Tenaga Nasional's Sutapa Bhattacharya joins DIA Brands Malaysia

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Sutapa Bhattacharya, Tenaga Nasional's GM, strategic communication and branding, has joined DIA Brands Malaysia as MD. Bhattacharya (pictured) has been with TNB since 2017, joining from Leo Burnett Malaysia where she was head of strategy and brand.

Nigel Smith, CEO and ECD of DIA Brands, told A+M that the team is really excited to have her on board and she is "a great addition to the team regionally". "She has unquestionably a great deal of experience after her tenure at TNB and Leo Burnett, where she has made a great impact. She is the perfect person for the high-level strategic branding that we are involved in," Smith explained.

He also described Bhattacharya to be "a fantastic asset" and they will work together to grow the business in Malaysia. "I think we are in a very positive situation. We moved into a new office in Malaysia a couple of months ago and we are well geared up coming out of the pandemic to move forward. It's a great time for her to join and move forward with the business," he said.

When asked about his vision for this year, Smith said it would be to maintain focus on DIA Brands' core business, which is strategic branding as well as creative interpretation and delivery. It recently worked with Thums Up in India to launch a new energy drink, Thums Up Charged, with the help of its Singapore and Malaysia team, which worked on it at the end of 2021 and through to 2022.

"We are spreading our wings and using our strength and capabilities to help a whole range of clients, from governments, and government-related companies to corporates and FMCG. We see ourselves as a growing force in strategic branding in Asia and Malaysia is a very important part of that," Smith explained.

Meanwhile, at TNB, Bhattacharya has been responsible for overseeing memorable festive ads, including Raya Macam Cara, Deklarasi Anak Malaysia, and Reality Not Virtual. In fact, Raya Macam Cara was one of the top 10 YouTube ads for Ramadan and Raya this year, according to the list provided to A+M by YouTube. At the same time, a study by YouGov among Malaysians found that TNB's Ramadan ads had the third-highest top-of-mind, unaided awareness (4%). Most Malaysians (72%) also remember watching Ramadan ads by TNB and PETRONAS.

In a previous interview with A+M, Bhattacharya explained that the future of marketing is going to be about people and not just technology. While there has been plenty of discussion about data-driven marketing and AI, Bhattacharya said data is data unless marketers make sense of that into insights.

"And in my view that is and it still continues to be the biggest challenge for marketers. We are sitting on a pile of data but are we really being able to turn them into meaningful insight towards actionable marketing initiatives and ideas?" she said.

She also highlighted the topic of behavioural science, explaining that marketers are constantly speaking of personalisation but to make this happen, they need to marry the two sciences together. Bhattacharya spent 18 years at Leo Burnett and was previously planning director at JWT for five years. She also worked at AC Nielsen as head of qualitative research for three years, her LinkedIn said. A+M has reached out to TNB for comment.

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