Jimmy_LimPHD has appointed Jimmy Lim as General Manager for Malaysia. In his new role, effective immediately, Jimmy will lead PHD Malaysia across all business functions, reporting to Andreas Vogiatzakis, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Malaysia.

Jimmy joins PHD with over two decades of experience in media, advertising and marketing across the markets of Malaysia and Singapore. Prior to PHD, Jimmy was the Head of Media at Dentsu Singapore, responsible for strategic planning, new business development and general management. Over the course of his career, Jimmy has worked in senior leadership roles in creative and media agencies and credited with strengthening the growth and profitability of the agencies worked for.

 


 

Ashutosh-Srivastava012The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) announced the addition of seven new industry leaders to its APAC Board of Directors. Elected by the MMA’s APAC membership, new board members will serve a two-year term beginning immediately.

AndrewAshutosh Srivastava, Chairman & CEO, APAC & Emerging Markets, Mindshare was elected Chairman, while Andrew Knott, Vice President – Digital, McDonald’s Corporation was named Vice-Chairman of the Board. Former Chairman Rahul Welde, Vice President - Media, Unilever, assumes the post of Chairman Emeritus.

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The new and re-elected board members include:

• Ambrish Jain, VP Marketing, Lenovo
• Anindya Datta, Chief Mobilewalla, Mobilewalla
• Damien Cummings, VP & Chief Marketing Officer, Philips ASEAN & Pacific
• Dan Neary, Vice President of Asia Pacific, Facebook
• Dick van Motman, Chairman & CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network South East Asia
• Graham Christie, Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder, Big Mobile Group
• Joe Nguyen, Senior Vice President, APAC, comScore, Inc

Remaining board members, whose terms were not up for re-election include:

• Alan Yan, Founder & CEO, AdChina
• Andrew Knott, Vice President - Digital, McDonald's Corporation
• Ashutosh Srivastava, Chairman & CEO, Global Emerging Markets Group, MindShare
• Atul Satija, Vice President & Managing Director, APAC, InMobi
• Bessie Lee, CEO, WPP China
• Cheuk Chiang, CEO Asia Pacific, Omnicom Media Group
• Don Kim Donghyun, Associate Director, Asia, Digital and Mobile Marketing Leader, Procter & Gamble
• Joshua Maa, Founder & CEO, Madhouse Inc.
• KF Lai, CEO & Co-founder, BuzzCity
• Leah Jimenez, Digital Media Group Head, SMART Communications, Inc
• Leonardo O'Grady, Director ASEAN Integrated Marketing & Communications, The Coca-Cola Company
• Maggie Ng, Director, Digital Media, Prudential Corporation Asia
• Michelle Froah, CMO, Apps Strategy Labs
• Rahul Welde, Vice President - Media, Unilever
• Robert Woolfrey, Managing Director - APAC, Millennial Media
• Vishnu Mohan, CEO, Havas Media Asia Pacific

 


 

Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) announced the appointment of Mark Whitehead as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the company’s operations in Asia.

In his position, which Whitehead will assume in August, he will report directly to Bob Bakish, VIMN’s President and CEO, and be based in Singapore.

VIMN’s brand portfolio in Asia includes MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Comedy Central and Whitehead will oversee all of VIMN’s brands and businesses across China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. He succeeds Indra Suharjono, who will be leaving the company at the end of June.

Before joining VIMN, Whitehead was Senior Vice President and General Manager of BBC Worldwide Southeast Asia since 2009, where he led the organization to several years of growth and expanded its footprint with multiple channel launches. Prior to that, he held key roles at Discovery Networks Asia (Senior Vice President – Revenue, from 2004 to 2009; Vice President, Advertising Sales from 2002 to 2004). And prior to that, Whitehead served in a series of advertising sales positions in Europe and Asia at CNN International from 1996 to 2002.

Whitehead holds an honor’s degree in architectural studies from Oxford Polytechnic.

 


 

MegaFon's Olympic pavilion won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions festival, a major event for professionals in the advertising and creative industries. This is the first time in 61 years that a nominee from Russia has won the main prize.

MegaFon OJSC is a leading Russian telecommunication service provider, operating in all segments of the telecommunications markets in Russia. The MegaFaces project, designed specifically for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, has been one of the year's marketing sensations. The interactive high-tech design is the first of its kind anywhere in the world and breaks new ground in modern architecture and digital technologies. The pavilion's façade contains 11,000 actuators with LED lights that extend to create three-dimensional portraits that are the size of a three-storey building: 8x6x2 metres. Over 140,000 fans' faces from all over the world were shown on the MegaFaces façade during the Olympic Games in Sochi.

The MegaFaces project was a remarkable success at the Olympics and was nominated in the Design, Cyber and Innovation categories in Cannes. In the latter category, the project was a deserving winner, gaining the jury's vote. The awards ceremony took place in the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. The sought-after award went to the project team: MegaFon; Asif Khan , creative director and the idea's creator; Axis, the project agency; and iart, the creators of the interactive façade and scanning technology.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has been held from 15 to 21 of June in Cannes, France. It is the most authoritative event in the advertising industry. 37,427 applications from 97 countries were submitted this year alone.

 


 

DDB EMEA was crowned Regional Network of the Year at the 2014 Cannes Lions Awards, which took place on Saturday, June 21.

In total, the EMEA network of DDB took home 43 Lions. The UK agency adam&eveDDB was also awarded the much coveted Agency of the Year title, with their four Grand Prix winners, seven gold, four silver and seven bronze.

adam&eveDDB also had the most awarded campaign: Harvey Nichols "Sorry, I Spent it on Myself," which was awarded 12 Lions on its own including the four grand prix. Other agencies contributing with lions include DDB Tribal Austria, DDB Spain, DDB Paris, DDB Tribal Dusseldorf and DDB Stockholm.

The lions were awarded across 12 categories: Branded Content, Cyber, Design, Direct, Film, Film Craft, Mobile, Outdoor, PR, Press, Promo and Integrated, for clients such as Bic, Caritas, Celem, Diageo, Google+, Hasbro, John Lewis , Lufthansa, McDonald's, Musee De La Grande Guerre, Popakademie Baden-Wurttemberg, and Volkswagen.

The DDB agencies in Dubai, Istanbul, Oslo, Amsterdam, Budapest, Hamburg, Brussels, Berlin and Rome all contributed to the shortlists.

The Regional Network of the Year Award is given to the regional agency networks, that obtain the highest score for entries in the Film, Film Craft, Press, Outdoor, Radio, Media, Cyber, Mobile, Direct, Promo, Design, Product Design, PR, Titanium and Integrated, Creative Effectiveness, Branded Content and Entertainment and Innovation Lions sections. The regions for consideration are: Asia Pacific, EMEA, Latin America and North America.

 


 

Josh_GallagherHavas Media Group announced the appointment of Josh Gallagher as Regional Strategy Director. In his new role, Josh will be responsible for driving offline and online strategy for the agency’s key clients including AXA, Emirates, LG Electronics and Shangri La Hotels.

He will also lead the adoption of agency’s proprietary planning process Meaningful Connections Planning with an eye to delivering innovative solutions to new and existing clients. An integral part of his mandate is to propel the uptake of Havas Media Group’s Meaningful Brands research, a unique framework that analyses and tracks the connections brands have with our quality of life and well-being.

Josh joins the agency with ten years of experience working with international media and digital agencies in Australia. He was most recently with Zenith Optimedia Melbourne, where he worked as a Communications Strategist, driving strategy for Honda, Lion Nathan and Reckitt Benckiser. Prior to this, he spent seven years with Universal McCann Brisbane, where he worked as Client Services and Strategic Director. He has also had a stint at digital agency Kruse Digital.

Based out of Singapore, Josh will report into SK Biswas, Chief Strategy Officer at Havas Media.

 


 

viocorpThe world's largest football event - 2014 FIFA World Cup - will be streamed live for the 1st time in Indonesia. Viocorp International announced a significant agreement that will enable over 71 million internet subscribers throughout the Republic of Indonesia to view live and on-demand video streaming of the World’s largest sporting event in 2014.

Viocorp has entered a contract to provide its online video platform, Viostream, to Indonesia’s PT Bit Teknologi Nusantara (BIT) and their partner PT Media Adalan Bersama (MAB), who will leverage Viocorp’s award winning technology ‘Viostream’ to provide live and on-demand video streaming for the world’s largest football event in 2014 and the Indonesian Super League on an ongoing basis. The contract also appoints BIT/MAB as the exclusive Viostream resellers in Indonesia.

Viostream is the leading online video platform in APAC and will be sold by MAB under their “d’awan” brand as “Maya Media Management” and “Maya Advertising Management”. MAB is offering a range of D’awan Maya subscription packages to broadcasters, enterprises and government organisations seeking live and on-demand video streaming software and services.

MAB has already secured their first customer, Domikado, who together with PT Bhakti Artha Persada (BAP) acquired the Indonesian mobile and broadband streaming rights for 2014 FIFA World Cup™ and the Indonesian Super League (Liga Super Indonesia) for the next 10-years. Domikado will use d’awan Maya Management Management powered by Viostream, to manage and deliver both live and on-demand video streaming to mobiles, tablets, and computers throughout Indonesia. ‘Road to Brazil’ pre-event programing has already begun and is available at www.domikado.com/fwc

In addition to Maya, the Viostream platform powers a number online video services in Asia including the leading catch-up TV service in Malaysia tonton.com.my for Media Prima, and SingTel Media Delivery Platform in Singapore.

 


 

criteoCriteo, a global technology company that specializes in digital performance advertising, launched a new data center in Hong Kong, which is the second data center for the company in the Asia Pacific region, following the first implementation in Tokyo, Japan in March 2011.

This latest data center is one of the six data centers that Criteo has globally that comprise more than 6,500 servers in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, making it one of the biggest global technology companies that harnesses big data analytics in the field of digital performance advertising.

Programmatic and real-time bidding (RTB) continues to grow rapidly in Asia Pacific and with the launch of the new data center in one of Criteo’s fastest growing regions, Criteo has better and faster access to advertising inventory from publishers, and can instantaneously provide brands in the region with the necessary premium publishing spaces to suit their unique campaign needs.

 


 

Dentsu Aegis Network announced several management moves to further enhance network capabilities in its ambition to be different and better. As of July 1st the network will move to a consolidated country management structure in five Southeast Asian markets whilst simultaneously appointing a regional President for Dentsu Media and a Chief Client Officer for Japanese clients in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. This completes the process of creating a unified Dentsu Aegis Network management structure across Asia Pacific initiated in January.

Dick1The country leadership will report directly into Southeast Asia chairman and CEO Dick van Motman. Each of the countries will be operated as single P&L’s, with strong individual brands working in a client centric fashion.

In Thailand, Amornsak Sakpuaram (CEO Dentsu Aegis Network Thailand) and Vichai Suphasomboon (Non-Executive Chairman) will lead the group.

Harris Thajeb (CEO) and Yusca Ismail (Non-Executive Chairman) will do the same in Indonesia.

Margaret Lim, who was in charge of the former Aegis brands in Malaysia, will see her role expanded to lead the entire network in her country. In the Philippines it is Aegis Chairman Miguel Ramos who will be the country CEO for Dentsu Aegis Network. Finally Toshinori Aoki was tapped to fill the position in Vietnam.

Dentsu Aegis Network is also announcing expanded roles for Aki Kakegawa and Mitsuyuki Nakamura. Kakegawa, who has been serving as the Chief Client Officer for Japanese clients in Southeast Asia will see his vital role expanded to include Australia and New Zealand.

Nakamura will take on the newly created role as President for Dentsu Media in Southeast Asia – whilst retaining his position as CEO at Dentsu Media Thailand. He will be focusing on building and strengthening the Dentsu Media brand in the region.

 


 

Paul_RobsonAdobe has appointed Paul Robson as President of the company’s Asia Pacific operations, replacing Craig Tegel, who is leaving the company July 1after a stellar career spanning seventeen years in Australia, Asia Pacific, Europe and Japan.

Robson will report to Matt Thompson, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations and will continue to be based in Adobe’s Sydney headquarters, but will travel frequently to oversee Adobe’s operations in Australasia, Southeast Asia, Korea, India and Greater China. He joined Adobe in November 2012 as Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand. Since May 2013 Robson has led Adobe’s enterprise sales function across Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia and Korea.

Before joining Adobe, Robson was the Vice President and General Manager for HP’s Networking Division across Asia Pacific and Japan.

 


 

Firas-SaeddadinYOOSE, the global hyperlocal mobile ad network, announce the appointment of Mr. Firas Saeddadin as Regional Head for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The hire is a further step in YOOSE’s strategic plan of full-scale expansion into the EMEA region.

Firas is a seasoned mobile media veteran with more than 15 years of international expertise in both telecommunications and enterprise communications. Prior to joining YOOSE, Firas was the Service Assurance Domain Lead for Alcatel-Lucent’s IP Platform Group. During his tenure with Alcatel-Lucent, Firas drove the creation and growth of their interactive and mobile media offerings including sales and operations oversight over a mobile media subsidiary. Firas will leverage his considerable industry experience and strategic focus to expand YOOSE’s EMEA footprint, and enhance its market presence through partnerships with brands, agencies, media companies and hiring talents in the region. This presence in EMEA will enable YOOSE to tap into a market where smartphone penetration is massively growing.

The appointment is announced after recent new campaign wins in EMEA via its partnerships with ICONICTION (UAE, Dubai) and About Media (Austria). This expansion marks a greater reach for marketers to run hyperlocal mobile display ad campaigns around the region. As the head of region, Firas will be based in Vienna, Austria, to work with YOOSE, providing innovation and resources to the global hyperlocal mobile ad network within Europe, Middle East and Africa.

 


 

Acronis_logoAcronis, a global leader in new generation data protection, has selected Bite as its communications agency. The decision follows the announcement that the company is moving its international headquarters to Singapore.

With many organizations recognising their data as an important and untapped profit centre, there is a growing sense of urgency around protecting that data. Recognising this need, Acronis established its international headquarters in Singapore in order to capitalise on rising demand for the company’s advanced data management and security solutions across the Asia Pacific region.

Adding momentum to an already robust technology business, the win further underscores the agency’s expertise in enterprise technology. Bite also serves a range of clients in the consumer, professional services and finance sectors and gained industry recognition with recent client successes, winning for instance a Bronze Award at the Singapore PR Awards for Best Digital Communications Strategy. The list of accolades acknowledges the agency’s deep expertise in the technology and corporate sectors, and its strong talent for integrated PR, social, search and digital marketing.

 


 

computex_2014

At the recent COMPUTEX Show in Taiwan, the new HTC One (M8) won the prestigious "d&i awards”. The HTC One (M8) is a well-designed smartphone with a luxurious brushed metal unibody. It comes with a 5-inch full HD screen, new imaging technology with Duo Camera that revolutionizes the imagining experience, and is equipped with the industry’s leading dual front-facing speakers, enhanced with BoomSound technology for an incredible, unparalleled audio experience. The HTC One (M8) also features the popular HTC’s latest Sense 6, the latest HTC UI that is extremely functional, intuitive and user-friendly.

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HTC was also awarded the “COMPUTEX Gold Awards 2014” for the HTC Dot View case for the HTC One (M8). The Dot View case is designed for the user to interact with the phone without having to flip the cover open. The back of the case features a curved back seamless with the design of the HTC One (M8). The silicone flip cover is embedded with a magnet that wakes the phone on opening, and the grid of tiny precisely molded holes brings aesthetic value and creates a retro visual effect that allows the user to check the time, notifications and weather right on the Dot View cover. The SDK for the Dot View experience has been released for developers to take this technology further, opening the possibility for innovative enhancements for an even richer experience.