Pizza Hut Malaysia shifts media duties to dentsu

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Pizza Hut Malaysia has shifted media duties from Mindshare to dentsu Malaysia, shortly after appointing Ensemble to manage creative duties. The appointment is for a year with the option to renew for another. The pitch was first called in the first quarter of this year and saw six agencies participating, CMO Emily Chong told A+M.

Incumbent Mindshare, which has been working with Pizza Hut Malaysia since 2015, was also part of the pitch and according to Chong, has been a strong contender. "The last few years with Mindshare has been nothing short of pivotal with the brand being turnaround and put on track to growth," she said.

That said, dentsu brought to the table a strong proposition that will effectively repivot the Pizza Hut brand towards delivering a modern pizza experience. "Sharing the same vision and commitment in making transformative step-change is key to win fast in this new frontier, and Team Dentsu has clearly demonstrated these through the acceleration and scaling of data-driven tech-enabled media capabilities for Pizza Hut," Chong explained.

"We are excited with what the new world beholds and we believe that the newly assembled Team Dentsu/Pizza Hut is well-positioned to make impactful growth in the coming months and beyond," she added.

Meanwhile, dentsu Malaysia's media CEO, Dheeraj Raina, told A+M that it has assembled Team Red Roof for the brand that pulls integrated resources across capabilities within the network.

Raina added that there is a fundamental common belief system between the agency and Pizza Hut, which is its hunger for growth. This became the building block of dentsu's thinking on the brand and it presented a brand strategy that was integrated by design, covers the entire customer lifecycle, and uses media as the connective tissue, he said. According to him, the team's vision is to make Pizza Hut native to in-home dining and enjoyment.

"Pizza Hut Malaysia has been on a transformational journey with a strong focus on eCommerce. Today, delivery in the Pizza category is table stakes and competition is asymmetric, so delivering distinctive attention is key for us," he said. Raina was previously with Mindshare Malaysia as MD and left to join dentsu earlier this year.

In May, it brought on board a few industry veterans to beef up its media line of business in Malaysia. It named Hemanth Jayaraman as partner and agency brand lead of dentsu X, Asha Nair as MD of media investment and platforms and Jing-Wen Foo as eCommerce director

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