Move and win roundup: Week of April 19, 2021

McCann Worldgroup appointed Leo Chu as managing director of MRM China. He will report to Emily Chang, CEO of McCann Worldgroup China, and to Kate MacNevin, global chairwoman and CEO of MRM. Chu was previously VP of content and branding at Magic Panda, a leading cross-border Tmall partner. Prior to that, he was MD at Stadium Goods, VP of global marketing partnerships at NBA China, and MD of Tribal DDB, and has also worked at AKQA and Wieden+Kennedy. 

Geometry Ogilvy Japan appointed Yiwen Li as experience design director. She previously served as  associate creative director for experience at Publicis Sapient, in charge of Southeast Asia and the Japan market. In this role, she led experience design for large-scale transformation programs across Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia.

In Australia, Coors appointed This Is Flow to drive media planning and buying starting with the NBA season in May and running through the year, with a focus around sporting occasions. This is Flow will also be working on the media planning and buying for beer brands Miller Chill and Miller Genuine Draft, with activity kicking off in the second half of 2021.

Tourism Tasmania has picked Starcom Australia to manage its media account, encompassing strategy, planning, buying and digital media. Starcom has been tasked with connecting people with the island state both culturally and emotionally, focusing both on domestic travellers and planning for the returning international traveller.

Spotify has appointed Innity as its local advertising sales partner in Hong Kong. Through this partnership, Innity’s advertisers will have access to Spotify's free listeners and audience data. Spotify has 345 million users around the world, of which 190 million are free users that listen to ads. The audio streaming platform offers a range of ad experiences including audio ads, leaderboards, overlays, video takeovers, and sponsored playlists across multiple channels such as mobile, desktop, connected speakers, gaming consoles, and more.

Pan Pacific Hotels Group appointed Digitas for its CRM duties, following a pitch. The agency will conduct programme orchestration that includes customer journey mapping, email marketing strategy and creative. It will also assume CRM operations such as data monitoring, marketing operations, and technical and maintenance support. Headquartered in Singapore, Pan Pacific operates over 50 Pan Pacific, Parkroyal Collection and Parkroyal hotels, resorts and serviced suites, including facilities under development in 30 cities in Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America.

Ogilvy China appointed Chris Chen as consulting partner for Ogilvy Consulting. He was most recently senior retail expert for Alibaba, where he was responsible for digital transformation consulting initiatives and technical implementation of industry solutions globally. Prior to that, he delivered strategic consulting for a number of large corporations at Accenture. Based in Shanghai, the company said he will bring together Ogilvy’s digital technology and data capabilities to design and implement brand transformation strategies for clients, reporting to Sandy Ng, president of Ogilvy Consulting China.

Mediacorp named editor-in-chief Walter Fernandez as its chief sustainability officer in a concurrent appointment with effect from May 1. He has been part of the senior management team since 2013 and has been with the company for 20 years. As chief sustainability officer, he will drive Mediacorp’s sustainability initiatives and action plans across its business and among its staff. The company said it already proactively adopts sustainable practices across its premises and has increased its focus on sustainability, aligned with the Singapore Green Plan 2030.

BlueScope appointed design and innovation studio North to create and launch the first digital experience for its Steel Profile magazine. The new digital platform will evolve the once static editorial content and present it in a more engaging way for industry professionals including architects, builders and engineers. North will manage the strategy, UX, UI design, digital brand creation, SEO and build of the platform, which is expected to launch in mid 2020.

72andSunny Singapore has announced it won a cross-agency regional creative pitch for Diageo brand Johnnie Walker last month across Southeast Asian markets.  This is a new mandate for the agency after previously working with Diageo via other agency offices in the US and Europe. The announcement comes as the agency launches its first new creative for Johnnie Walker, a series of out-of-home and digital brand ads that have rolled out across Singapore featuring the whiskey brand's classic bottle and iconography. 

Nielsen has launched an enhancement to Nielsen Ad Intel Digital that provides marketers with advertiser-level social, in-app media spend and creative data. The added breadth of measurement to include these media provides new visibility into some of the largest ad investments on digital. In addition, video collections are expanded to cover pre, mid and post-roll content for mobile and desktop devices. This new addition of social and in-app digital data will provide increased
coverage by measuring additional sites and advertising types, with more accurate
representation of digital ad buys. 

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has launched a free digital audio streaming app, Awedio. To reach out to a wider digital audience, the platform provides all-day local entertainment with uninterrupted live streaming of SPH Radio stations, SPH news publications’ audio offerings, and local podcasts. Apart from tuning in to SPH Radio stations (MONEY FM 89.3, ONE FM 91.3, Kiss92 FM, 96.3好FM, and UFM100.3) , users who missed their favourite radio shows and segments can also catch up via the stations’ podcasts on demand. In addition, Awedio offers local podcasts, with topics ranging from health, entertainment, true crime, supernatural phenomena, and bedtime stories for children through ‘The Land before Bedtime’ podcast narrated by radio personalities Tim Oh, Carol Smith, Desiree Lai, Angelique Teo and Charmaine Phua. Listeners can also stay up-to-date with current affairs, lifestyle, local and international news, business and personal finance by listening to podcasts from The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao and The Business Times. This includes The Business Times’ Mark To Market and Berita Harian’s #NoTapis podcasts.

MFine, an AI-driven on-demand healthcare service, has appointed Mullen Lintas as its creative agency. The account was awarded following a multi-agency pitch. The agency's mandate will be predominantly to strengthen the brand's position in the market and will be tasked to grow loyalty for the brand and build a personal connection with consumers.

Xaxis, GroupM’s programmatic company, has tied up with with Really Singapore, a PropTech platform. This partnership gives GroupM’s agencies (Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence, and m/SIX) access to Really’s Premium Audience Advertising Network through Xaxis. With this collaboration, Xaxis will significantly extend its programmatic DOOH (Digital-Out-of-Home) network in Singapore, particularly among the prized audience segment of affluent consumers.

Skincare brand Aesop selected Gusto Luxe as its retained strategic communications partner in mainland China, following a pitch. The agency will support the brand in driving awareness and commerce through a dynamic, digital-led communications strategy.

Integrated PR agency Ripple8, the public relations arm of DDB Group Philippines, promoted Michelle 'Mich' Ople to managing partner. She joined the agency about four years ago, after several years as a television and radio journalist, as media relations and activations director. She also plays a role on Ripple8’s crisis management team. Recently she helped expand media coverage internationally for the Department of Tourism (DOT), helping build strategies to keep the country’s tourism sector relevant to targeted emerging markets.

Hospitality and destination design firm WATG appointed hospitality and lifestyle specialist PR agency GHC Asia as its communications representative for Asia Pacific. GHC Asia’s brief will be to raise the firm’s profile in the region. The firm specialices in hospitality, entertainment and gaming, urban and mixed-use, and high-end residential design. It has five studios: strategy, master planning, architecture, landscape architecture and Wimberly Interiors. In Asia it has worked on projects including the St. Regis Singapore, The Garden Wing of The Shangri-La Singapore, and the debut of the new InterContinental brand in Halong Bay in Vietnam.

Effie Asia Pacific announced Sindhuja Rai, global media investment and Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) CX lead at Mondelez International, and Takashi Takeda, country manager and representative director at DoubleVerify Japan, as heads of jury for the APAC Effie Awards 2021. The full jury lineup can be found here.