Archives




2022 | |

Performance Guru

Advertiser: -
Brand: -
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Parvinraj Gunasecaran - Assistant Performance Marketing Manager, Reprise

Background
Steady, reliable, team-player. Three words to describe Parvin as a person. Having started out in performance 5 years ago, Parvin has grown from a junior performance executive into an Assistant Manager in Performance and has raked in numerous accolades from the performance campaigns under his belt. From leading E-commerce campaigns for multiple clients over the years such as Huawei, Fonterra, L’oreal and more, Parvin brings a wealth of knowledge and invaluable experiences to the table. Some of his recent accolades includes Silver Award for Best Use of an E-commerce Platform for a previous client and in his current role, he leads performance for one of our major clients and won Gold for Best in E-Commerce Marketing Campaign for KFC.

What’s Special about You & Key Achievements
DRIVING THE KFC ONLINE BUSINESS THROUGH KEEN RECOMMENDATIONS For KFC, the Covid-19 epidemic has accelerated consumer behaviour that leant towards Online Food Delivery. With lockdowns in place, consumers were engaging with Online Food Delivery more than ever – be it Direct-to-Consumer, or Platform-to-Consumer. However, with the incredible surge in demand for online food delivery, comes the surge in competition as well. Old and new players are becoming more active in the delivery and ad space. With more players vying for the same piece of the pie, KFC’s cost per acquisition also increased by 85% during the pandemic. The task was for KFC to continuously grow their own Delivery platform in the most efficient manner possible. Therefore, creating a pressing need for performance to drive as many transactions as we possibly could via the KFC app. Parvin did a deep-dive of all campaign data, and came up with best in class performance recommendations such as: 1. Evaluation of the effectiveness of audience targeting: To identify audiences who spend 10 seconds or longer on the offers page outperforming audiences who added to cart but did not purchase in terms of cost and scale. Therefore, retargeting strategies were tweaked in order to address this learning. 2. Optimize on mobile device bid adjustment to ensure KFC is being competitive enough as 90% of the KFC traffic comes from mobile. 3. Draft and experiment for tROAS & tCPA bid strategy to identify which bid strategy drives better efficiency. 4. Raising bids on certain high performing ad sets that allowed the campaign to spend more whilst improving cost efficiency during certain Limited Time promo campaigns. As a result, cost per acquisition decreased by 45% and conversion volume increased by 53% compared to prior months’ performance. TESTIMONIAL: “Parvin is a true champion. We know we can depend on him to provide insightful campaign analysis and effective next steps that consistently help improve campaign performance. He works well with the team, and is always willing to support in building the planners’ knowledge-base on a technical front. His contributions to the KFC account during the particularly tricky pandemic period have given proven results time and time again.” Clarice Lee, Business Director – KFC, Universal McCann PLATFORM GURU TO THE MAX In addition, being one of the most experienced performance specialists in the team, Parvin has been exposed to numerous platforms on Google and single-handedly managed campaigns via App engagements (purchases and menu views), Performance Max (leveraging on different Limited Time offer creatives, App Install campaigns and Search Engine Marketing.

Leadership Skills
As one of the more seasoned specialists in the team, Parvin has led numerous internal training sessions within the organisation and has taken the lead in grooming new joiners in his area of expertise – primarily Google suite of ads, Google Analytics and Google Datastudio. He also takes the lead when it comes to client pitches and has fronted technical presentations, playing a key role in helping the agency secure core client wins. Parvin is a true asset to the agency and is a force to be reckoned with within the Performance space. TESTIMONIAL: “Parvin represents the new breed of young professional, well-versed with performance and e-commerce. He is highly reliable, strategic, structured, independent and a very easy-going person to work with. You will find Parvin to be a great asset to have in a strong performance team, and a leader with very keen sense in grooming and teaching the new generation!” Cindy Eliza Vaz, Head of Digital, Universal McCann

2022 | |

Building the Partnership Economy

Advertiser: -
Brand: -
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Hari Kishan Yellanki - Regional Affiliate Director, NEO, Mindshare Group

Background
Affiliate marketing evolved from being a referral concept to a full-fledged partnership economy, especially over the past couple of years where pay-for-performance channels saw an exponential growth with brands being more conscious with their wallets. Hari is not a new name in the affiliate space in Malaysia and SEA. His network spans across APAC amongst the affiliates. He helped launched global affiliate programs for Fortune 100 brands of the world and set up the agency affiliate business unit in KualaLumpur with a goal to elevate the affiliate marketing sector in Malaysia.  Affiliate marketing, it’s potential configurations, the consumer focus and the lynchpin of trust has changed drastically over the past couple of years where Hari believes that anyone can be an affiliate partner when the trade is right. Owing to the 1-1 relationship in affiliate marketing as opposed to tools and softwares with other markeing channels, his strategy of investing time and effort into educating advertisers, affiliate partners, networks, SaaS platforms, non-traditional affiliates and agencies has extensively helped the agency double it’s revenues, increase performance for the clients and demand amongst the affiliates for advertisers under the agency.

What’s Special about You & Key Achievements
Hari identified a major gap in agency services and deliverables. Almost no agency in Malaysia had an end-to-end affiliate marketing service that does it right. Brands used to work with one or two affiliate networks  and call it a day. With his experience in launching global affiliate programs, Hari opened a full-stack affiliate marketing hub within the agency group to serve 3 main purposes: ▶ To educate the agency on the importance and potential of 15-20% in incremental revenue and performance to their clients ▶ To educate the clients on the ‘right way’ to do affiliate marketing ▶ To build an affiliate partner empire by educating people on how to promote the best brands the best way. Hari’s partners in networks, loyalty, cashbacks, rewards, content, influencers etc now span over 3,000 in Malaysia in just over a year with more than 30,000+ partners in APAC. Hari also launched two new affiliate business models in Malaysia that is new in SEA. These new models contribute to over 50% in affiliate revenues to the agency. 1. Launching and managing affiliate programs on Lazada/Shopee for brands and pulling them to the top amidst 15,000+ stores that are running affiliate programs on these marketplaces in Malaysia alone. 2. Redefining the way lead generation affiliate campaigns are done by eliminating need for middlemen and SaaS platforms reducing the cost per leads by more than 50%. Hari expanded his affiliate expert team in KualaLumpur which now rolls out communication to 1000’s of affiliate partners in Malaysia informing about brands to promote, campaign information, training material etc. His teams draw on real world examples with their experience in launching affiliate programs for celebrated brands like Apple, Adidas, L’Oreal, Unilever etc to apply to Malaysian market specific brands. Brands like Fonterra, RHB, Huggies and universities in Malaysia successfully tried and tested affiliate marketing for their campaigns. Hari also combined multiple affiliate networks and agency influencer platforms to create a behemoth social commerce marketing channel set to launch in Q3’22, likely paving way for another affiliate business service offered by the agency.

Leadership Skills
Hari leads the agencys’ affiliate marketing division for Malaysia and built the business unit and team from scratch to service any region in APAC right from KualaLumpur. This has ensured very high speeds in client service and perfect control of costs, with the added advantage of pooling client budgets and agency revenues into the Malaysian economy. Hari’s leadership entails holding the entire affiliate unit P&L for Malaysia, being responsible as a mentor for the affiliate sector, and ensuring clients do affiliate programs that are truly world class with highly skilled experts. While Hari chose the agencys’ affiliate hub to be based out of KualaLumpur, he also set up nuclear affiliate teams in Singapore, Japan and China delivering truly localized affiliate knowledge to the brands, agency and affiliates. His leadership in managing teams all over APAC physically and virtually even before Covid made it mainstream, has been commended as often depicted in 360 reviews from all parties involved. Having lived and worked in various continents of the world, Hari’s intercultural communication and emotional intelligence sets him as a fit leader to make a positive change in affiliate industry not just in Malaysia but for the diverse regions in SEA. With his extensive experience in performance marketing and a clear-cut vision on his industry, it is no surprise that Hari is often involved in top level decisions that shape the future of the agency and its services.

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.