Creative Agency of the Year Singapore 2016

Gold: Ogilvy & MatherOwned by : WPPHeaded by : Chris Riley, group chairman2015 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 eff ort 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.[gallery link="file" ids="140536,140537,140538,140539,140540,140541,140542,140543"]Silver: Dentsu SingaporeOwned by : Dentsu Aegis NetworkHeaded by : Rosalynn Tay, chief executive officer, Dentsu Aegis SingaporeComing 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 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.[gallery link="file" ids="140544,140545,140546,140547,140548,140549,140550,140551,140552,140553"]Bronze: Publicis SingaporeOwned by: Publicis GroupeHeaded by : Lou Dela Pena, chief executive officerClinching 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 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.[gallery link="file" ids="140558,140557,140556,140555,140554"]Local Hero: BLACK ON BLACKOwned by : IndependentHeaded by : Matthew Qwah, managing director2015 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. Black on Black was founded on a traditional agency model specialising in print and TV 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.[gallery link="file" ids="140559,140560,140561,140562,140563,140564"]FinalistsAddiction AdvertisingOwned by : IndependentHeaded by : Lionel Lim, managing director2015 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 ofhealthcare clients. Within a short span of four years, it maintained this positioning by welcomingnew 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 newprojects and a go-to name for healthcare clusters locally.atomz i!Owned by : IndependentHeaded by : Lily Chia, founder and managing director2015 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 yearby clinching a global retainer account for premium paper brand, PaperOne™. With a strategic team which looks into this, it helps clients distill 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.BBDO Singapore Owned by : Omnicom GroupHeaded by : Jean-Paul Burge, chairman and CEO, BBDO AsiaBBDO 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.DDB Group SingaporeOwned by : Omnicom Media GroupHeaded by : David Tang, CEO, DDB Asia president and CEO, SingaporeDDB 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, withits 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.Govt Singapore Owned by : IndependentHeaded by : Leon Lai, group managing director2015 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.TBWA\Group SingaporeOwned by : Omnicom GroupHeaded by : Ara Hampartsoumian, managing directorTBWA\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.Agency of the Year 2016 was sponsored by The X Collective, BBC, CPR Vision, SSI, DMRocket, Mediacorp OOH Media, NBCUniversal International Networks. Partners for the event included SmsDome, Cellarmasters Wine, Graphiss Productions, Live!Studios and Peroni Nastro Azzurro.