DigiCert released the results of a global study at its annual Trust Summit conference, exploring how organizations are addressing the post-quantum computing (PQC) threat and preparing for a safe post-quantum computing future.
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, announced the release of Dalet Cut, the cloud-native, real-time, lightning-fast multimedia and multiplatform editor fully integrated within the Dalet ecosystem.
Cisco unveiled the latest progress towards its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. Cisco's new XDR solution and the release of advanced features for Duo MFA will help organizations better protect the integrity of their entire IT ecosystem.
Cryptocurrencies can be notoriously volatile. With prices fluctuating rapidly and without warning, a single tweet can shift a token price by 40%, only to see the price plummet in a matter of hours. While fluctuations are expected within crypto currency, you need to be able to spot the difference between what is a normal event, and what is a scam.
IBM released its annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, showing the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million in 2023 – an all-time high for the report and a 15% increase over the last 3 years. Detection and escalation costs jumped 42% over this same time frame, representing the highest portion of breach costs, and indicating a shift towards more complex breach investigations.
October marks Cybersecurity Awareness Month and with online safety being top of mind, Google has launched new products and features to help people everywhere. These releases include in-built features that work around-the-clock to take the security burden off users, and updates to privacy controls that help to easily protect personal information.
Dark web report: Users can check if their Gmail address has been exposed on the dark web as well as get guidance on how they can protect themself online by accessing the Dark Web Report in their account menu in the Google App. They just have to sign into the Google App and tap their profile picture to open the menu.
Passwordless by Default:Passkeys are a simpler and more secure way to sign into sites online and can be used with the Google Accounts. To make transition to passwordless even easier, Google is offering the ability to set up passkeys for all users — by default.
A new requirement to make email safer for everyone: Gmail recently announced new requirements for large senders to make email safer and more user-friendly for everyone, including enforcing authentication, enabling easy unsubscription, enforcing a clear spam rate threshold. This is in addition to Gmail’s AI-powered defenses, which block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware — that’s 15 billion unwanted emails every day.
Easier access to clear browsing data: Google added an option to quickly delete users’ browsing history in Chrome without interrupting current activities. Users just need to click the three dots in the top-right corner of the Chrome browser and select “Clear browsing data”.
Use the Google App as the credential provider for your iOS device:Google Password Manager is built into the Google App and you can already use it to securely save your passwords and sign in faster when you’re using the app. Now, you can set it as your Autofill provider so that the Google App can help you quickly and securely autofill your passwords into any app or website on your iOS device.
In modern society, building an inclusive employer brand should be considered mission critical for businesses large and small. The most successful companies are the ones that see challenges and opportunities from many different angles, and having a diverse employee population allows you to do just that. An inclusive employer brand lets you engage, recruit, and hire a wonderful spectrum of people who can bring their varied backgrounds to bear for your business. Simply put, building an inclusive employer brand brings a diverse set of experiences and perspectives to the table, which in turn allows your company to be smarter, more thoughtful, and ultimately more successful.
Microsoft has released its fourth edition of Cyber Signals, highlighting a surge in cybercriminal activity around business email compromise (BEC), the common tactics employed by BEC operators, and how enterprises can defend against these attacks.
LG Electronics (LG) unveiled a new brand direction and visual identity, which will shed more light on the value of Life's Good with a more dynamic and youthful look across all physical and digital customer touch points.
Media placement and creative work hand in hand when it comes to effective advertising strategies. A new study by MAGNA Media Trials and Yahoo set out to understand the role that creative quality plays in ad effectiveness, and the elements that contribute to quality creative. Creative, the Performance Powerhouse found that while media placement helps marketers find consumers where they are, creative quality was responsible for 56% of purchase intent, illustrating the strong performance of both tactics as they work together. The study suggests that marketers can greatly benefit from making small improvements to their creative in order to optimize ad performance, while also driving brand quality and trust.
Vigilance is urged during this 2023 Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as “AI generated scams enhance the threat to this year’s festive shoppers, as it’s revealed over 7 in 10 British people worry that AI will make it easier for criminals to commit online fraud” – NCSC.
But while AI scams like voice cloning, romance scams, and language mimicking are on the rise, “93% of the biggest spenders, millennials aged 24-35, plan to shop during this coming weekend. And they spend an average of $419.52 per person.” But with cyber security threats at an all-time high, how can shoppers and businesses stay cyber safe?
Here are our top tips for staying safe online, and the preventative measures that can be taken while shopping for your latest bargain.
Be Aware of Phishing & Quishing Attacks
SecurityHQ analysts have recently observed a significant increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC), regarding phishing attacks containing QR code (Quishing) and captchas for credentials harvesting. Quishing attacks usually occur via the scanning of a QR code. This technique involves tricking users into scanning a QR code using a mobile phone. The QR code then redirects the user to a phishing or fake website that aims to steal their credentials.
Read more about Quishing, and how to spot QR Code vulnerabilities, here.
Read the Small Print
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. While Black Friday deals can offer huge discounts that are genuine, people still need to make money. Anything ridiculously cheap is a red flag.
What to look for:
It is worth checking the reputation score of retailers to determine if that retailer can be trusted.
A website with no company address, descriptions or specifications on items are all red flags. Look for the details. And do not base purchases solely off star ratings, as these can be fake.
Pop-ups that offer free electronics are obvious scams, containing malicious phishing links, and should be avoided at all costs.
Read the small print. Often cons are perfectly visible if you know what to look for. Like seeing a picture of a laptop being advertised, going to buy said laptop for a reduced rate without reading the small print, and receiving a literal picture of a laptop in the post. The devil is in the detail.
Use Reputable Websites/Companies
Tried and Tested – Using websites that are globally known is a good way to avoid any nasty surprises. Even if it is a couple of pounds more, it is worth knowing where your money is going and that your purchase will be tracked and delivered.
Use Antivirus Software that will warn you of potentially dangerous sites in search results as well.
Look For Suspicious Emails, as well as suspicious calls and text messages. Never click on a link you are unsure of, and never provide personal information over the phone. Read more on email security, here.
Stop, Look, Check, Pay
Secure Sockets Layers (SSL) are used to ensure data is encrypted before being transmitted across the web. It is also an indication that an organization has been verified. Keep an eye out for HTTPS in the address bar rather than HTTP, as this highlights a site uses SSL.
Make Sure the Website That You Intend to Shop on is Not a Copy of a legitimate one. Verify that the date and name of the organization are consistent with the site you are visiting. And look for typos in the URL. Your best bet it to go directly to the website yourself, and do not access it through links on other sites/emails.
When using public Wi-Fi, use a VPN as the most effective way to stay safe and so that hackers do not steal your personal data while you are on an unsecure network.
Check Your Bank Account
Use a credit card or payment method which offers protection (i.e., PayPal).
Check your accounts regularly for fraudulent activity.
Only provide enough details to complete your purchase (no extra details required)
Keep Your Passwords Safe & Don’t Use Default Credentials
Default credentials used by applications and appliances are often published on the internet. This can be a big problem. An attacker will typically first scan your network to see where they can move next. If an attacker was lucky enough to identify applications or appliances with default credentials enabled, it won’t take them long to hunt on the internet for these published credentials. Read how to detect default credentials, here.
Finally, keep your passwords safe. Read this blog on password protocols to learn more. Don’t let cyber scams ruin your festive fun this winter!
Yahoo and purpose-led ad platform Good-Loop announced a global partnership offering carbon neutral private marketplace (PMP) media opportunities to advertisers to help them become more sustainable.
At its Experience ‘24 conference, Medallia, Inc. announced four ground-breaking innovations that will fundamentally alter the way organizations can personalize customer and employee experience
New research commissioned by IBM found that about 42% of enterprise-scale organizations (over 1,000 employees) surveyed have AI actively in use in their businesses. Early adopters are leading the way,
Zendesk, Inc. today released its annual Customer Experience(CX) Trends Report, the findings of which signal a rapid transition towards intelligent CX. In this era, the shift to AI-driven service will
Cryptocurrencies can be notoriously volatile. With prices fluctuating rapidly and without warning, a single tweet can shift a token price by 40%, only to see the price plummet in a matter of hours. Wh
Vigilance is urged during this 2023 Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as “AI generated scams enhance the threat to this year’s festive shoppers, as it’s revealed over 7 in 10 British
Prioritizing which vulnerabilities to fix is a challenge for software developers, and the complexities of modern apps and the software supply chain have only made things more difficult. SentinelOne, a
Zinwave, a global provider of distributed antenna systems (DAS) for in-building cellular coverage, has expanded its commercial presence in Australasia in response to growing demand for “anywhere access” to Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) using MIMO (Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output) technology. In addition, the company recently announced to double its headcount within 12 months further to its acquisition by McWane Inc, a privately held manufacturing company based in the US and owners of a global group of wireless technology companies.
Christian Derrick has joined Zinwave as Director of Sales and Services for Australia and New Zealand and is based in Melbourne. Christian has over 19 years’ experience in the wireless and IP industries. Before joining Zinwave he was Technical Director, Europe and Technical Sales Director, Asia Pacific for SpiderCloud Wireless. He has held senior positions at Qualcomm Europe, Flarion Technologies, Vodafone UK & Vodafone Group, Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks. He has also led wireless pilots and deployments in Australia, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia.
Derek Paton has re-joined Zinwave as Vice President Business Development based in the Asia Pacific region. Derek also assumes executive management responsibility for the company’s sales and support teams in Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions. He has been involved in the wireless telecoms industry for over 30 years and has specialist knowledge of in-building cellular coverage solutions across multiple vertical markets. Coming from a technical background, he has held senior positions with a number of leading wireless telecoms companies including Allen Telecom, Mikom, LGC Wireless and ADC. Derek has been responsible for over 300 large in-building projects in the last 15 years, ranging from San Francisco International Airport to City of Dreams Casino Resort in Macau. Most recently he established a successful services organization offering DAS solutions to mobile operators.
Zinwave’s in-building DAS is the only system capable of supporting multiple cellular and public safety services between 150MHz and 2700MHz on a single hardware layer, regardless of protocol or modulation scheme. Furthermore, it is the only company that can support multiple FDD and TDD LTE services simultaneously across any spectrum allocated globally. Zinwave’s DAS offers building owners, telecom operators and neutral host providers an “install-once” solution, eliminating the need for expensive and disruptive upgrades to existing infrastructures to accommodate new services as they become available. Its straightforward design (comprising just four components) and unique technology delivers the most flexible solution in the in-building market place, with lowest total cost of ownership. The company has already a number of installations in the region, including Westfield Centrepoint, Sydney, Esplanade –Theatres on the Bay, Singapore and Solaire Manila, a luxury tourist and gaming complex in the Philippines.
The independent mobile media and video company, Vuclip, ink a strategic partnership with Tips, the pioneers in the Indian music industry, to bring popular Bollywood and Indipop music to mobile consumers. Their partnership expands the diversity and breath of music now available to the fast growing mobile audience of Vuclip. Content offerings include Bollywood and Indipop albums, movie scenes and other movie related content, which can now be enjoyed on any device and any network without buffering. You can visit m.vuclip.com or the Vuclip Android App to check out your favorite Tips album.
Brocadeannounced the appointment of Gabriel Breeman to the newly created position of OEM director for Asia Pacific (APAC).
In this role, Breeman will drive OEM strategies, strategic partnerships and alliance initiatives for the region to help position Brocade as the data center networking partner of choice in the OEM partner business segment. Breeman will be based in Singapore and report directly to Brocade vice president for Asia Pacific (APAC), Adam Judd.
Breeman was most recently the senior director for Global OEM at Fusion-io, where he was responsible for leading worldwide revenue growth strategies through OEM partners. Prior to Fusion-io, Breeman spent six years at Brocade as a Global Sales Executive and Corporate Account Director. He has also held direct end-user, indirect channel and OEM leadership roles at Dot Hill Systems and Sun Microsystems during his 20-year career in the Information Technology sector.
Brocade’s worldwide OEM partners include EMC, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and NetApp.
Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity, the region's foremost Festival and Awards for the creative communications industry, has officially opened for delegate registration.
This year sees a new format for the Festival as it grows from a 3-day to a 4-day event and moves to take place in the week following the Formula 1 Grand Prix, from 23-26 Septemberin Singapore. Spikes Asia will encompass carefully curated seminars and forums, inspiring exhibitions of work, dedicated networking events and a celebratory Awards Ceremony which will bring the event to a close.
Two new entry categories are being introduced at Spikes Asia this year. The Innovation Category, which will award breakthrough technology and innovation, and a Healthcare Category which will honour the brave and innovative communications ideas that have overcome the unique challenges faced by healthcare brands, and succeeded - through creativity - in generating value and changing lives. Additions to the academy programme are also planned which will see increased learning opportunities across a broader spectrum of the industry.
Further details of all of the packages, along with how to register and be a part of the event, can be found on the Spikes Asia website.
Dentsu Indonesia announced the appointment of three senior industry leaders to its management team: Bobby Arthawan, Keat Soh and Kenji Nogami are gearing up for the next phase of growth in 2014 in their respective roles as President Director, Executive Creative Director, and Technical Advisor.
Early in April, Dentsu Indonesia appointed Bobby Arthawan, an industry leader with over 17 years experience, as President Director and Keat Soh, a highly awarded creative with 20 years of experience across Asia-Pacific as Executive Creative Director.
Most recently the Chief Executive at GOMOBILE, Bobby with his extensive knowledge of the Indonesian market helped launch the country’s first independent mobile advertising platform. Keat, on the other hand, spent the last seven years in Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia, and last was Executive Creative Director at iris Worldwide where he led creative strategy for clients such as Diageo, Levis, Sony Mobile, and XL Telco.
Starting April, Dentsu veteran Kenji Nogami also moved from Singapore to take up the position of Technical Advisor at Dentsu Indonesia. With experience working across Dentsu offices in Japan, India, and Singapore, Kenji has been responsible for handling a number of regional accounts during his 20 years at the company. He was also responsible for managing Dentsu’s internal regional training program, the Dentsu Network Innovation College.
“This is a key time for Indonesia as the country is transitioning from having potential and promise, to actually delivering. With the arrival of these three professionals, Dentsu Indonesia is ready to harvest during these exciting times. Bobby’s experience and leadership qualities, combined with Keat’s creative power and Kenji’s vision really put us in the perfect position to deliver for our clients in a country that will only become a greater force in this region” said Dick van Motman, Chairman & CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network/SEA, of which the Dentsu Media Group Indonesia is a subsidiary.
LEWIS PR, the global PR and digital communications agency, has made two senior appointments to its management team in Singapore:
Jocelyn Ng-Foo joins as Associate Director and Scott Pettet as Vice President APAC.
Jocelyn joins LEWIS from Edelman, where she was senior consultant. She brings 10 years of PR experience to the team and will manage several of LEWIS’s consumer and technology client campaigns.
Scott has been with the company for more than seven years, working out of the Sydney office. With 15 years of industry experience, he is tasked with elevating the company’s profile across the region and spearheading business development. He will move from Sydney to Singapore to drive the company’s regional sales and marketing programmes.
LEWIS has enjoyed strong growth across APAC in the last twelve months, with record revenues and a slew of new client wins including Airbnb, BBC Worldwide, Fitness First, Nikon, Porsche Asia Pacific and Spotify. Coupled with this business growth is also LEWIS' continued focus on its people. Strengthening the senior management team means other members of the team receive further training and development opportunities to help them grow into future leaders.
Cloud-based unified communications and social collaboration platform Unified Inbox officially sets up its international headquarters in Singapore, as a strategic move to grow the company globally and expand into the Asia region.
While still in the closed beta phase, Unified Inbox has already secured top tier telco companies, ISP and media partners for a global market roll out in 2015 as they see the huge potential of this Communication-as-a-Service platform as a simple, yet highly effective way of users taking control of their communications flow across email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or SMS.
Unified Inbox has several cloud solutions focused around unification and collaboration which work cross-platform. Their first offering is a Unified Inbox mobile app which allows users to manage all their incoming and outgoing messages centrally from within one interface. The start-up has embraced the idea of simply “Getting Things Done” and aim towards better productivity of the information worker. With functions like Swipe to Archive or Delete, Task-Delegation, Message Distribution or Deferring of messages by simple gestures, Unified Inbox gears up to become the future inbox management solution – no matter what the source of the message.
Unified Inbox is backed by internationally independent investors with deep insight into the verticals the company is set to operate in. To expand its Communication-as-a-Service platform globally and get ready for the international market launch, Unified Inbox is looking to raise further funds from investors in Singapore and the surrounding regions.
YOOSE, the global hyper-local mobile ad network, announced the appointment of Stuart Dobbin as Regional Head, North Asia.
Dobbin will be based out of Hong Kong as part of a strategic move to better leverage opportunities in the advanced mobile advertising markets, especially in the Greater China area. He previously held senior positions with BCS Global Networks and Cable & Wireless and joins YOOSE with a focus on brand development, developing partnerships and building revenues.
Having a presence in Hong Kong will allow YOOSE to tap into a market with one of the highest smartphone penetration (87%) worldwide. Hong Kong, while also having a population that is receptive to mobile advertising, also acts as a hub to Greater China where a good majority of smartphone owners click on mobile advertisements. Its close proximity to Macau, a regional entertainment hub, also presents plenty of opportunities for the mobile ad network.
Dobbin’s appointment comes a few weeks after the announcement of YOOSE’s partnership with digital sales house OTM in Russia, and their successful massive campaign during the Sochi Olympic Games that has achieved over 5 million ad impressions in a span of 18 days for the city of Sochi alone.
MicroAd Singapore Pte Ltd, a leading Online Ad Platform company in Asia-Pacific countries, has launched a new service where advertisers are able to use Smartphone Ads through "MicroAd BLADE" in APAC countries.
MicroAd provides MicroAd BLADE, a Japanese Demand-Side-Platform (DSP) with RTB for online advertising, which enables clients to optimize the algorithm of advertising by using PCs and Smartphones.
For the Smartphone Ads delivery, advertisers are able to use "Broad reach", "Re-targeting" and "Audience targeting (after accumulation of users data)". Meanwhile, functions specific to a certain area also apply for this service.
MicroAd Group has already launched its regional subsidiary companies in the APAC region, including China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, India and the Philippines.
MicroAd BLADE is offered in Japanese, English and Chinese languages and supports Japanese Yen, US Dollars and Chinese Yuan as currencies for Asia since October 2012. To date, MicroAd BLADE has more than 7,000 Advertisers in Japan and 500 Advertisers in APAC countries.
Havas Media Group has announced the appointment of distinguished media professional Anwesh Bose to the newly created role of Managing Director of Arena Indonesia.
Arena Indonesia is the second media brand of Havas Media Group and was launched late last year in the country as part of the Asia Pacific launch. The agency counts Indofood, one of the country’s largest FMCG advertisers, as a flagship client. Other brands handled by Arena include AIG, LG Electronics, Kakao Talk, Bakrie Telecom and Kalbe Farma (OTC).
In his new role, Anwesh will be responsible for developing Arena into an agile integrated agency, leveraging the strong specialist capabilities of the Indonesia operations. Reporting into Riadi Sugihtani, CEO of Havas Media Group, Indonesia, he will also provide strategic direction and oversee media delivery of the agency with strong focus on Indofood brands.
Anwesh joins the agency from DDB India, where he was the Senior Vice President and Business Head with a responsibility for media and digital business. Prior to this, he was the Chief Growth Officer for Dentsu Media in India. His 15 years in the industry has seen him working on leading brands such as Canon, Honda, Yamaha, Panasonic, FedEx, Midea, Amway, Twinings, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, Unicharm, Aircel (Maxis), HBO & Suzlon to name a few.
His list of achievements includes being voted as a Future Leader and NextGen Media Magnate by industry publications Impact and Exchange4Media in India.
Havas Media Ortega (HVMO) has appointed Jan Lorraine Cui as the agency’s newest business director to drive the agency’s relationship with key clients including Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Krispy Kreme and Jewelmer Joaillerie.
Jan has previously worked with Tequila Manila as an account director, where she led the rebranding campaign of China Bank Savings. She was also an account manager at JWT Manila where she managed the company’s design team, Sugar Rush.
Outside of work, she co-managed the iconic limited edition graphic t-shirts brand, Electromagnetic Tentacle (EMT).
Commenting on Jan’s appointment, Jos Ortega, Chairman and CEO of HVMO said: “As we strengthen our position in the integration space, we need leaders who have the breadth of experience across various specialist fields. Jan brings with her a deep understanding and appreciation of activation, design, advertising and digital, which will prove beneficial for our clients.”
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced the official launch of its local chapter in Vietnam on 25th March 2014, with an event at the Pullman Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, demonstrating their commitment to build and implement mobile marketing best practices in the country.
During the launch event, Tran Thi Lan Thanh, Chief Executive Officer of Goldsun Focus Media, a regional premier MMA member and first founding member of the Vietnam chapter, and Jacob Kvist, Chief Executive Officer, GroupM Vietnam, were named co-chairs of MMA Vietnam.
Responsible for shaping the dialogue around mobile in Vietnam in the coming years, the pair will be supported by three other founding members: Tran Thi Thanh Mai, General Director of TNS Media Vietnam; Phan Dang Tra My, Co-Managing Director of Admicro, and Nguyen Anh Tuan, Sales Director of Adtima (a member of VNG).
In addition to the launch of the Vietnam chapter, MMA also announced the 2014 return of its two flagship events, MMA Forum Vietnam and the SMARTIES™ Vietnam Awards. The MMA Forum (MMAF) Vietnam, is the biggest mobile marketing event in Vietnam and will take place in October 2014, welcoming major brands, mobile specific and traditional agencies, operators and technology enablers from across the mobile marketing landscape. The event will be followed by the eighth iteration of the SMARTIES™ Vietnam, which aims to recognize innovation, creativity and leadership in mobile marketing across a range of categories.
Grey Group Australia announces the departure of CEO, Luke Waldren. He joined Grey Group four years ago and helped rejuvenate Grey Group by attracting high-calibre talent - as well as new business. He has now decided to turn his talents towards the client side of the industry.
Now, with immediate effect, Michael Knox, Executive Creative Director, will become the Managing Partner of Grey Melbourne and will continue to drive it forward. Michael is highly regarded in the industry and his creativity, passion and leadership is well-known. Paul Worboys, COO of Grey Group Australia and head of Grey’s Sydney office, together with Michael, will be responsible for managing the Australian operation.
VoltDB announced a technology partnership with Flytxt, a leading Big Data analytics solution provider to Communication Service Providers (CSPs). Flytxt has successfully integrated VoltDB's in-memory operational database with its real-time analytics platform, already being used in customer deployments to extract actionable intelligence from billions of events streaming each day from more than 200 million mobile subscribers.
Flytxt's Big Data analytics solutions enable more than 50 CSPs across 32 countries to increase revenues, reduce churn, drive data adoption and growth, optimize margins and generate new revenue streams through advanced analytical capabilities. Flytxt's platforms and applications are built around its patent pending technologies that interpret, infer, discover and predict KPIs, insights, recommendations and actions from large volumes of subscriber data available with CSPs. Leveraging VoltDB's technology, Flytxt platforms can now generate behavioral, threshold and transactional triggers faster.
WAHA Offices, a Korean-based serviced office cum business incubator, announced its new office opening in Jakarta, Indonesia – their second in South East Asia. This comes after the opening of two other offices in Seoul, Korea and in Singapore. The company aims to serve as a business accelerator, offering programs with business matchmaking services and venture capital introduction along with expert consulting and administrative services with partner startups to grow at a quicker pace. Jakarta’s high mobile penetration rate – an average Indonesian has about two mobile phones – and with a young population of over 60 percent of Indonesia under the age of thirty-five, the new office is an excellent addition to a young country with so much room to explore and more opportunities for entrepreneurs. Under the leadership of CEO Joe Cho, WAHA has had a successful first year, which focused on establishing its presence in Korea and Singapore, with the clear objective of optimizing workflows in order to offer real value to its clients. For the next phase, WAHA has bold ambitions and plans to open up seven more offices by year’s end in locations including New York City, Bangkok, San Francisco, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City. As a business accelerator, WAHA believes that their programs have substantial benefits to fresh start-ups and stable small businesses that require an added boost to propel them to the next level. With an established network of businesses and links in Asia, the Korean-based business accelerator believes this gives them a competitive edge in the region.
Singapore-based Abacus International, Asia-Pacific's leading provider of travel solutions and services, announced the appointment of Jeremy van de Klundert as Managing Director of the subsidiary Sabre Pacific, which is owned by Sabre and a consortium of Asia's leading airlines (including All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Dragonair, Philippine Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir and Singapore Airlines) to take forward the distribution strategy for Australia and New Zealand. With over 26 years of experience in fusing international best practices and local expertise with global and local partnerships, Abacus provides travel information and reservations specifically tailored to the Asia-Pacific region.
Van de Klundert has served in similar roles, including five years with global distribution systems in Europe, three with a major travel agency and more recently five years with global assistance company International SOS in developing North Asia.
Sabre Pacific’s current distribution grid includes travel buyers at over 2,000 agency locations, supported from the company’s Sydney headquarters and local Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Auckland offices.
New Zealand national and MBA graduate, Van de Klundert, will report to Brett Henry, Vice President Commercial for Abacus, who has been covering the territory in an interim role over recent months.
The media and communications consultancy Millward Brown appointed Narayanan Radhakrishnan as Chief Client Officer, South-East Asia (SEA).
In his new role, Narayanan reports to Nichola Rastrick, Managing Director of SEA, and joins the SEA management team. He takes over from Priti Mehra who has served as SEA Chief Client Officer for the last four years and recently moved to become Managing Director of Singapore.
Narayanan brings more than 20 years of experience across media and digital and has spent over a decade as a client leader on a number of leading FMCG businesses. Most recently, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Mediacom in China where he developed client contact strategies and built strong relationships with senior regional and global clients. Previously, as Vice President in Ogilvy, he developed integrated advertising strategies, including general market advertising, digital platforms, public relations, experiential/event marketing and in-store communications.
Narayanan has an MBA from T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal India.
FileMaker, Inc. announced the promotion of Frank Lu to vice president of engineering, to lead the company’s engineering teams and set the direction for the company’s award-winning software development platform. He replaces Simon Thornhill, who retires at the end of next month.
Lu has served for the last eight years as senior director leading R&D for the FileMaker Platform, which includes FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go for iPad and iPhone, FileMaker Pro Advanced and FileMaker Server. In total, he has been with FileMaker for more than 14 years. He came to FileMaker from Siebel/Oracle, where he worked as technical manager and director of engineering for eight years on system structure to support high-performance and high-scalability CRM applications
Lu earned a master’s degree in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
Globe Telecom’s Entertainment Gateway Group announces strategic partnership with Mobext Philippines.
Mobext was launched in 2007 as the mobile advertising network of Havas Digital (now Havas Media), and was brought to the Philippines in early 2012. Currently, it has more than 24 offices in key cities around the globe, making it the largest mobile marketing agency network in the world.
In a move to strengthen its mobile advertising presence in the Philippines, Globe Telecom’s Entertainment Gateway Group (EGG), the telco’s wholly-owned subsidiary, partnered with Mobext, the first pure-play mobile marketing agency in the Philippines offering specialized end-to-end mobile solutions to the country’s leading brands.
With a 300% growth in smartphone sales and high social media and SMS penetration during the previous year, EGG is at the forefront of helping local brands engage in mobile as a marketing channel for businesses and consumers alike.
With this partnership, EGG and Mobext will collaborate on joint encounter with brands, new product development and research as well as thought leadership and marketing events aimed at increasing the share of digital and mobile ad spend amongst brands and media agencies in the Philippines.
EGG was able to engage over 50 of the country’s leading brands on mobile advertising campaigns. Earlier this year, EGG has pioneered the country’s first-ever mobile advertising service that allows small and medium scale enterprises and established brands to reach their customers based on their real-time location using SMS and USSD messages to drive immediate footfall.
Bite adds integrated marketing specialist to team and deepens relationship with Brother International.
Bite has been tasked with launching the Australian social communities for Brother International, following the success in developing a first-of-its-kind retail training app for the home and office product provider. This latest campaign will focus initially on building Brother’s presence across Facebook followed by the launch of an Instagram community – the company’s first globally, aimed at connecting with new lifestyle-focused audiences. Bite will be responsible for the overall content strategy, day-to-day management as well as supporting social advertising ensuring the social campaign is fully integrated into Brother’s overall marketing activity. To fully leverage this new activity, Bite will also develop an Influencer Engagement program, opening Brother to new audiences across social and digital platforms and providing new opportunities to integrate offline PR and launch events.
To support these growing digital and social campaigns, Bite has hired integrated marketing expert, Fiona Stewart, who will help support these campaigns, serving as Manager, Integrated Marketing. Fiona worked at Bite’s Glasgow office and brings with her a proven track in digital strategy and marketing. With experience in B2B, B2C and channel marketing as well as content and business development, Fiona will be lending her expertise to Bite clients including Brother, HTC, Plantronics, Senetas, and D-Link. Her appointment reflects Bite’s commitment to producing fully integrated campaigns – using strategy and content to build connections across PR, marketing, social and digital channels.
Grey Group hired Lynn Yap Yen Lin as General Manager of Grey DPI, the shopper marketing arm of the network in Asia Pacific. In her new role, Lynn will be reporting to Adeline Lee, Group CEO of Grey DPI. She will be responsible for driving excellence in the shopper marketing discipline while building up shopper capabilities and expanding Grey DPI across the Asia-Pacific region.
With 13 years of experience working across multiple industries, design disciplines, geographies, market segments and retail channels, Lynn brings with her an exceptional global perspective with local context as well as shopper insights and market trends knowledge.
She has worked with some of the most well-known retailers and brands in commercial architecture, luxury furniture, prestige watches and beauty & grooming industries. She has also held numerous key management positions in several organizations in different countries including Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal and Swatch Group.
Lynn graduated with honours with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interior Architecture & Design from Nottingham Trent University. Currently, she is pursuing her Master of Business Administration programme from the University of Birmingham. A multilingual, she is fluent in English, Mandarin, Malay, Japanese, Cantonese and a few other Chinese dialects.
Category: Apr–June 2023 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Marketing
Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 Copilot earlier this year, which will bring powerful new generative AI capabilities to apps millions of people use every day like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams and more.
Category: Apr–June 2023 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Marketing
Cisco unveiled the latest progress towards its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. Cisco's new XDR solution and the release of advanced features for Duo MFA will help organizations better protect the integrity of their entire IT ecosystem.
Category: Apr–June 2023 - Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Marketing
Microsoft has released its fourth edition of Cyber Signals, highlighting a surge in cybercriminal activity around business email compromise (BEC), the common tactics employed by BEC operators, and how enterprises can defend against these attacks.
MediaBUZZ is the first ‘pure’ digital publisher in the region, making an impact in Asia Pacific since 2004. Designed to empower marketers in the vibrant, ever-changing electronic marketing environment, its publication Asian eMarketing covers the digital age and zooms in on the most valuable and indispensable tools of today’s marketers. Circulated weekly to more than 60,000 top management and marketing decision-makers, the useful and informative articles support e-marketers in finding a sound marketing strategy, vital for their growing business success.