Isentia scraps King Content brand, Singapore staff not impacted

Isentia has discontinued the King Content name. Marketing understands this will result in the full integration of the agencies into company under the Isentia brand name.The move to discontinue the King Content name was announced in an ASX listing, which revealed that the board at Isentia would be shutting King Content in New York and Hong Kong. As a result of the financial performance of King Content during FY17, the Board has decided to fully write down the value of the business. This is expected to result in an impairment charge of AU$37.8m in FY17. The impairment is non-cash and does not impact on banking covenants.Meanwhile, US clients will be serviced out of its UK office, while clients in Hong Kong will be serviced out of Singapore. The Singapore office will not be affected and moving forward, all of the agency's 11 employees in Singapore will be housed in Isentia’s strategy and content department. All resources and people will stay as is with no changes.This was confirmed to Marketing by Hedvig Lyche, general manager of King Content Singapore."The new move will enable everyone to sit under the same roof with more streamlined and optimised processes for clients,” Lyche said in a statement to Marketing. She added that the move is set to allow the King Content team to bolster Isentia’s capabilities in content and insights for business in other Asia markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.Some prominent clients King Content currently works with include NUS, Changi Airport, AIA and EDB, to name a few. The physical move in offices was made in March 2017 and all processes were completed in August 2017.Meanwhile in Hong Kong, just last month Isentia appointed Alex Yu as general manager.“Hong Kong is a vital regional hub with an innovative marketing culture that provides great scope for growth in real data intelligence and the move to North Point will help further integrate Isentia’s client offerings in the business intelligence industry, including press release, media relations, monitoring, analysis, and content marketing strategy, execution, amplification and measurement,” said Yu.Isentia made a full acquisition of King Content in 2015 for AU$48 million. This was in a bid to diversify its services “across owned and earned media”.  A spokesperson from Isentia had then told  Marketing at the time that the acquisition would also help King Content expands to key markets such as China. Meanwhile, content marketing is also an area that is complementary to Isentia’s growth plans.In Singapore, the news followed the exit of King Content Singapore’s commercial director Peter Bakker who ran local operations since its launch into Asia in 2010.Isentia could not be reached at the time of writing for more comments on the new name and integration.