Singapore - Sentosa Leisure Group has awarded its two year tactical marketing account to Saatchi Lab, replacing incumbent AGI Communications in the process.
Hong Kong - Leo Burnett's global brand director for Rejoice Antoni d'Esterre has been assigned to oversee the management of Vidal Sassoon, a hair care brand under Proctor & Gamble.
Hong Kong - Luxury brands bracing for a gray Christmas selling season are launching major advertising campaigns in MTR stations across Hong Kong to heat up festive atmosphere.
Singapore - Sennheiser Consumer Electronics has appointed marketing and advertising agency Band to market its headphone products, following a global pitch.
Singapore - The Traffic Police Department of Singapore has reverted back to shock tactics with the launch of a new anti-drink drive campaign which also marks the Department's first ever effort online.
Hong Kong - Inno-Tech Holdings has agreed to acquire a 23% share of advertising agency Great China Media Holdings after both parties found common interest in investing in advertising projects within the hotel portfolio managed by Inno.
Singapore - Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is expanding its range of cross-media advertising packages in a move it says it is not tied to the impact of the global recession.
Singapore - A mini-revolution could well be on the cards in the advertising industry, as more and more larger clients opt to use local interactive agencies with their lower cost overheads and ability to get things done quickly. That's the view of The Upper Storey's newly appointed business director Euan Wilcox.
Singapore - Procter and Gamble (P&G), with the help of Zenith Optimedia, has rolled out an experiential campaign for Clariol Herbal Essences on JCDecaux's network.
Shanghai - Wei Wei Chen will take over as chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett Group Shanghai and executive director for China from early January, replacing Dean Bramham, who is said to be taking long service leave.
Singapore - Microsoft has launched a Draft FCB-created ‘Your World on Live' campaign for the suite of services offered by the new Windows Live Messenger.
Hong Kong - Health supplement Brand's is heavily targeting office ladies via a series of outdoor marketing executions for its bird's nets product, a ready-to-serve health drink.
Shanghai - While some agencies are feeling the credit crunch and trimming their operations, Lowe China is recruiting a large team of senior executives across its planning and creative departments.
Singapore - JWT is behind the new National Council Against Drug Abuse campaign which involves a series of outdoor ads depicting through letters, people's real life experiences with inhalant abuse.
Every business has its modus operandi of dealing with the global economic crisis - some lay-off, some freeze hiring, some seek policy support to bail them out and some turn towards government accounts to make sure business keeps flowing.
Shanghai – Focus Media has finalised plans to restructure its poor performing in-store advertising network and said it will soon shut its wireless and interactive marketing business due to “changes in market conditions”.
Regional - Online ad spend will reach nearly US$200 million in Southeast Asia by 2010, with most of the growth in the next two years coming from display advertising, according to a new study by Yahoo and Nielsen.
tk@marketing-interactive.com at Dec 10, 2008 From the conversations we have been having the catalyst for dramatic change in online spend levels could come next year from necessity. The downturn is likely to see more marketers test out online options and try to discover for themselves whether the chattering classes in the online space are right that online is actually effective. If they find that it is in the hard times, when the good times come back, the spend levels are likely to remain steady and even increase. Do others agree the downturn may bring online front and center in Asia for marketers finally?
jeff@webguruasia.com at Dec 11, 2008 in theory, i agree.
in practice i think it's a matter of two things:
1. how well educated the market is in terms of having confidence in digital marketing
2. brands getting the right advice to ensure that the attendant digital campaigns are strategised, managed and executed properly.
i also hope that display advertising will be done much more either on a CPC/CPA basis or by using rich media and not mostly based on a CPM model using non-rich media creative since i really worry that display media on a basic CPM basis usually delivers so little value to brands. in addition, it can be harder to deliver really good ROI (although there are certainly exceptions!).
also disappointing is that so little is projected to be spent on search marketing (SEM). done right, SEM can deliver so much value and great ROI--on average far better than standard, non-rich media bought on a CPM basis in my view.
and this doesn't even count the vast potential of exploiting social media where in many cases the media cost is zero! of course, there are still manhours of time to be spent and other tasks that must be paid for but at the end of the day, the expenditure can be far less than traditional online media advertising and the payoffs can be huge--not only in terms of hard ROI but also in terms of lasting brand value derived from exploiting conversations and other web 2.0 benefits, lasting search engine juice and so on.
jeff zweig
chief guru, web guru asia
http://www.webguruasia.com
Asia Pacific - The future of rich media is video, which is the most effective way to engage with consumers online. That's one of the insights that come out of yesterday's ‘Rich Media Rocks' workshop, which was held in Singapore and organized by Microsoft.
Malaysia - UPDATED - Electronics retailer Courts has quietly moved its estimated RM15 million Malaysia media account to GroupM without pitch, incumbent OMD wishes the client well.
Singapore - Saatchi Lab has picked up more festive business from SMRT, this time adding Chinese New Year work to the Christmas project it picked up some months ago.