Asia-Pacific Power List 2022: Ronald Wong, DFI Retail Group

Ronald Wong

Vice president, brand, social and digital marketing
Yuu, DFI Retail Group
Hong Kong 
New member 

Launched in the summer of 2020, Yuu, a Hong Kong local loyalty programme, acquired two million members in just four weeks and four million members, or over 50% of the city’s population, in less than two years. 

Yuu partnered with father-and-son duo George and Alex Lam for the campaign launch to co-create a music video featuring a Cantonese adaption of Billy Joel’s classic ‘Uptown Girl.’ A series of light-hearted brand content campaigns also won numerous awards, including Campaign Asia-Pacific’s Event Marketing Awards 2021, with two Golds in Best Integrated Marketing and a Silver each in Best Launch and Best Content Marketing. Meanwhile, the brand’s mobile app jumped to number one in Hong Kong on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. As a new brand for DFI Retail Group’s integrated CRM, customer loyalty and digital engagement platform, Yuu became number two in YouGov’s Hong Kong Brand Buzz ranking for 2021. 

Wong is the leader behind this stellar success. He joined the company in 2019 as Yuu’s marketing director with many years of experience from AIA, Shell, and ICLP and was promoted to vice president of brand, social and digital marketing in 2022. 

Following his promotion, he launched a new online shopping platform called ‘Yuu to me’ in May. A new series of launch campaigns featuring celebrity couple Moses Chan and his wife Aimee Chan as well as social campaigns with miniature action figures helped the brand achieve a significant uptake in customers on the platform. 

In the past two years, brands have been grappling with digital transformation during the pandemic. With the launch of Yuu, DFI Retail Group (formerly known as Dairy Farm) seamlessly integrated a massive store network of over 2,500 stores together with digital media touchpoints and traditional media such as OOH advertising. Based on the loyalty programme, ‘Yuu to me’ made a smooth transition and turned the Yuu app into an O2O system connecting a network of local supermarkets and convenience stores, including Wellcome, Market Place, and 7-Eleven. 

Under the leadership of Wong, Yuu is not just the city’s favourite customer loyalty programme and O2O platform, but it’s also giving back to society by turning customers’ earned points into a good cause. Wong helped launch the point donation project together with Foodlink Foundation to reduce food waste in Hong Kong and partnered with Helping Hands to support senior citizens in need. Through ‘Yuu Give Back,’ a charity programme, the company has contributed over 640 million points worth of charitable donations, with which charity partners can redeem food and supplies for free.