team is made up of creative and savvy marketers who strive to produce innovative and meaningful work for its clients.

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SEARCH MARKETING AGENCIES

PHD SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Media Group Headed by : Ang Wan-Gyn, managing director 2015 was a stellar year for PHD Singapore in terms of new business: winning nine new assignments, including GSK, Ferrero, Bentley, Manhattan Fish Market and Chang Beer. PHD’s growth was driven by an enhanced digital capability, effectively integrating the offline and online universes and its aggressive pursuit for new challenges.

All new businesses included the performance marketing remit as a core focus to drive its clients’ business forward.

Performance is a key element of the work PHD does, which is part of its core deliverables and the agency now has more than 20 dedicated staff on performance and growing.

This is while extending into more areas such as SEO, e-commerce and consultancy.

PHD Singapore continued to deliver astonishing work and ideas which have helped its top clients over the past year, including, Ferrero Rocher, GSK and F&N. It also continued to enhance SOURCE, its global planning operating system that links

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its network offices by empowering crossborder teams to plan campaigns in real-time through gamification. Across the globe, more than 300 ideas are generated daily. SOURCE enables PHD Singapore to explore innovative media ideas and drive disproportional ROI to its clients’ businesses.

As a company, PHD has undertaken the task to restructure performance marketing campaigns to drive higher click-through, cost efficiency and business results.

A notable campaign PHD did was for PayPal, through which high conversations were delivered through performance marketing. The education-led campaign was layered with a contest, “Who wants to win a million cents”. PHD and PayPal leveraged on the high shopping period to encourage spending and transacting. The recommendation was to create impact using

a large canvas format and then continue to drive cost efficiency via Facebook, GDN and mobile. The results saw PHD overachieving the KPIs set by PayPal across all metrics.

PHD is built on a culture of strategic planning, thought-leadership, innovation and finding a better way for its clients.

Key hires in 2015 included Chris Stephenson as strategy head of APAC; Manuel Denoual as performance director; and Simon Talvard as regional performance director.

Talent in PHD is nurtured by cultivating a culture of openness and hunger to identify new approaches. PHD hires individuals who deliver on clients’ diverse changing needs, and those that can bring new perspectives to the business. PHD’s SOURCE allows for specific training and development needs to be identified, enabling staff to be trained on hard and soft skills.

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SEARCH MARKETING AGENCIES

PERFORMICS Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Vivian Yeo, general manager In 2015, Performics Singapore set out to be the strongest performance marketing agency in the industry. However, initial perceptions saw it as a paid search agency only. 2015 saw Performics diversify and expand into the full scope by building three pillars of performance marketing: analytics, biddable media, backed by deep audience insight, and proprietary technology tools.

Over the past year, Performics has had a clear winning integrated strategy, alongside the right talent and mindset to achieve its plans. The agency married integrated digital media experience with social and trading desk experience into the original paid search team, and included SEO experts with technical and content development capabilities.

Some of Performics’ key clients include Reebonz, Scoot, Marriott and HewlettPackard – a long-standing client of the past 10 years. The agency was appointed as the global planning and buying agency for Singapore Airlines after a competitive five-month pitch.

ADDICTION ADVERTISING

CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lionel Lim, managing director

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Anant Choubey, VP & business head, India and South East Asia

Addiction Advertising is a local independent and fully fledged advertising agency that specialises in search and digital marketing. 2015 was a monumental year for Addiction, marked with numerous achievements. Over a short span of four years, it has successfully positioned itself as the independent agency with the largest portfolio of healthcare clients by welcoming new “addicts” – an affectionate term for its clients Takeda Pharmaceuticals, NTUC Health and St Lukes.

Addiction also enjoys long-standing relationships with key clients such as the National Healthcare Group, Agency for Integrated Care, National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) and Hotel Properties Limited. In 2015, the agency hired two art directors, a senior copywriter and a client servicing manager which brought the staff strength to 11.

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Performics’ OneSearch methodology is the answer to clients’ dilemma between SEO or SEM investment. The ideal scenario should be to invest in both since studies have proven SEO and SEM work better together than apart. The methodology found that clicks significantly increase for keywords that have coinciding SEO and SEM listings.

As the Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore, Performics continues to preach the importance of SEO to its clients and particularly its market leads, who continue to take advantage of the slew of SEO training sessions and webinars the agency has run in Singapore. Some of the webinar training session topics include content marketing, tools, how to hire an SEO, keyword research

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Capillary helps clients understand consumers’ digital behaviours and the best way to use digital strategies, channels, and tools. Its omni-channel offerings, built on the foundation of the intelligent customer engagement suite of solutions and combined with the power of a digital marketing and commerce platform, enable clients to achieve this integration.

It provides clients with an integrated suite of digital marketing solutions – CRM, loyalty, search and online marketing, customer insights, and predictive intelligence, along with online, mobile, and social commerce, engagement and experience, combined with powerful omni-channel and o2o capabilities. Capillary nurtures innovation as a capability in its employees. Right from their induction, Capillary provides continuous learning and training to all employees.

and writing for SEO. Additionally, the agency created an internal database of SEO documentation that its APAC region has access to. It offers templates, deliverable examples, pitch decks, knowledge-sharing, and more.

Some key hires of Performics in 2015 include Charmaine Low as senior manager; Nicky Chua as senior manager; SingYee Ho as SEO manager; Benjamin Yue as SEO account executive; and Ivy Lim as senior SEO strategist.

Performics organises agency wide training for the Singapore office through the Live ROI Academy, a digital and strategic educational programme designed to equip staff with the right skill sets and knowledge. It combines on-site and online training.

CLICKR MEDIA Owned by : Independent Headed by : Derick Ng, CEO and co-founder

Clickr Media supports its clients’ digital marketing journey with its diverse experience in digital marketing campaigns and web projects. The digital marketing consultancy’s strength lies in its methodological approach – to be integrated, user-centred and datadriven.

Since 2009, Clickr Media has established close relationships with more than 300 brands, allowing the agency to gain a wide experience of marketing vastly different product types and services from various agencies locally, regionally and globally.

Its long-standing clients include Dale Carnegie and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, both of which have spent the past six years with Clickr Media. Fairly new accounts include Pet Lovers Centre, Polycom and True Fitness. Clickr Media offers a full suite of digital marketing services, which includes online marketing, digital research and analysis and web technologies.

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MASHWIRE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jeff Ng and Teo Hon Wui, co-founders Mashwire is a three-year-old homegrown integration agency that integrates digital and creative services across new and traditional marketing platforms. It was founded in 2013 by two individuals with experience (and a great passion) in branding, marketing, creative and technology.

In a short span, Mashwire has achieved significant results as a local agency in the competitive landscape.

With its integrative approach, it has helped clients across industries to upscale their searchability online through both marketing and optimisation efforts.

Its clients come from MNCs and SMEs. Some of the brands include Dulux, Nestlé infant nutrition brands (Nestlé NAN, Cerelac, Gerber), F&N, Bayer, Under Armour and others.

The agency believes content is the key ingredient to unify the consumer experience.

By creating and curating content ecosystems across multiple communication touch-points, brand engagement increases with consumers, resulting in an increase in trust, links, personalisation and social for the brand.

This in turn optimises brand search.

Mashwire creates content through two categories – digital services and creative services.

PURPLECLICK MEDIA Owned by : Independent Headed by : Leonard Tan, founder and executive chairman

SEO Agency Singapore brought in a handful of key clients in 2015, adding to its growing list of clients.

As the agency moves through a new year, it prides itself on increasing the quantity and length of time of its long-term client relationships.

Although focusing primarily on search marketing, the agency provides a full-suite of digital marketing services.

In 2015, SEO Agency established itself in the continuous growth of its organic search engine optimisation business, as well as its increasing paid search service by bringing onboard experienced and skilled performance media specialists.

The agency has also continued with its USP, continuing to offer clients guarantees, which in turn pushes the company to achieve greater results.

SEO Agency has stood by its guarantees, in that clients do not have to pay when the agency does not meet a given milestone.

A special focus was put on the agency’s team in 2015 to build stability across the team. SEO Agency continues to maintain its Google partnership and works to grow it further than Google Adwords by remaining in close connection with different teams across Google Singapore’s business.

The team has made itself experts of multiple channels such as Facebook, Google, YouTube and others in order to run campaigns that are customised for each of its client’s needs. The agency comes up with the right and optimal search marketing campaign for each client it works with – with a minimum of three channels per campaign.

Its search marketing service is centred around being results-oriented, targeted and focused, and customised for each client.

The three disciplines are ones the agency holds strongly to.

It is always monitoring and adjusting for each marketing campaign on each digital platform it uses, being in constant and open communication with its clients, and keeping them in the loop during the campaign.

Another differentiating factor is the agency does not fix on one channel per campaign, nor does it have a fixed budget allocation per channel per campaign.

Operating this way gives it a lot of flexibility in focusing on top performing channels as well as how it can align its efforts to its clients’ needs. The agency has created business processes where its staff members get to be experts in specific channels, be it Google Analytics or Facebook advertising.

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jason Ang, director

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Owned by : WME Group Headed by : Daphanie Burnham, general manager, Singapore

2015 was a breakthrough for PurpleClick as the company transformed and strengthened its foundation for international growth for the next 10 years.

Changes were made from management in organisational culture, strategy, people development, customer support, core values, to a brand refresh.

The past year also saw PurpleClick double its headcount and open new operations in the Philippines and Malaysia.

For the past 10 years that the agency has been in the industry, it has been dedicated to helping companies harness the power of the internet, enabling them to conduct performance-driven marketing and grow their businesses many times faster than with traditional forms of marketing.

PurpleClick Media is proud to have built a portfolio of more than 600 diverse customers from industry sectors such as finance, healthcare, vehicles, government, education, business industrial and beauty and personal care.

A majority of its clients are SMEs and the agency continues to help local enterprises find online solutions to their marketing needs to grow in these increasingly competitive conditions.

VISIBILITI

VISIBILITI is a results-orientated business offering search marketing services and has been in full operations for only two years as of 2015. Yet, the agency served more than 60 clients last year, despite a staff strength of only six.

A defining breakthrough for the agency in 2015 was the provision of search marketing services in the child/enrichment care industry in Singapore. In the past year alone, it has served 18 new clients in the sector, thanks to the previous success it had with other businesses within the same industry.

The differentiating factor for the agency is it sells solutions.

SEO AGENCY

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SOCIAL MARKETING AGENCIES

TBWA\DIGITAL ARTS NETWORK SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing director

The right people, processes and tools are required to respond to the changing market dynamics and needs of today’s connected consumers to capitalise on the opportunities that data can unlock for clients, TBWA DAN believes.

THE WINNERS GOLD

Digital Arts Network

SILVER

Social@Ogilvy

72.13%

BRONZE

Publicis Singapore

68.13%

LOCAL HERO

GOODSTUPH

61.25%

77.50%

THE FINALISTS Capillary Technologies DSTNCT Happy Marketer KRDS Singapore Mashwire Tribal Worldwide Singapore

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It therefore launched a new model called Disruption® LIVE that optimises its clients’ daily marketing by using data and insights to drive clients’ businesses through digital and social media.

Every day, agency spotters identify trends on behalf of brands, which is the start of a three-step process.

This includes insight mining – these insights are fed into an opening briefing where agency teams across departments meet with clients to examine insights and decide which to act upon. The output is an open brief, which executes into the last step which is audience planning, where it finds the most optimal channels for the ideas to live.

Data from every execution then feeds the next insight mining and the cycle repeats itself daily.

To support this, it invested in newsroom technology, real-time data and publishing tools such as Synthesio, Crimson Hexagon and NUVI to name a few.

To roll out its new agency model for Disruption®, it hosted a total of 15 in-depth training and simulation sessions for all 230 staff. For key brands, Caltex, Airbnb, Tigerair and SCB, it ran deep dive sessions for everyone on those brand teams.

As the RHQ leading Disruption®, it hosted a regional Disruption® senior

management induction to get all regional agencies across eight markets in APAC ready for this agency model.

To date, Disruption® LIVE has been rolled out in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines.

Disruption® LIVE, first executed in Singapore, has proven to be hugely successful for clients such as MasterCard.

For MasterCard’s digital and e-commerce engine it created a data and analytics-driven business model that tracks trends and insights as they happen, and collaborates with MasterCard’s merchants and issuing banks to reach the right customers with the right content, at the right time.

In 2011, SIA experienced a troubled website revamp, riddled with system and payment glitches. The agency’s task was to rectify front-end issues with the user interface, improve overall user experience and deliver content in a clear and consistent way.

Among other things, it made the website responsive for consistent user experience across all devices, created a module-based design grid adaptable to all sections of the website and simplified the overall user experience. The new singaporeair.com is being launched in phases – from March 2015 to June 2016 – and has seen a significant spike in total traffic and the internet check-in feature.

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SOCIAL MARKETING AGENCIES

SOCIAL@ OGILVY Owned by : WPP Headed by : Rika Sharma, general manager, Singapore Social@Ogilvy comes in second in this category this year. It went into 2015, Singapore’s SG50 jubilee year, on a cautiously optimistic high, still feeling the effects of the thrills and headlines of 2014 that were testament to its success.

Its mantra? Divine discontent.

Discontented with how the industry seemed stagnant, it pushed itself to transform its business and people. To maintain its lead, it focused on three strategic priorities which enabled the agency to focus efforts on product and service innovations, partnerships, talent and thought leadership efforts. They are strategic social – a strategy for overall business, brand and campaign planning; specialised skill sets – expanding and strengthening digital and social capabilities through transformative hires; and contextual content – content responsive to consumer needs and preferences mined through social data analytics.

PUBLICIS SINGAPORE Owned by : Publicis Groupe Headed by : Lou Dela Pena, chief executive officer

Publicis Singapore bags the bronze in this category this year. The agency examined how social could play a role in each brief, and looked for opportunities to take client briefs beyond their original scope.

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One of its products is eventPlus, its approach to combining on and offline activities around B2B or B2C events to maximise the impact and lifespan of content and clients’ ROI. Aside from partnerships with Huawei and UPS, it also partnered with IBM to bring IBM Excite in Singapore to a larger audience through eventPlus.

The agency has proven expertise in creating dynamic dashboards to efficiently analyse complex marketing data, integrated from multiple sources, to understand brand performance across multiple categories, markets and media assets for clients such as Unilever Food Solutions and Pond’s.

Its social value benchmarking product defines a consumer journey unique to a brand’s category, and then assesses the role of social media in each of the stages of this journey. The study opens the door for an informed, data-driven social strategy that ensures a competitive social advantage at each stage of the consumer journey.

Social@Ogilvy transformed its structure to change the way it does things. With increased exposure to regional or global work that integrates digital and social with PR and other ATL disciplines, its team members are given opportunities to create strategies, and produce content for 360-degree campaigns.

This meant integrating social media across digital touch-points in the form of social selling, socially led campaigns, social content marketing and social PR. It was then able to make more diverse approaches to briefs and problem-solving, as well as social work that delivered great results for clients.

Doing all of this required the agency to put in dedicated resources. It created Newsdesk for real-time content that drives business results. Newsdesk is a global Publicis strategic process for social media. It harnesses real-time insights and live content

creation for time-sensitive storytelling. It implemented Newsdesk more aggressively for its retail-based clients such as Robinsons and Scoot. The result? More real-time content that helped deliver sales and impact on social than ever before.

In 2015, the agency also brought together a unique combination of people with diverse skills in data, creative and user experience to further elevate the quality of social work and content. To shape and inform content from an editorial perspective, it brought onboard Carlo Reyes Coloma as its creative content lead Because the industry is increasingly getting more competitive, advertising agencies often view media and tech agencies as a threat to their business. But Publicis believes effective transformation entails closely collaborating with industry partners who are leading best practices within the region.

After some months of discussion with Google on how creative agencies in Asia and Google can collaborate better, it was invited as the first agency in Singapore to participate in a client-agency workshop with Google on how to make content work harder and more effective for brands.

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SOCIAL MARKETING AGENCIES

GOODSTUPH Owned by : Independent Headed by : Pat Law, founder GOODSTUPH retains its Local Hero title for another year this year. While adding on a slew of new businesses, the agency has kept its focus on doing great work for its clients.

For Glenfiddich’s “The Valley of the Deer” experience, the agency brought the distillery experience to Malaysia, allowing guests to learn and discern between different whiskies with a good brand story, enhanced with participative storytelling elements and interactivity.

CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES Owned by : Independent Headed by : Anant Choubey, VP & business head, India and South East Asia Advances in digital technology are reshaping the world of consumer marketing and retailing. The integration of mobile and digital, especially search and social, is becoming essential for better customer

DSTNCT Owned by : Independent Headed by : Lesner Chua, managing director; Mikal Chong, business director

DSTNCT was officially founded in 2014 with two co-founders and a team mainly comprised of interns. The agency hired its first full-timer (account/planning executive) in August 2014.

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For Carlsberg, it created the “If Carlsberg did recruitment” campaign to appeal to the target market of males aged 25-34 who are predominantly working adults.

It also worked on the HP YouTube Fanfest 2015, with the aim to change young consumers’ attitudes towards HP – from a tech-driven computer brand to one that is integral to their hip lifestyle, and to fortify HP’s position as the market leader in the personal computer segment by creating wellloved and shareable content that keeps HP at the top of the consumers’ minds.

The agency takes pride in its people policy. Being limited in human resources, it is imperative for the agency to be strict on time

management and organisation skills of each individual. All digital strategists are trained in three categories: consultancy, creativity and client management.

There is no account management person at GOODSTUPH. “Everyone is a suit. It is in our belief that the dedicated role of an account management person underutilises the potential of a communicator. We take no pride in building over-priced courier service personnels,” founder Pat Law believes.

From a content development perspective, the agency has a creative collective of veteran freelancers from writers to designers to coders she works with.

experience. Capillary helps clients understand consumers’ digital behaviours and the best ways to use digital strategies, channels, and tools.

Its omni-channel offerings, built on the foundation of the intelligent customer engagement suite of solutions and combined with the power of a digital marketing and commerce platform, enable clients to achieve this integration.

It provides clients with an integrated suite of digital marketing solutions – CRM, loyalty, search and online marketing, customer

insights, and predictive intelligence, along with online, mobile, and social commerce, engagement and experience, combined with powerful omni-channel and o2o capabilities.

Capillary says it is committed to nurturing innovation as a capability in its employees. Right from their induction, Capillary provides continuous learning and training to all employees to expand their competencies with a mentorship programme, company sponsored industry certifications, and live field alliances with digital and marketing agencies.

As business grew, the agency beefed up and the team is at 16-people strong as of March 2016. As a youth-focused marketing powerhouse, DSTNCT is equipped with a host of partnerships and assets to facilitate the effective delivery of creative work, campaign seeding and activations.

A chief asset is its physical network of contracted Alpha Youth – FLUX. FLUX allows the agency to obtain authentic and deep insights relevant to campaigns and to the socio-cultural landscape of the youth. With the power of peer-to-peer marketing, FLUX

boosts and sustains engagements within campaigns, and helps the agency strengthen clients’ brand stories and messages.

DSTNCT looks at social and marketing differently. Digital applications, social media and integrated marketing all connect people to the messages that a brand wants to push out. So it always asks if social is really just social? As an agency, it believes in effectiveness. Brands can spend a whole lot of money creating a fluffy video to the panel, but at the end of the campaign, do they actually achieve the results, it asks.

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SOCIAL MARKETING AGENCIES

HAPPY MARKETER

KRDS SINGAPORE

Owned by : Independent Headed by : Rachit Dayal and Prantik Mazumdar, managing partners

Owned by : KRDS SAS Headed by : Preetham Venkky, director

Happy Marketer is once again a finalist for the Social Media of the Year category.

The agency is known for its services in the field of social media marketing, search engine optimisation, conversion optimisation, web analytics, digital advertising and websites and apps.

Founded in 2009, the agency is a fast growing digital independent consulting firm based in Singapore.

Fan generation, channel set-up, campaign management, contests management, gamification, customer service, influencer engagement, social ad campaigns are some of the many ways Happy Marketer looks to help its clients.

Some clients which the agency has actively helped include Nanyang Business School and NUS School of Computing, which appointed Happy Marketer for a year to handle its strategy, content and community management, campaign management, design and reporting/measurement.

The Time Place, Indonesia’s largest luxury watch retailer, also reappointed Happy Marketer as its social media marketing agency after a closed door pitch.

Over the past year, Happy Marketer has helped grow The Time Place’s Facebook fan base to more than 150,000 followers.

TRIBAL WORLDWIDE SINGAPORE Owned by : Omnicom Group Headed by : Jeff Cheong, president, Asia and head of Tribal Worldwide Singapore

2015 saw Tribal Worldwide continuing its efforts to strengthen its position as a communication agency which creates work that influences mindshare, purchase and loyalty. Born from a branding heritage with DDB’s influence, it was raised as a digital native.

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MASHWIRE Owned by : Independent Headed by : Jeff Ng and Teo Hon Wui co-founders

KRDS Singapore enjoyed a great year making it to the finalists list.

First founded in 2008, the agency has expanded from an initial headcount of 10 to 120 employees, opening seven new offices throughout Europe and Asia. Since its Tan creation, KRDS has consistently registered triple-digit annual growth and in 2011, AXA PE, a leading European private equity firm took an equity stake in the company.

Over the years, KRDS has had an extensive list of clients such as Exness, NETS, Singapore Kindness Movement, 1933 Singapore, BreadTalk and many others.

Driven by data, the agency also launched the KRDS story analysis tool last year to help brands identify the most engaging posts for any given industry.

The tool is made accessible to all brands and agencies and aims to provide brands with a report that unveils community management efforts being made by other brands on Facebook in real-time in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and India.

The tool calculates and ranks the most engaging posts for a chosen period of time via a specially created “KRDS SAT score” (based on the number of fans, likes, comments and shares for each story) and highlights posts from more than 400 brands and 17 industries such as tourism, beauty and FMCG.

Mashwire is a three-year-old homegrown integration agency that integrates digital and creative services across new and traditional marketing platforms. It was founded in 2013 by two individuals with experience (and a great passion) in branding, marketing, creative and technology.

In a short span of three years, Mashwire has achieved significant results as a local agency in the competitive landscape.

With its integrative approach, it has helped clients across industries to upscale their searchability online through marketing and optimisation efforts.

Its clients consist of MNCs and SMEs. Some of the brands include Dulux, Nestlé infant nutrition brands (Nestlé NAN, Cerelac, Gerber), F&N, Bayer, Under Armour and others.

The agency believes content is the key ingredient to unify the consumer experience.

By creating and curating content ecosystems across multiple communication touch-points, brand engagement increases with consumers, resulting in an increase in trust, links, personalisation and social for the brand. This, in turn, optimises brand search.

social media and commerce, delving deep into content creation and distribution. This is to create a community centric focus.

Some key clients and projects included the development of a new StarHub portal.

The moving of clients’ budgets from traditional spend to e-commerce solutions resulted in the implementation of online sales for the Hello Kitty toy from McDonald’s, which not only boosted sales, but also eliminated queues. It will soon start work on a new portal for Keppel.

Forming alliances with media platforms such as Mothership, The Smart Local and SGAG, it hopes to provide more holistic communication solutions for its clients.

The value placed on speed-to-market high-quality video content production led to the creation of Feely Productions,

an assembly of filmmakers, editors and producers that have been producing branded content for McDonald’s, DBS, Unilever, Ministry of Communications and Information and the Singapore Memory Project with speed and quality.

The emphasis on the enterprise solution, Adobe Marketing Suite, was the focus for Tribal in 2015. The partnership enabled Tribal to further expand its digital expertise, allowing for more efficient working systems and tech solutions for it as a company, and in turn, for its clients.

It has four consultants in the Singapore office working on the Adobe Marketing Suite, and more than 40 technologists dedicated to innovative projects. They have collaborated in the development of new businesses with the Adobe strategic partnership team.

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THE MARKies

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THE MARKies

The MARKies celebrate the most creative and effective campaigns or projects spanning Singapore’s diverse marketing services industry. Now in its seventh year, this comprehensive programme evaluates individual entries focusing on creative ideas or the most innovative use of media.

With client-marketer judges focusing on four key criteria - The Challenge (15%), Strategy (30%), Execution (30%) and Results (25%) - the MARKies are entirely independent of the Agency of the Year submissions, and are designed to showcase the best pieces of individual work in Singapore over the past year.

This year saw an unprecedented achievement, with Publicis Singapore winning both the Overall Creative Ideas MARKie and the Overall Best Use of Media MARKie, further reinforcing the notion that agency roles are becoming harder and harder to categorise. Congratulations to Publicis Singapore, and all 2016 MARKies winners!

MARKies Sponsors:

Best Idea - Direct Marketing

Best ldea - Out of Home Media

Best Idea - Female Audience

OVERALL CREATIVE IDEAS MARKie PUBLICIS SINGAPORE

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THE MARKies

OVERALL BEST USE OF MEDIA MARKie PUBLICIS SINGAPORE

BEST IDEA – BUSINESS EVENTS

BEST IDEA – CONSUMER EVENTS

Airwave APAC and PHD Singapore

Mindshare Singapore

HPrecision Ambush HP

World’s First Magnum Infinity Playground Unilever Singapore

FINALISTS

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FINALISTS

GQP Singapore

Publicis Singapore

NetBackup 7.7 Launch Event - A Virtual Reality mobile experience Veritas Storage (Singapore)

Audi presents ‘A Drive Back In Time’ Audi Singapore

Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP

Havas Media Singapore

Audi Driving Experience 2015 Audi Singapore

8th ASEAN Para Games Sport Singapore

Mashwire

Publicis Singapore

Under Armour Sell-in Event Under Armour

Garang for SG Scoot

Mindshare Singapore

Havas Media Singapore

World’s First Magnum Infinity Playground Unilever Singapore

Man VS Child A&E Networks

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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THE MARKies BEST IDEA – CONSUMER INSIGHTS

BEST IDEA – CONTENT MARKETING

GOODSTUPH

DDB Group Singapore

The Balvenie Connoisseurs of Craft William Grant & Sons

Home by Homes StarHub

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

Wild Advertising & Marketing

MEC Singapore

Transform into a Different U Singapore Management University

Food Steps Health Promotion Board

Publicis Singapore

Publicis Singapore

Scoot Matrix Scoot

Destination Oz Scoot

GOODSTUPH

Dentsu Singapore

YouTube FanFest with HP HP Singapore

Canon Photo Face-off Canon

Havas Media Singapore

Publicis Singapore

Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore Spectrum Worldwide

Scoot Matrix Scoot

BEST IDEA – LOYALTY & CRM

BEST IDEA – TV

Publicis Singapore

Dentsu Singapore

Audi Drive Experience Audi Singapore

Our Everyday Is Defending Yours Republic of Singapore Navy

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

Capillary Technologies

TBWA\Group Singapore

Courts ‘HOMECLUB’ Performance Courts

A Different Paris Airbnb

Publicis Singapore

3-Sixty Brand Communications

Scoot Matrix Scoot

Mud Doll Singapore Kindness Movement

Ruder Finn Asia

DDB Group Singapore

Introducing GrabCar to Singapore Grab

Home by Homes StarHub

Capillary Technologies

BLACK ON BLACK

The GANT Ivy League Rewards GANT

THE WORLD-STOPPING TASTE Super Coffee Corporation

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THE MARKies BEST IDEA – INTEGRATED MEDIA

BEST IDEA – DIRECT MARKETING

Publicis Singapore

Addiction Advertising

True Protection AXA Insurance Singapore

Pioneer Generation Kit Ministry of Health / Agency for Integrated Care

FINALISTS

Capillary Technologies

Glenfiddich Valley of the Deer Experience William Grant & Sons

Intelligent Campaign Carnival Courts

Mandate Communications (s)

GOODSTUPH

Forget Us Not - Building a Dementia-Friendly Community Lien Foundation & Khoo Teck Puat Hospital

Glenfiddich 1965 William Grant & Sons

BBDO Singapore

Publicis Singapore

The Unofficial Official Beer of Singapore Asia Pacific Breweries

Scoot Matrix Scoot

Publicis Singapore

TBWA\Group Singapore

Garang for SG Scoot

Desk Phone Cisco Jabber

BEST IDEA – MALE AUDIENCE

BEST IDEA – LAUNCH

Host Group

Mashwire

The 4.5% Gentleman C&C International

Dulux Ambiance. Personalize Your World Akzo Nobel Paints (Singapore)

FINALISTS

94

FINALISTS

GOODSTUPH

FINALISTS

Addiction Advertising

Ruder Finn Asia

Mousetrap Monetary Authority of Singapore

HappyFresh – Grocery Shopping On-the-Go HappyFresh

Dentsu Singapore

Ruder Finn Asia

Canon Photo Face-off Canon

Introducing GrabCar to Singapore Grab

Mediacorp OOH Media

FLY Entertainment

Urban Wheels Challenge 2015 Singapore Sports Hub

AXA Smart Family Event Launch AXA Life Insurance Singapore

Mediacorp OOH Media

GOVT Singapore

Mediacorp Rotax Max Singapore Open 2015 Singapore Sports Hub

Hokkien Vikings History Channel

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THE MARKies BEST IDEA – OUT OF HOME

BEST IDEA – DIGITAL

atomz i!

Publicis Singapore

PaperOne Branding & Sustainability Concept Train APRIL Fine Paper Trading

Scoot Matrix Scoot

FINALISTS

Razorfish

National Steps Challenge Health Promotion Board

Olay Wall Procter & Gamble

Bloomberg Internal Agency

Germs Singapore

Business Is...

Bloomberg.com

Travel Made Different NTUC Income

BLACK ON BLACK

Havas Media Singapore

THE WORLD-STOPPING TASTE Super Coffee Corporation

For The Heroes In Our Lives FairPrice

Havas Media Singapore

Adelphi Digital Consulting Group

For The Heroes In Our Lives FairPrice

Singapore Savings Bond Monetary Authority of Singapore

BEST IDEA – MOBILE

BEST IDEA – PRINT

Publicis Singapore

Goodfellas Consultancy

Scoot Mobile App War-Fare Scoot

MARIGOLD Yoghurt Naturally Irresistible In Any Way Malaysia Dairy Industries

FINALISTS

96

FINALISTS

MEC Singapore

FINALISTS

Publicis Singapore

Goodfellas Consultancy

Audi presents ‘A Drive Back In Time’ Audi Singapore

MARIGOLD Fresh Chocolate Milk Malaysia Dairy Industries

Germs Singapore

Goodfellas Consultancy

Travel Made Different NTUC Income

SUTD Pillars Campaign Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)

GQP Singapore

Interuptive Communications

NetBackup 7.7 Launch Event - A Virtual Reality mobile experience Veritas Storage (Singapore)

Cycle & Carriage After-Sales Branding Campaign “We care for your car as if it were your baby” / Cycle & Carriage Automotive

MEC Singapore

MEC Singapore

Crimson Peak United International Pictures Singapore

Golden Ticket to A Dream Come True Scoot

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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Razorf ish.

Always ahead.

Motivated and inspired by what's next, Razorfish helps our clients navigate the unknown, drive change and transform their business models through a relentless focus on the customer.

For the fourth consecutive year, Gartner has named Razorfish a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Global Digital Marketing Agencies. In 2016, Razorfish is proud to be positioned highest and furthest for its ability to execute and completeness of vision in the Leaders’ quadrant.

We Help Our Clients Acquire and Sustain Leadership Positions

We Help Our Clients Think and Act Differently

Razorfish was “born digital” more than 20 years ago. As our clients adjust to new technologies, new marketing techniques and a changing marketplace, we remain dedicated to staying ahead of trends and leading them into a future in which their business will thrive.

Clients look to our well-defined approach to customer-obsessed transformation. They engage us to help them exceed customer expectations by reinventing their brands, creating new digital services, and overhauling and innovating experiences that exploit the possibilities of digital connectivity.

We Help Our Clients Achieve Results Being on the cutting edge of ideas and innovation isn’t enough.

Clients depend on our unmatched ability to deliver again and again across our solution areas of: Experience Innovation, Participation Marketing, Ubiquitous Commerce and Intelligent Platforms.

For more information and case studies showcasing how Razorfish transforms our clients’ business models, read “Delivering Digital Business Transformation.”

Delivering Digital Business Transformation

Contact us with inquiries about what makes Razorfish unique or to discuss how we can work together.

Contact

Manish Bhan Client Services Director manish.bhan@razorfish.com +65 91205915

THE MARKies BEST IDEA – PUBLIC/MEDIA RELATIONS

BEST IDEA – FEMALE AUDIENCE

Havas Media Singapore/Havas Worldwide Siren

MRM//McCann Singapore

POSB NeighboursFirst.SG - Storytellers Grant DBS

Hershey’s Happygrams The Hershey Company

FINALISTS

Click2view

“The Return of James Bond’s Favourite Car” Aston Martin

Visa Solo Traveller Visa

Ruder Finn Asia

Mashwire

Introducing GrabCar to Singapore Grab

Dulux. A New Colour. A New Experience.

Akzo Nobel Paints (Singapore)

PR Communications

Mediacom Singapore

“Taking the food delivery service industry by storm “ Deliveroo

SK-II #changedestiny P&G Singapore

Ogilvy Public Relations

GOODSTUPH

Use Your RoadSense – From Rules to Road Culture Traffic Police

XX for Vivienne Tam UOB Cards Singapore

BEST IDEA – RETAIL/SHOPPER

BEST IDEA – SOCIAL

Dentsu Singapore

Publicis Singapore

Uniqlo Street Tales Uniqlo

Scoot Mobile App War-Fare Scoot

FINALISTS

98

FINALISTS

PR Communications

FINALISTS

MONIMEDIA

Wild Advertising & Marketing

Goldheart Online Store Aspial Corporation

#TheyAllSay Central Provident Fund Board

Wunderman

MRM//McCann Singapore

adidas DIGITAL SHELF adidas

Hershey’s Happygrams The Hershey Company

GOODSTUPH

Havas Media Singapore

1845: Wear Your History The Straits Times

Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore Spectrum Worldwide

Ruder Finn Asia

Social@Ogilvy

HappyFresh – Grocery Shopping On-the-Go HappyFresh

SG50’s Biggest Fan Wins An Experience of a Lifetime Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth

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UNI 160513 MKT MAG Print Ad APOS 210mm x 280mm FA.pdf

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THE MARKies BEST IDEA – SPORTS MARKETING

BEST IDEA – RADIO

Havas Media Singapore

3-Sixty Brand Communications

Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore Spectrum Worldwide

Highway Radio Singapore Kindness Movement

FINALISTS

Interuptive Communications

HSBC Women’s Champions 2015 HSBC

Cycle & Carriage After-Sales Branding Campaign “We care for your car as if it were your baby” / Cycle & Carriage Automotive

Havas Media Singapore

Mediacorp - Creative Services

8th ASEAN Para Games Sport Singapore

BOC More Incredible Way to Save Campaign Bank of China

Adelphi Digital Consulting Group

Radio Heatwave

SEA Games Sport Singapore

Sounds of Singapore *SCAPE Co.

AMC Experience

Zenithoptimedia

24SEVENS FOOTBALL AMC EXPERIENCE

Got to Move 2015: First Nationwide Dance Movement National Arts Council

BEST IDEA – VIRAL

BEST IDEA – WEB DESIGN

Publicis Singapore

MONIMEDIA

Scoot Mobile App War-Fare Scoot

Goldheart Online Store Aspial Corporation

FINALISTS

100

FINALISTS

Jack Morton Worldwide

FINALISTS

Wild Advertising & Marketing

Wunderman

#TheyAllSay Central Provident Fund Board

#PixelPAdang People’s Association

Social@Ogilvy

Mediatropy Digital Agency

Winning Hearts One Coke At A Time Coca-Cola Far East Ltd

Gili Lankanfushi Maldives HPL Hotels & Resorts

DDB Group Singapore

Carbon Interactive

The Pioneer Generation Show Ministry of Communications and Information

HLF Website - Here To Serve Hong Leong Finance

Havas Media Singapore

Adelphi Digital Consulting Group

Man VS Child A&E Networks

Per Aquum Minor Hotel Group

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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THE MARKies BEST USE OF ANALYTICS

BEST USE OF APPS

Publicis Singapore

Publicis Singapore

Scoot Matrix Scoot

Audi presents ‘A Drive Back In Time’ Audi Singapore

FINALISTS

Ruder Finn Asia

Digital & E-Commerce Engine - Mother’s Day Campaign MasterCard

HappyFresh – Grocery Shopping On-the-Go HappyFresh

Capillary Technologies

MEC Singapore

Intelligent Campaign Carnival Courts

Health Hub Health Promotion Board

Isentia

Airwave APAC

DBS Benchmarking Project DBS

Feel Welcome AccorHotels

Capillary Technologies

Happy Marketer

Strategic Retention & Sales Enhancement Arrow

SG50 Facebook App - The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

BEST USE OF BRANDED CONTENT

BEST USE OF BROADCAST/VIDEO

Publicis Singapore

GOODSTUPH

Audi presents ‘A Drive Back In Time’ Audi Singapore

YouTube FanFest with HP HP Singapore

FINALISTS

102

FINALISTS

Digital Arts Network

FINALISTS

Mandate Communications (s)

Havas Media Singapore

Forget Us Not - Building a Dementia-Friendly Community Lien Foundation & Khoo Teck Puat Hospital

Man VS Child A&E Networks

MEC Singapore

Starcom Mediavest Group

Mount Elizabeth Hospital – Maternity & Pregnancy Knowledge Hub Parkway Hospital – Mount Elizabeth Hospital

Make it a Beer Gao! Guinness (Asia Pacific Breweries)

Starcom Mediavest Group

Havas Media Singapore

Tiger Beer - Unofficial Official Beer of Singapore Tiger Beer (Asia Pacific Breweries Pte Ltd)

POSB Storytellers Grant - Homeground DBS

Mediacom Singapore

TBWA\Group Singapore

SK-II #changedestiny P&G Singapore

A Different Paris Airbnb

MARKETING AGENCY OF THE YEAR SPECIAL ANNUAL EDITION 2016

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THE MARKies BEST USE OF EVENTS

BEST USE OF DIGITAL

Luminous Experiential MSLGROUP

MEC Singapore

Audi Driving Experience 2015 Audi Singapore

Achieving More with Less Scoot

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

GOODSTUPH

Publicis Singapore

YouTube FanFest with HP HP Singapore

Audi presents ‘A Drive Back In Time’ Audi Singapore

Starcom Mediavest Group

Wild Advertising & Marketing

Discover the Unexpected in Your City Heineken (Asia Pacific Breweries Pte Ltd)

Transform into a Different U Singapore Management University

Starcom Mediavest Group

MediaCom

Tiger Beer - Unofficial Official Beer of Singapore Tiger Beer (Asia Pacific Breweries Pte Ltd)

Share A Coke Singapore Coca Cola Far East Ltd.

The Events Artery

MEC Singapore

SHINE Festival 2015 National Youth Council

Mercedes-AMG GT S Daimler South East Asia

BEST USE OF INTEGRATED MEDIA

BEST USE OF MOBILE

Ogilvy Public Relations

MediaCom

Share-a-Coke Singapore Coca-Cola Singapore

Share A Coke Singapore Coca Cola Far East Ltd.

FINALISTS

FINALISTS

Wild Advertising & Marketing

iProspect Singapore

Transform into a Different U Singapore Management University

iSync - Real Time UV Transitions® Optical

Publicis Singapore

Airwave APAC

Garang for SG Scoot

Feel Welcome AccorHotels

Havas Media Singapore

Mindshare Singapore

For The Heroes In Our Lives FairPrice

Cornetto Lip Sync Unilever Singapore

MediaCom

Airwave APAC and PHD Singapore

Share A Coke Singapore Coca Cola Far East Ltd.

Mount Faber Sentosa Line Launch Mount Faber Leisure Group

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THE MARKies BEST USE OF SEARCH

BEST USE OF PRINT

Performics Singapore

Mediacom Singapore

Driving ROI with Scootitude Scoot

Shell Legend Shell

FINALISTS

Goodfellas Consultancy

iSync - Real Time UV Transitions® Optical

MARIGOLD Yoghurt Naturally Irresistible In Any Way Malaysia Dairy Industries

Mindshare Singapore

Goodfellas Consultancy

HSBC Women’s Champions HSBC

SUTD Pillars Campaign Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)

MEC Singapore

MEC Singapore

World Aids Day 2015 Action for AIDS

Golden Ticket to A Dream Come True Scoot

Happy Marketer

Mediacom Singapore

Search Marketing Campaign - Tigerair Tigerair

SK-II #changedestiny World P&G Singapore

BEST USE OF OOH

BEST USE OF SOCIAL

MEC Singapore

Publicis Singapore

Are You My Match Health Promotion Board

Scoot Mobile App War-Fare Scoot

FINALISTS

104

FINALISTS

iProspect Singapore

FINALISTS

TBWA\Group Singapore

Havas Media Singapore

Bookable Books Airbnb

8th ASEAN Para Games Sport Singapore

MediaCom

MEC Singapore

Share A Coke Singapore Coca Cola Far East Ltd.

National Steps Challenge Health Promotion Board

Starcom Mediavest Group

Publicis Singapore

Tiger Beer - Unofficial Official Beer of Singapore Tiger Beer (Asia Pacific Breweries Pte Ltd)

Scoot Matrix Scoot

Havas Media Singapore

Starcom Mediavest Group

For The Heroes In Our Lives FairPrice

#TravelDeeper Airbnb Singapore

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13/5/2016 6:08:51 PM

MarketingMag_AOTY_bcvr_FApR8b_HR.pdf

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