Archives




2022 | |

Caging The Year of the Tiger in Blockchain Forever

Advertiser: Heineken Malaysia
Brand: Tiger Beer
Creative Agency: Naga DDB Tribal, Chariot
Credits: Hemanth Jayaraman - dentsu X Malaysia, Partner, Head of dentsu X Sean Loh - dentsu X Malaysia, Business Director Joanne Wong - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Director Cassandra Chan - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Manager Ismerelda Ismetnayan - dentsu X Malaysia, Media Planner Jaclyn Hwang - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Biddable Melody Khoo - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Manager, Strategy Lead Cheng Yin Yee - dentsu Malaysia, Planning Director Sylvia Hew - dentsu Malaysia, Manager, Implementation Rachel Lim - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Trading Operation

Objective & Challenge
Challenge: CNY festive is increasingly becoming more cluttered as many brands are now beginning to leverage on the festive season. Every brand is now trying to draw inspiration from the Chinese zodiac signs to make the experience more memorable and distinctive. In 2021, the challenge for Tiger Beer is, how will the brand be distinctive and memorable by leading and owning the CNY festivity. Objective: To drive top of mind awareness and improve brand recall among target audience during the festive season and to stand out from the communication clutter amongst competitors and other brands to drive sales for Tiger Beer and Tiger Crystal

Insight & Strategy
Insights: Malaysians are eager to celebrate CNY after 2 years of compromised festivities. They are optimistic but at the same time are worried about Covid. What they need is that extra encouragement and push to get started and a show of comfort and courage. Tiger is the only brand that has the sole right to bring this to life and own CNY 2022 for 2 reasons: 2022 is the Year Of The Tiger and Tiger is the one brand that can demonstrate optimism to consumers because it is the only beer brand in the world that was brewed in a climate that is not suitable for beer brewing – Asia, showing courage and determination. Strategy: Personify Tiger Beer brand values and show people that we can channel the courage of the Year Of The Tiger to once again feel prosperous and give a voice to all Malaysians to embody and share the Tiger spirit and roar together. Using the iconic Tiger symbol and own the Year of The Tiger by uncaging the festive possibilities and new media world by doing media activation that is first in category and first in market and showcase to consumers that with the spirit of the tiger, anything is possible.

Execution
Tiger Beer ventured into the world of NFTs (Nonfungible Tokens) with an exclusive collaboration with Pestle & Mortar Clothing (PMC). The NFT collection, known as The Tiger Archives, feature vintage Tiger artwork ingrained into the blockchain, and each artwork is uniquely drawn fully by hand. These NFTs will unlock a series of perks throughout the Year of the Tiger, from exclusive merchandise down to curated experiences by PMC. The Tiger Archives NFT collection will be released for sale on 25th January 2022. 30% of the proceeds will go towards supporting local musicians, artists and street food chefs via Tiger’s UNCAGE platform throughout the Year of The Tiger. The first ever 6688 Tiger Beer NFT collection with PMC sold out in 10 mins. Besides, Tiger Beer’s efforts to champion the local art scene continues to grow. To spread the CNY cheer to other regions in Malaysia, Tiger engaged with various local artists to create exclusive ‘Roar Together’ murals at eight different locations nationwide including Petaling Street’s famed Kwai Chai Hong. Visitors can view Kwai Chai Hong’s ‘Live Wild & Prosper’ installations by Alice Chang and Odd, giving fans even more Instaworthy moments to welcome the Year of the Tiger. Breakthrough of media, the first Tiger 3D ads on Pavillion screen. Use KOL to capture the gigantic 3D roaring Tiger and on ground activation along the connection to experience the festive vibe. In the same venue, audiences had the opportunity to feast their eyes on the specially commissioned Tiger “Roar Together” art installations at the main entrance by three up and coming artists of diverse backgrounds – Thomas Powell, Sheena Liam and Pamela Tan. Along with the eye catching digital lanterns at the fountain area, guests were also able to experience traditional Asian street decor with a contemporary twist and score exclusive Tiger merchandise via activities at the Connection area. Tiger gathered Thomas Powell, Pamela Tan and Sheena Liam for the artist collaboration in Pavillion, a high traffic place that gathered everyone especially during festive. Tiger turned all the product (Limited edition Can), packaging, merchandize (Ang pao packet), Newspaper to AR roaring greetings. QR code became very common to the citizen since Covid hit. The QR code allowed audience to interact, win special prizes and send greetings to their friends and family. Tiger Beer lined up an abundance of activities and promotions to evoke the Tiger spirit among fans.

Effectiveness
6688 NFTs sold out in 10 mins, the highest traded NFTs euro4,960, total reach of 9 mill with 1.2 mill engagement, recruited 22k member in a month. Kantar captured the highest awareness 85% responses on Tiger 3D ads branding as compared to other advertiser. Aligned with the statement, makes me think Tiger Beer is progressive and dynamic brand. 100k unique visitors to the website, 58k AR roaring greetings session.

2022 | |

Uncaging Malaysia’s First Metaverse

Advertiser: Heineken Malaysia
Brand: Tiger Beer
Creative Agency: Naga DDB Tribal, Chariot
Credits: Hemanth Jayaraman - dentsu X Malaysia, Partner, Head of dentsu X Sean Loh - dentsu X Malaysia, Business Director Joanne Wong - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Director Cassandra Chan - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Manager Jordan Quek - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Manager Natalie Teng - dentsu X Malaysia, Senior Planner Jaclyn Hwang - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Biddable Sylvia Hew - dentsu Malaysia, Manager, Implementation Rachel Lim - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Trading Operation

Objective & Challenge
Challenges: Food, which is a highly saturated passion point in Malaysia, is increasingly becoming the main focus of every brand from all categories. It is a passion point that is difficult to own. Despite this, Tiger successfully established its position as the only brand that has the right to advocate and champion Asian street food given its Asian heritage and roots when it launched Tiger Street Food Festival in 2016 and created a strong association between the brand and street food in Malaysia. In 2020, this took a different form due to the pandemic and was mainly activated through digital and the success of the 1st ever interactive Virtual Street Food Festival has now set a new benchmark and a new challenge – how do we reimagine the festive by bringing in ore unique and exciting experience and how do we make it bigger and bolder compared to the previous year using the existing platform. And most importantly, how to we continue to strengthen the association between Tiger Beer and Street Food moving forward. Objective: Continue to strengthen and establish brand equity by creating stronger bond with our target audience through passion for food and leverage on street culture and drive penetration for the brand by recruiting new consumers from the alcohol category with the communication and creatives centered around street cultures and Malaysia street food.

Insight & Strategy
Insight: The pandemic in 2020 forced the country to shut down. Lives came to a halt. Malaysians were lost. Bonds were strained. Brands struggled to connect with consumers and there was no sight of the end. This was when Tiger, Asia’s beast, rose to the challenge and was determined to not take this quietly. Tiger is the only brand that has the right to uncage possibilities in Malaysia given its Asian roots and rose from the flames of the pandemic and gave Malaysian’s hope. The main objective the brand set its sight on, to connect Malaysians at every possible moment. The one single unifying factor that brings Malaysian’s together – FOOD! An insight was formed – inspiring Malaysians to discover the special in the ordinary and Tiger Virtual Street Food was launched to uncage street food delicacies by connecting consumers to trade partners virtually driving sales for outlets while keeping consumers engaged and entertained. In 2021, Tiger took this to the next level and looked at what connects the target audience beyond just street food. The answer was, “street culture”. The insight – bringing the best of Asia together through food and fashion by tapping into latest trend in street culture. Strategy: A pairing experience to seize Hype Culture + Food = Hype Eats. Tiger took lead, as the only Asian beer brand in the category, to engage and indulge consumers by connecting their No.1 passion point which is street food and streetwear by delivering a 100% Malaysian street culture 360 experience by unleashing the creativity of Asian cuisine and staying true to the brand role of inspiring people to discover the special in the everyday ordinary.

Execution
The new season of Street Food Virtual Festival is all about the X as Tiger brings fans an epic collision between street food and an integral part of street culture streetwear. The local streetwear scene has always been a way for people to express themselves and is influenced by the many ways of life here, just like the street food flavours. The mash up aims to bring the two cultures together to create an extraordinary experience for fans, while breaking the boundaries of street food. This is why Tiger has partnered with renowned local streetwear brands to curate two limited edition streetwear apparels each from EK Collective, TNT Co, The Swagger Salon, Eversince, Pestle & Mortar, and Dissyco. One of the two streetwear merchandise will be included in the Hypefeast Drop, which comes with the street food dish that inspired the exclusive apparel, as well as a Tiger Beer and a Tiger Crystal. Limited quantity is available on a first come first served basis for fans residing in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang, Johor Bahru and Ipoh, the Hype Store within the virtual world will showcase one brand each week for fans to make their purchases. The other limitededition merchandise will be available for anyone at the virtual festival to purchase at the Hype Store. Introduced the Hypefeast Drop with a total of 6 fashion brand Swagger, Eversince, EK collection, PMC, DissyCo, TntCO and Photoshoot. Each of the brands came out with special / limited collection design surounded by the theme Street Food. We used KOL to shout out on the special collab with the local brand: the Hypefeast Drop. Worked with the food and fashion branded content specialist, KL foodie, Juice, Buro and etc curate series of Hype contents.

Effectiveness
Our campaign managed to reach total of 5.5mil which is equals to 83% of our target audience (Aged 21, Non Malay) Total of 158,955 unique users landed on our website which is 56% higher than last year’s TSFVF. We have 6,608 confirmed orders which is 278% higher than last year’s TSFSF. Tiger Street Food Virtual Festival 2021 sales increased by 53.3% compared to last year’s TSFVF. The campaign came through loud and clear, capturing the imaginations of drinkers and nondrinkers alike.

2022 | |

Led by Diversity, Fueled by Inclusion and Driven by Social Impact

Advertiser: -
Brand: -
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Dheeraj Raina - dentsu Malaysia, CEO, Media Brands, dentsu Malaysia Winnie Chen-Head - dentsu Malaysia, Partner, Head of Product & Growth; Head of iProspect Vanitha Selvathurai - dentsu Malaysia, Partner, Head of carat Hemanth Jayaraman - dentsu Malaysia, Partner, Head of dentsu X Asha Nair - dentsu Malaysia, MD, Investment & Platform Activation Suhail Ahmed - dentsu Malaysia, Partner, Head of Programmatic, Data & Martech Paul Low - dentsu Malaysia, GM, Posterscope OOH MeiLian Gan - dentsu Malaysia, HR Director, dentsu Malaysia Ikhwan Tharwan - dentsu Malaysia, HR Partner, dentsu Malaysia

The Context
We believe that our strength lies in difference. Through our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we pledge to seek out diverse perspectives, celebrate difference, and build an inclusive culture where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic self to work. ​We don’t just value differences, or different perspectives, we seek them out and we invite them in so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Dentsu as a result, our ideas are better, our products are better, and our clients are better served. DEI is one of the key pillars of our Social Impact Strategy, as part of our commitment to create a fair and open society. We are on a journey to building a truly diverse and inclusive workplace of which we can all be proud! And the need for more open and honest conversations has never been more important than right now. We implement 4 strategic pillars of initiatives, each with key success KPIs mapped locally. 1. Transparency & Accountability: Female leaders representation to drive transparent reporting & leadership accountability 2. Representation & Sponsorship: Develop talent planning, initiatives & workforce representative of the society we serve 3. Education & Continuous Learning: Employee experience & engagement through Employee Resource Groups with improved scores on Employee Check In surveys 4. Client & Community Impact: Collaboration with clients, partners & industry communities on our DEI leadership & commitments

The Strategy & Execution
We believe our continued success depends on the diverse experiences and ideas all of you bring to the table. We are deeply invested to create an equal and inclusive workplace across across ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender, age, neurodiversity and differing physical abilities. Some of our key initiatives and achievements in 2021 includes: 1. Majority and/or equal representation of women not just in our workforce, but also within the Leadership team 2. DEI training, sharing and coaching programs, most prominently on hosting a fireside chat with women leaders of the industry this International Women’s Day 2022 in March with the theme of #BreakTheBias, we hosted a fireside chat with inspirational female leaders of the industry such as Jean Ler (Marketing Director, Pizza Hut APAC), Fiona Liao (Group CMO, Pos Malaysia) and Rozina Aziz (CoFounder & CEO, Metamorfosa 3. We develop a full suite of staff development, incentive and training programs such as Me2We to coach people leadership skills, NextGen Leaders on Digital Strategy with >60% female representation, and launched Future Leaders Program of rising star leaders under 30 years old across different agency teams who champion culture and people initiatives among our workforce. 4. Female leadership representation on industry panels, discussions and thought leadership across a variety of subject matter and topics

The Results
In the past year alone, we have made great strides and recognised great accomplishments in our DEI initiatives. 1. Over 66% of our workforce are represented by women 2. Half of our EXCO Leadership consist of female leaders in Asha Nair (MD, Investment & Platform Activation), Vanitha Selvathurai (Partner, Head of carat), Winnie ChenHead (Partner, Head of Product & Growth & iProspect) and Foo Jing Wen (ECommerce Director) 3. Over 200+ participants with active engagement in our International Women’s Day 2022 Fireside chat with women leaders 4. Over 50% of our Future Leaders Program, Passion Pioneers, are represented by young female rising star talents 5. Our Head of Product, Winnie ChenHead also contributed to the IAB SEA + India Gaming & Esports Livestream panel in March 22, representing Media Agencies’s point of view as one half of the female representation on the panel. 6. Our Head of carat, Vanitha Selvathurai, serves as a Secretary council member on the Media Specialist Association of Malaysia. 7. Our MD of Investment & Platform, Asha Nair, contributed in a panel discussion in Programmatic Pioneers Virtual Summit Asia in Nov 2021. 8. As an EXCO leadership, Happiness index ( which is a measured by the positive change we bring) is one of the key Goals we carry in our Annual ratings 9. Dentsu Media Malaysia’s annual Employee CheckIn score in 2021 has shown a year on year improvement on “force for Good” DEI Score which is 1 point higher than Dentsu International

2022 | |

Not A Planner. A growth enthusiast

Advertiser: -
Brand: -
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Joanne Wong Zu Er - Associate Director, dentsu X Malaysia

Background
Growing up in a close knitted town in East Malaysia, Joanne knew very early in her life that she was meant to spread her wings and explore the opportunities beyond it. She came to KL at the age of 17 and went on to complete her degree in the UK and she did this all independently and on her own. She is a determined individual who not only pressures herself to deliver the best but also from the team that she works with as well. This is the exact resilience that has built and made her who she is today – an exceptional media professional. However, media was never her choice as a career. She wanted to be a reporter and specifically, a sports reporter because she loved telling stories and only wanted to tell joyful stories. But she decided to join the media world because she was offered to work on a brand she truly loved and admired which was Malaysia Airlines. This is where she had an incredibly steep and fruitful learning curve about media as she was managing the international market for the brand and very quickly, at the age of 22, became the preferred PIC for the client for all international media planning. Joanne then realized that she was beginning to see gaps in her knowledge set which was the intricacies of media planning foundation and this was when she decided to take up the challenge to work on a category and industry that is unknown to her which was Samsung, an account that until today, she holds fondly close to her for teaching, coaching, and equipping her with the media planning knowledge and skills. And thereafter, continued to add more accounts to her portfolio, namely Digi and Nestle. Today, Joanne leads one of the largest client portfolio and independently drives business growth for the agency as well as for the client.

What’s Special about You & Key Achievements
A leader for a team of 5, she’s proud to achieve it at the age of 33 while partnering with the largest Media client portfolio, Heineken Malaysia; a massive difference to her initial career aspiration. During her time managing Heineken Malaysia, she ensure over index YOY on PRIP, growth the market share +4 YOY and TRR score +17%. Reliable and trustworthy, she easily and importantly became the go to person among the clients. During her time with the agency, she has improved the business by developing and introducing a structured “Ways of Working” to the client and agency’s partners. She is also the main brain and muscle who is leading the global strategic framework called “iDDM”. Joanne consistently showcase her dedication and leadership skills which eventually puts Malaysia to be one of the fastest country in South East Asia (SEA) to adapt to the framework, despite the initial struggle by the brand team and agency’s partners to understand it. She is a passionate talent who constantly pushes the boundaries and challenging the norm for her businesses. These characteristics of hers enabled her in helping Tiger Beer to secure a spot in Pavillion’s DOOH (Digital Out of Home) platform, ensuring Tiger Beer to be the first ever alcohol brand to ever advertise on the 3D screen in Malaysia. She has also retained all her team members since she took over the leadership role 3 years ago, achieving zero turnover of team. Joanne managed to achieve: 2 bronze in Festival of Media APAC Awards 1) Best Use of Digital media and Web 2) Best Event and Experiential Campaign.

Leadership Skills
Joanne is the complete package when it comes to leadership. She is the living proof that a leader can lead by having compassion and at the same time, being stern on expectations. She can command attention in a room full of leaders within the agency as well as with the client. She leads by example which allows her to continue to set new benchmarks of expectations and this allows her to push boundaries of possibilities every time. She positions herself not as a media professional, but as a business consultant and her single minded objective, is to solve client’s business problem and to help them grow their business performance through media. In addition to her business acumen, she is highly empathetic towards her team and her clients which makes her trustworthy and an extremely reliable go to person for anything and everything. She is a strong believer in being transparent, inclusive, and open; and she cultivates the same value within her team and the agency. She encourages everyone to speak their mind, to always extend positive and constructive criticism, and to continuously grow and improve. Her leadership values enable her to skillfully balance the art of managing people while optimising business effectiveness and efficiency.

2022 | |

Data-driven Strategist with a touch of Heart and Passion

Advertiser: -
Brand: -
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Melody Khoo - Senior Manager, Strategy Lead, dentsu X Malaysia

Background
Melody is known coming from a diverse client centric background prior to her current career being her first agency gig. Her background comprises a career in marketing and advertising such as EY: running the entire Entrepreneur Of The Year operations, Taylor’s University: in which profound marketing initiatives were done championing both local and international marketing covering undergrad and postgrad studies, PIC for the biggest flagship school (Taylor’s Business School) and Universal Music: involved in digital and marketing for international, local and regional artists and tracks and successfully launched the first ecommerce business for SEA region comprising 5 different websites for various international artists. Melody has gathered sharp expertise in analysis business needs and segregating long term brand goals versus short term business objectives. Coming in as a Strategy Lead armed with vast client marketing brand knowledge and background, she was tasked with injecting new life into strategy, implementing strategy frameworks, lead adoption of new ways of working with the Strategy role, guide new teams to view data not as hard facts but in a narrative, storytelling manner and lead development of new tools and technologies that will add value to clients businesses. A believer in balancing work and personal goals, Melody also has a passion in dance having 19 years of dance background and experience in jazz, latin, hip hop. Her background spans training and competing in latin competitions and is also a dance fitness instructor teaching in gyms which doubles up as an avenue to also relax and destress.

What’s Special about You & Key Achievements
This has changed by implementing a streamlined view of Strategy Thinking and Planning Framework adoption across key clients (Cetaphil, Tiger, Heikenen, Edelweiss, ResortsWorldGenting, Honda), a range of client industries, and new pitches. PROCESS/STRATEGIC THINKING Freshness was injected into strategy by applying a CUSTOMERFIRST, real consumer, real people lens to briefs. For example, Melody rehauled consumer strategy for Cetaphil Baby by mapping out full trimester journey for moms, overlaying motivation behaviour methodology for Honda’s target consumer for one of their car launches, first ever view on consumer segmentation for digital adoption for banking client Alliance Bank, applied pre and post Covid data comparison to sharpen consumer behaviour for Heineken, crafted sessionable moments precisely for Tiger Crystal audiences, refreshed the entire format for Heineken’s QBR to cover a storytelling journey, fleshed out total landscape and charted out market entry plans for financial services client. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & GROWTH Melody also championing development on new tools to provide values and cater to new opportunities for clients business objectives, scaled across agency teams. Implemented end to end Influencer Marketing strategy; spanning from data driven KOL selection process & strategy, engagement, measurement for Pizza Hut and Samsung. DIALING UP MEDIA INNOVATION Having an eye on media innovation and having come from client side with experience in launching ideas, understanding the behind the scenes was really valuable in proposing never before ideas for existing and new business to ensure proposals are integrated, intelligent and interactive. Some ideas proposed were: Malaysia’s first real time visual change billboard, capturing consumer first moments for hair care industry, Malaysia’s first collaborative unveiling car launch, first ever social cause for an alcohol brand to champion.

Leadership Skills
Melody is passionate and has the zeal to perfect her work. A believer in producing amazing work with vision and togetherness, she is highly collaborative with cross functional teams and brings the spirit of inclusion in efforts for no one to be left out. She is also willing to plough through working on pitch decks with the team past working hours and during weekends to guide the team in Strategy; guiding and cheering the team keeping up team morale and spirits. She has accomplished the above and more within 6 months of joining the agency. Currently, she is leading Strategy for various client teams, new pitches and championing some product & growth initiatives. Within her time at the agency, she has executed implementation of key strategic frameworks in each brief with teams having developed better understanding of different data points (what to look for, where to source the data), shifted and evened out the focus on media functional plans and instead blending it with strategy to come to the conclusion, the knowhow to hash out sharp key takeouts, with the ongoing mindset of having a client centric viewpoint when tackling projects. Melody is now enrolled in a Next Gen Leadership program for career acceleration. Melody has also developed good client relationships within the mentioned time resulting in direct client interaction for Strategy and client rating scores. Heineken Client Agency Evaluation increased by 5pts with specific callout of talent strength in consumer insights & audience segmentation, led by Melody as Strategic Lead, the first time in 3 years! In addition, we received good evaluation for strategy and market understanding from RHB and consumer insighting/profiling from Alliance Bank led by Melody.