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You may know it better as the ‘fast food industry’, but it’s also known as the ‘quick-service industry’. In Southeast Asia there are plenty of different franchises and types of quick-service restaurants, some focusing on local cuisine and more global ones like McDonalds, Subway, and Burger King.

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, Head of Marketing at 4Fingers Crispy Chicken, Belinda Ho, talks about her 20+ years in this fascinating industry and how she came into digital marketing. Her experiences over the course of her career provide insight into the industry itself, as well as her own life’s story.


Hi, Belinda, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now?

I have been in the quick-service restaurant industry for more than 20 years. Starting with McDonald’s for 17 years, then a quick 21 months in Texas Chicken and finally, nested in 4Fingers Crispy Chicken.

Local store marketing, events and family marketing were my foundation and forte back then. I previously headed the Happy Meal Program in Malaysia. I plead guilty for breaking many hearts due to the “sold out” situation in all of the HM Programs during that time. But in my defense, we did not expect such an overwhelming response…..  Ha! Ha! Ha!

It was my short stint with Shell, representing EdenRed that had me dabbled in digital marketing overseeing built on mobile apps CRM Programs. That was my awakening and brought me further and deeper into digital marketing (social media, digital marcomm, food aggregator and strategic partnership)

When I was at Texas Chicken in particular, the insights into digital marketing played a major role in encouraging me to learn more, leading me to my current position as Marketing Head at 4Fingers.

You’re the Head of Marketing at 4Fingers Crispy Chicken. Please tell us about 4Fingers and the work you do there.

Let me see, where do I start…?

I am responsible and accountable for everything related to Sales, Marketing, and even PR. This includes yearly budget projection & marketing calendar planning, sales performance, brand management & positioning, advertising, new product development, local store marketing, new store openings with image enhancement, digital marketing as well as Corporate MarComm and strategic partnerships. Since we are the brand keeper, we must keep tabs on any new designs from store images to uniforms.

My typical day starts with analyzing daily performance and nimble it strategically. Not forgetting preparing project proposals throughout the year and leading campaigns from the budget; planning to execution. And I usually end my day by visiting at least 1 store out of our 52 stores.

Lastly, I also support Franchise Team and Indonesia Team in setting up of new stores and on-going engagement in campaigns & new products.

What sort of impact did the COVID-19 pandemic have on 4Fingers Crispy Chicken?

The impact comes as an opportunity to reach out to customer beyond the storefront, as customer seeks to digitally hunt and engage themselves for their next meal. The need for businesses to change digitally and evolve with new consumer behaviour is essential.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies as Head of Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

We switch 180 and fully focus on advertising digitally and collaborate heavily & effectively with our Food Aggregators Partners to bring attractive selections to the our consumers. Since delivery is dominating over foot traffic, all campaigns are emphasized towards products that can sustain portability. We changed the packaging to maintain our product quality to be same as enjoyed at the storefront.

Strategies became shorter to midterm. And we (the marketers) must be more adaptable to situational circumstances. Understanding that the lines between tactical and strategic during this period are totally blurred.

From helping to market the brand as a Covid safe brand, marketing the safety aspect of the business, taking on new consumer needs for staples and family meals and now helping the business adapt after it has opened.

In addition to that, the biggest challenges were the insufficient and inconsistent supplies that made the obstacles even more significant, especially our chicken supplies. Because of that, Marketing Team synergizes with the Supply Chain Team to ensure continuous supplies, especially chicken. Marketing will tweak the menu & window calendar campaign based on SCM projections. During this time, we have to be extremely agile and able to response quickly based on unpredictability circumstances.

What lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on your industry?

The positive impact would be the building of digital infrastructure as the adoption rate of digital engagements are now higher. This accelerated the consumer learning on it and that now has set a foundation for a lot of businesses.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

In fact, it doesn’t because marketing’s true role is still about “communication of a product to a target customer through a medium and seeks to convert them” and for the past decade it has still proven that change is a constant and marketers must adapt.

Changes in communication channel adoption and effectiveness, consumer behaviour and environment are part and parcel of day-to-day marketing. Ultimately is the understanding of consumer behaviour.

As a woman, there are often obstacles to overcome in any industry. How have your experiences and opportunities helped shape you professionally? Do you feel that your career has had an impact on how you now lead your teams?

Totally agreed. The working landscape is dynamic as we established, and the business world is no longer just a man’s game. In fact, based on my working experience I have met more women Marketers either as a client or within the agencies communities. However, I must admit that battling or trying to compete in this challenging environment is “no walk in the park”.

My experiences and opportunities now had an impact on how I lead my team as they have given me:

  1. The ability to wear many hats
    Balancing careers, household management and taking up the mantel of parental guidance helped me to quickly adjust to new situations and focus on finding solutions to real-life work issues.
  2. Enhancement of Teamwork
    I am an advocate of teamwork and team player. Making bold and wise decisions which will help make the team environment less authoritative and more cooperative, bringing a family-like feel to the team. Eventually, this boosts teamwork across the organisation and helps implement a new culture within the business.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers?

Learn how to be proactive & helpful instead of being quiet and waiting for directions. Be PROACTIVE by asking a lot of questions. However, it is AN ART to ask questions without being annoying and counterproductive. You do by listing down all the questions, set a dateline for feedback and coming out with options & solutions.

This behaviour eventually produces the right working attitude and lastly, understanding & be adaptable to the ever-changing marketing industry.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Belinda, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or 4Fingers Crispy Chicken’s work?

You can follow me on LinkedIn.

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In Asia, it’s hard to picture life without rice. A staple in every kitchen, rice literally feeds entire communities and has been the primary source of nutrition for entire generations. It’s no surprise then that being in the business of providing rice to the many families that need it is a very complex and intriguing industry.

Vynce Lim originally had her sights set on being a solid creative designer, but things don’t always go the way we plan them – and she is now the Group Head of Marketing at Serba Wangi, one of the leading providers of rice in Malaysia. Join us in this issue of the Marketing Expert Series to find out more about Vynce’s fascinating background and her drive to succeed.


Hi, Vynce, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with something a bit general, please tell us a bit about yourself. How did you get to where you are now? 

Hi Olwen! It is an honour and thank you for having me.

I had good results in high school, majoring in the science stream. My friends and family expected that I would take the usual path to become a doctor, lawyer, or accountant,  but went on to complete tertiary education in Graphics & Advertising, catching them all by surprise. I started off as a creative designer in an advertising agency. At the time, my goal was to be one of the top creative directors and I didn’t expect that I would end up in marketing.

Senheng Electric Malaysia (Mr KH Lim) was the pivot point for me, offering a stepping-stone as their Head of Advertising & Promotions when I chanced upon the career curves from Design to Marketing. I’ve had an exciting portfolio journey where my responsibility was not limited to the electrical retail industry. Together with the team, we rebuilt Pet’s Retail, Loyalty program, Telecommunication and many more as the business diversified and new brands were acquired or established. 

Eventually, I had to step down due to health issues and joined XOX Mobile as a brand manager, pioneering their brand division. Later, I found that I still prefer a fast-paced environment and leading marketing initiatives, so I re-joined the retail industry as Marketing Manager in OGAWA Malaysia. From there I decided I wanted to enhance my business acumen and completed my Master in Business & Administration in 2019. Throughout the year, I built more of my portfolios as a Marketing consultant in several retail-based industries from home improvement, beauty, to gold and jewellery.

And here I am today, as Group Head of Marketing in Serba Wangi Pvt Ltd. Blessed with an enthusiastic reporting director (Mr. Z Low) empowering me with a team of great comrades, I realized that the marketing landscape is dynamic and I’m always learning to better myself and the team professionally in business and marketing from different aspects. Indeed, the team played an essential role in my career path.

You’re the  Head of Marketing at Serba Wangi. Can you tell us a bit about Serba Wangi? 

Serba Wangi Pvt. Ltd. has been one of the nation’s leading rice wholesalers since its inception in 1993. It specializes in the rice industry, with a wide range of activities including processing, packing, and manufacturing more than 20 different varieties of rice products under the JATI name, one of its well-known trademarks. Aside from JATI, other well-known brands include Kapal Layar, Carnation, Songhe Noble Pine Crane, Songhe Lotus, Fres-Harves, and ecoBrown’s, a rice series aimed at health-conscious consumers. The company’s headquarters, located in Bukit Raya, Pendang, runs its business from the heart of the “Rice Bowl State of Kedah.”

Serba Wangi Sdn. Bhd. strives to maintain an impressive balance of trained, qualified, and experienced personnel in order to realize its dream of pursuing a new paradigm in processing, packaging, and distribution excellence. It also has a large distribution network that spans entire Peninsular Malaysia. Serba Wangi Pvt. Ltd. now markets a diverse range of rice to meet the ever-increasing diversity of consumer tastes, propelling the company to the top of its industry.

What do you do at Serba Wangi as Head of Marketing? Do you have a favourite part of your role?

As Group Head of Marketing, I manage and oversee all the brands under Serba Wangi and entail new product development, strategising and executing Marketing Campaigns.

Although we’re a 30-year-old company, we operate like a start-up where we encourage ownership, transparency, and self-development and aim to empower young passionate individuals to grow professionally and personally. We love and cherish new ideas and we disagree to manage the team with authority and fear. Therefore, my favourite part of my role will be sharing the same passion and creating great marketing campaigns with the team; I would not succeed in any of my marketing works without the team.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

With the global Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, we’ve all had to learn that “health” is wealth and all industry players are making changes in all aspects to sustain and perform, including ecoBrown’s (One of the pioneer brands under Serba Wangi Pvt. Ltd.)

Like others, the challenges that ecoBrown faces come from things like catering to the high demand of a healthier lifestyle and eating-homecooked meals, the occasional public panic can also affect product prices in the market, and accessibility to our products.

Therefore, we brought healthy rice to Malaysian by introducing ecoBrown’s Sella Cream Parboiled Basmathi Rice and Steam Brown Rice for those who wanted to have healthier eating to be delivered to their doorstep on monthly basis plus a fixed price policy on our e-commerce platform with just a click – through ecoBrown’s Rice Subscription Plans. (https://shop.ecobrown.com/collections/subscription-plan)

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on your industry?

For many centuries, rice has been known to humanity as a staple food, especially in Asia. From feeding billions of people, rice is practically irreplaceable as a source for the dietary, Asian economies, and is appreciated by many cultures globally. 

ecoBrown’s revolutionized rice purchasing method nationwide by being the first to launch the Rice Subscription Plan riding on ecoBrown’s Steam Brown Rice product. We pioneered the rice subscription plan and continue offering more choices of rice and different packages to cater to different demands 

Before the pandemic, experiential marketing was usually conducted offline but at that point in time, people were still cautious about going out. But we do not want to forgo the opportunity to be able to engage with our customers, hence, we thought to ourselves: How about going online?

With this in mind, we implemented online experiential marketing in our marketing plans. 

Content and performance marketing go hand-in-hand. We can’t dive right into promotions when we have not done enough of the upper funnel’s contents. It is essential to understand which content generates attention and traffic vs those that don’t. It involves a lot of AB testing for sure to find the winning angle. Besides that, we utilized AI and tracking to gain insights into our customer behaviours which helped us in our marketing strategies and decision-making. After gathering a pool of engaged audiences who are active and have intent to purchase, we then curated tactical content to remarket and drive conversions. 

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

Be the change, before change changes you. Therefore, as marketers, we must keep ourselves updated and in sync with the changes while incorporating relatable marketing communication strategies to bring different perceptions of our product(s); in terms of product quality, innovation through digitalisation in marketing strategies targeting our now target market the C- generation – with the new norm and lifestyle. We’re always ready to cater to the new market demand and are open to exploring the latest technologies and implementing them into our marketing strategies.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers? 

To progress and improve is to stay out of your comfort zone and grow. Always remember why you started, stay humble, keep your passion, and always be hungry for more.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Vynce, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Serba Wangi?

Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

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The finance industry is a complex arena, requiring special insight and expertise to excel. With the last few years, the industry – like all other industries – had to make monumental changes to adapt to the changes in human behaviour.

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, we talk fintech, banking and how they’ve changed. More than that, we are given the rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of the inner workings of the industry. Our guide for this journey? Kevyn Eng, vastly experienced, Head of Growth and Marketing at Hugosave, Singapore’s first Wealthcare® and savings app aimed at helping users manage their finances more healthily.


Hi, Kevyn, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

I started my career in Public Relations with two of the world’s most respected consultancies—Fleishman-Hillard and Burson Marsteller—serving finance, industry and B2C clients. I had the chance to be exposed to the dynamic world of Banking and Finance.

In 2009, I entered the banking space, specifically, payments. In those days, marketing was an end-to-end function that combined today’s business (product marketing) and marketing roles (marketing communication). I’m always grateful for the wide exposure and opportunities to be involved in almost every component of the integrated marketing spectrum. For instance, I was fortunate to have entered banking at the point RBS took over ABN Amro’s payment business and, within two years, executed another brand change to ANZ. In this short span of time, I was thrust into two major bank rebranding exercises and that experience really taught me much.

2011 was another interesting year when I worked on Marketing Communication for private banking clients in Southeast Asia. Though frequent travels were tiring, the direct exposure and working relationships formed with agencies and partners across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were valuable. Today, I still keep in contact with some of them.

2019 was yet another milestone year when I moved into the Intelligent Banking business. Leveraging open banking, cognitive banking and ecosystems, we pioneered changes in mindset, processes and business models, all within a giant bank with a global presence.

Today, I’m leading the Growth and Marketing department of Hugosave, Singapore’s first Wealthcare® and savings app.

You’re the Head of Growth & Marketing at Hugosave. Please tell us about Hugosave and the work you do there.

Launched in July 2021, Hugosave is Singapore’s first Wealthcare® and savings app which helps users become financially fit by spending smarter, saving more, and investing diligently, starting with gold.

Today, more than 50,000 users in Singapore are using Hugosave to optimise their finances. The Hugosave Growth & Marketing department commercialises the business, driving customer acquisitions and CLV whilst optimising acquisition and customer costs. This is done through an in-depth understanding of users’ needs and behaviours, and close coordination and collaboration with many internal stakeholders. We actively acquire and engage our clients through a mixture of broad-based marketing to personalised communication triggered via our CRM platform.

Building the Hugosave brand from a nobody to a multi-award-winning name, the high-performing team deploys a multi-lever approach involving PR, Branding, Content, Social, Communities, Digital Marketing and advertising channels. We also plan and execute innovative campaigns, rewards and partnership activities.

What sort of impact did the COVID-19 pandemic have on Hugosave?

Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the way the world works. On a macroeconomic level, it has significantly disrupted supply chains, impacting the global movement of goods and services. This increased the cost of doing business and jacked prices of goods and services up across the globe.

In Singapore, where natural resources are scarce, we are heavily reliant on global supplies. The increases in prices have definitely eroded our savings, disrupting our financial plans and reducing our purchasing power.

The need to save has never been more apparent. Consumers have now a heightened awareness of the need for sufficient emergency funds and saving for rainy days. It’s a double whammy when they now have to spend more on daily essentials due to inflation. Hugosave is well-positioned to help customers save in a painless manner. In line with our Little, Often, Early mantra, we think consumers can still achieve savings when they set aside small amounts of savings on every spend they make. Our Roundups feature on our Hugosave Debit Card does just that. It rounds every transaction up to the nearest dollar and saves the spare change, aka Roundups, in Gold. The precious metal is widely accepted as a safe-haven asset and an inflation hedge.

Consumers can also set scheduled savings in Gold, in any amount starting from S$0.01. This automation at the back allows customers to continue with their daily lives with minimal disruptions and pinch.

Hence, this is a golden time for Hugosave to engage our prospects and encourage them to start their Wealthcare® journeys, and hopefully with us.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies as Head of Growth & Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

From a marketing outreach perspective, we see the shift in our budget and investments fully into digital marketing, content creation and public relations.

Whilst we continue to believe in face-to-face interactions with our prospects, the situation during Covid-19 forced us to be sharper in the way we communicate, to further simplify complex finance terms for consumers. Online attention is also way shorter than a physical interaction and so messages needed to be more succinct and on-point.

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on your industry?

The digital wave has accelerated faster as a result of the pandemic. From eCommerce to content consumption, the digital space is now the default for many Singaporeans. As a by-product, our push towards a cashless society has also moved quickly.

Does this then see the death of the piggy bank since there’s even lesser use for coins? Here’s where we introduce Hugosave’s digital piggy bank. Rounding up transactions to the nearest dollar, the cents are now saved and invested in Gold. So not only do customers save from incurring unnecessary processing fees from banking coins, they have a good chance of seeing the investments grow and protecting savings from inflation.

In the world of personal finance and Wealthcare®, a similar wave is happening. Innovations and tech disruptions to traditional banking services have grown tremendously.

Opening banking and SGFinDex paved the way for data democratization, and clients now have greater control over their information. With that, it also spurs growth in Wealthtech apps with better journeys and simpler and easier-to-understand propositions that help clients manage their finances more efficiently and effectively.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

Definitely, Hugosave is primed at the right time with the right proposition built by the right team.

In times of FUD, people turn their attention to saving opportunities as they tighten their belts. This makes the environment ripe for a business like Hugosave. We provide a platform for our clients to protect, preserve and grow their savings without feeling the pain. From automated savings with every spend via our Roundups feature to scheduled money pots, savings are invested in relatively lower-risk assets such as Gold, enabling their growth.

As a Weathcare® and savings App, we naturally reach out to our customers on a mobile-first principle. Over the Covid-19 period where physical interactions are limited, we make our marketing investments digital. Social media, in particular, Instagram and TikTok is key channels we utilise to get our messages out.

We have also taken the opportunity to explore audio podcasts via Spotify and Twitter Spaces. These platforms enable us to deliver our messages where our clients are. Apart from performance buys, we have also embarked on building our communities on Facebook & Telegram. It’s very interesting to note that our TG community has grown and overtook our Facebook Group within four months of its inauguration.

Communities will continue to be our focus and way to drive multi-way conversations. As we continue to dish out information and bite-sized education on personal finance, our communities will benefit from discussions with us, and amongst themselves.

How do the last few years impact your insight into how personal finances should be managed? Do you have any suggestions for people on how to better control and manage their financial situations?

Savings has almost become a forgotten topic as Cryptocurrency speculation sweeps across the youth’s mind space with the ‘get rich fast’ opportunities. The bull run of the crypto space prior to 2020 saw many trying their luck. Arguments that savings were too slow in accumulating wealth and such investments would work far better.

Looking back now, many have now understood that such speculations are highly risky and should be taken with much caution. With a gloomy economic outlook, people now turn their attention back to savings.

In Hugosave, our philosophy is to start your savings journey with a little, often, early. Start small to avoid feeling the pinch and slowly increase once it becomes second nature.

Keep a schedule going so that you continuously buy into the market, achieving dollar averaging and the potential to mitigate timing risk. Finally, start as soon as you can so that you enjoy the power of compounding interests.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers? 

My personal mantra is, “Keep going, you’ll get there”. Marketing is a diverse, dynamic, ever-changing industry that continues to reinvent itself as it responds to consumer and social developments. Sometimes, it feels chaotic and frustrating when plans change and we pivot fast to keep ahead and stay relevant. Bite the bullet, keep going and you’ll get there.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Kevyn, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Hugosave’s work?

Follow me on my LinkedIn or simply visit the #Hugoverse!

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Ever wonder where you’d be now if you’d made one different decision way back when? Whether you believe in fate or not, it’s always fascinating to look back and think “Wow, if that one thing hadn’t happened, I might be a completely different person today!”. Time and time again in the Marketing Expert Series, we meet people who ended up in digital marketing by chance; it was not what they had studied, and it certainly wasn’t what they had expected for themselves. Yet, they all love what they do.

In this issue, we meet a man who was in the wrong line of work when he first started. Fresh out of university, he went off to do what he thought was to be his career, until his boss let him know otherwise and set him on a new path.

We might never have had the chance to interview Navin Rajarathnam, if not for that chance of fate. He would never have gone into branding or marketing, and would never have had a fascinating and diverse career, or been able to share the insights of a said career with us in this issue of the Marketing Expert Series. We would never have been able to learn from his experiences or found out how he got to lead a dynamic team at GVE Asia, or share vicariously in his passion and drive.

Luckily for us, someone helped him onto a digital marketing and branding career path. And he loves what he does.


Hi, Navin, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with something a bit general, please tell us a bit about yourself. How did you get to where you are now?

Firstly, thank you for this opportunity. It is indeed an honour. So! Let’s go back a little.

I started off as a PA with an incubator start-up after my degree as that was the first job that came my way in 2003. After about a year my boss pointed out that my core competencies lay elsewhere and told me that I should be working in either PR or advertising. He was good enough to send my CV to his contacts and I got my first interview with Michelle Ong, then General Manager at Mccann Erickson.

Michelle offered me my first stint as a Brand Executive working on the Proton account. From there things really fell into place; I had truly found my calling. I enjoyed working with the team at Mccann’s and we all grew really close and I am still best of friends with so many of them. We worked long hours but we also partied and that drew us together.

After almost 7 years, I left to join M&C Saatchi and was with them for another 6+ years. These 14 years with international agencies truly taught me grit, passion and never to ever give up no matter what the circumstances are.

From there I decided I wanted to enhance my skills and decided to move to the client-side of business and went to work with a bank, then a glove manufacturer and now I am with GVE Asia. I’ve had quite a colourful career and the industries I have worked with are completely varied, but all this has given me an advantage: it has allowed me to look at business strategies from various perspectives and learn from each of them.

You’re the Group Head of Marketing, Branding and PR at GVE Asia. Can you tell us a bit about GVE Asia? What exactly is GVE Asia?

GVE Asia is an organization that has varied businesses. We currently own and run 10 various business. We started as an importer of luxury cars but have since expanded to include luxury service centres as well as bars and restaurants. We have a medical business as well that deals with masks and sanitisers and we own several clinics. In addition, we also own the biggest 4S Volkswagen centre in Malaysia. Our CEO Dato Sri Devan believes in diversifying and building a strong conglomerate of brands and industries.

What does your role as Group Head of Marketing, Branding and PR look like? Do you have a favourite part of your role?

I lead a team of managers and designers and we look into the various parts of the whole branding and communications. The team manages the strategy, content development, social media management, performance marketing, CRM, email marketing and crisis management, among others. We operate as a startup so no one day is ever really the same. Some days we even assist the project management team or even help the mixologist for the parties we organize in our bars.

I think what I enjoy most in my current role is managing a very dynamic and young team. It’s refreshing and I actually learn something new every day from them. The exchange of knowledge is definitely a two-way street! We have built a wonderful rapport and they inspire me tremendously.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

Seeing that we have a very varied business model, we have had to adapt and change at lightning speed. Marketing and branding have always been agile, but the pandemic thought us that we needed to take it up many levels up and be adaptive at such a speed that we don’t have time to second guess ourselves or our strategies.

The biggest challenge is WFH. Now since the pandemic is over, the team has had the benefit of working in their own pace so having them come back full-time to the office has taken quite a bit of internal strategizing and a lot of hand-holding.

We have realized that the hybrid working environment has worked and many find that quite beneficial to them. It allows them to manage their families, but we have had to encourage the team and build a better environment within the office to entice them back into the office. To this end, we introduced an ice cream machine, built monkey bars and installed a punching bag as ways to make coming back to work a little bit more interesting.

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on your industry?

The real lasting impact is that social media has helped grow our business in leaps and bounds and engage with our customers. Before this, social media was just used to showcase our luxury cars and to gather leads, but the pandemic has taken that to the next level where customers have engaged with us on a whole different level and we have managed to double our sales in 2020 despite all the lockdowns.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

I think now it’s gone back to pre-pandemic days and consumers in the luxury segment want what they did previously. They want the experience of walking into a showroom, engaging with the sales team, taking the car for a test drive and having that wow moment. They want to feel special. We have had to re-look our strategies to straddle both online and offline to give our customers a seamless journey as now its even more intense than what it used to be. As the paradigm has shifted, engagement is even more challenging so we need to focus our strategies in building the showroom experience even digitally.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers?

Be agile, hungry and adaptive. Speed and accuracy are crucial but being inspiring and thinking out of the box, always gives you the advantage.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Navin, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or GVE Asia?

They can drop me a line at navin.r@gveasia.com or find me on LinkedIn at my profile Navin Rajaratnam and I would be more than happy to touch base and connect.

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There’s no denying that every industry was impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, but I think it might be safe to assume that one of the industries most heavily impacted by it was the food & beverage industry. With restrictions on movement and delivery services, not to mention the breaking of pre-existing supply chains,  it’s no surprise that many restaurants struggled to survive. 

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, Yin Yin ‘Anna’ Goh, provides us with in-depth insight into how one restaurant chain survived the rapid changes sparked by the Pandemic. Join us, as we dive into not only Anna’s story about how she got to where she is now but also into the story of Burger King Malaysia’s digital transformation during and after the Global Pandemic.


Hi, Yin Yin, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

The pleasure is all mine. I’m Anna Goh – I’m a foodie, and I love to travel and enjoy a good read. 

Right after I completed my tertiary studies, I double hatted as Senior Trading Executive and Managing Director’s Personal Assistant at 99 Speedmart Sdn Bhd. I gained a wealth of experience on how to collaborate with suppliers & brands to feature their products and we worked closely on how to evangelize sales promotions across 99 outlets nationwide. 

As a Marketing Major graduate, I’m always looking for opportunities to extend my marketing knowledge in this industry. I was given a chance to head up my current Marketing department 7 years ago when the business owner of 99 Speedmart decided to take up franchises of Burger King in Malaysia and Singapore. Thinking back on my journey, it’s really a dream come true.

You’re the  Head of Marketing at Burger King Malaysia. Tell us about the work you do at Burger King in that role.

It’s a long list but I’m going to briefly touch on what I do: I am responsible for Burger King’s Brand Management and its Corporate MarCom. Anything related to brand positioning, new product development and product launches, advertising and restaurant image enhancement are also under my care. 

My typical day-to-day would be to prepare project proposals and lead campaigns from planning to activation and launches. On top of that, there’s admin fun stuff like monitoring reports, budgets, campaign performances, ROI & projection. Oh yes, and I also oversee the franchisee’s local store marketing activities and execution as well.

What sort of impact did the COVID-19 pandemic have on Burger King Malaysia?

The business is severely impacted, be it sales and in-store traffic as the consumers are afraid to step into restaurants to make their purchases. Most of the sales were contributed by delivery platforms. We are also facing serious supply chain disruptions such as sea freight delays, shortage of ingredients, etc.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your strategies as Head of Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since 2020? How have you overcome them?

The developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic restricted everyone’s movement and that affects our strategies. Besides that, the pandemic has taught Malaysians to be more technology savvy as we were required to scan a QR code whenever we visited a place. This changes our strategies as well, we used to invest a lot in OOH advertising, but during the lockdowns, no one would see those ads on the road and no brand awareness was built. We did not do a lot of digital advertising back then, but the pandemic has led us to shift our marketing investment and focus to digital platforms. We have also introduced e-wallet payment options to reduce physical contact during the sales process. 

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on the food and beverage industry?

We expect customers to stick with digital interactions as a direct result from the pandemic. 

As for the F&B players, they foresee restaurants will have to offer more online services to the public in order to adapt to changes in consumer behaviours post-pandemic.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

Yes, it does impact the way we conduct our work because change is constant and we have to adapt and adjust from time to time. Even though the acceleration of digital transformation is in place, we do see some shift back in sales from digital platforms to physical platforms as the extra cost incurred of using digital services is one of the factors. 

In the next few years, we will be focusing on sustainability by reducing paper coupon printing and publishing more digital coupons. To be aligned with the regional business direction, we are also working on removing preservatives, artificial colours and flavourings from the food we serve as in BK we believe that real food tastes better. For brand visibility, we are thriving to have a balanced brand exposure on both digital and non-digital platforms in order to maximize consumer reach.  

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers? 

Change is constant hence always be prepared to change. Know your market and customers well or else they change you.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Yin Yin, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Burger King Malaysia’s work?

I can be contacted through LinkedIn.

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The Marketing Expert Series features marketing and communications experts from across every industry. Every month, 2Stallions will showcase the stories and expertise of marketing experts from around the world, join us as we explore how marketers navigate the challenges of the regions and industries they work in. If you’d like to be featured in the next issue of the Marketing Expert Series. Please reach out to us via email.

If you are interested in building your own company’s digital advertising, get in touch with us today, and find out how you can optimize your digital marketing strategies.

Welcome to another whirling issue of the Marketing Expert Series!

In this issue is a digital marketer whose attention to detail and passion has carried her through multiple industries and career paths. Brenda Hobin is the Marketing Director at Shiok Meats, and she knows what it means to adapt to challenges and grow your marketing funnel. Join us as Brenda takes us through not only her own story but the story of Shiok Meats, the challenges and obstacles faced and overcome, and what it takes to be a great marketer in a trying age.


Hi, Brenda, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now?

Thank you, Olwen! I’ve had an exciting career and portfolio journey.

From the airline industry, non-government organizations, fast-moving consumer goods, luxury brands, hotels, real estate, master planning, HoReCa, and sailing to the marketing of golf courses. I have also been involved in pro-bono activities such as fundraising to procure necessities to feed the poor or empower children of humble backgrounds to pursue an education, my way of giving back to society. I studied psychology, criminology, sustainable economics, and innovation. The diversity of the industries, combined with my educational qualifications, gave me an edge in deciphering human behaviours and actions. Different backgrounds, nationalities, and cultures dictate how a similar product or message is perceived.

These insights are crucial, as they are the key to understanding human desires and pain points. By understanding these behaviours, we can create products, campaigns, and messages that are relatable and solve a problem or need. My husband, family, and the people I met and worked with play an essential role in my life; because of them, I am where I am today, and probably because of them, I will be where I will be tomorrow or in the future.

You’re the Marketing Director at Shiok Meats. Can you tell us a bit about Shiok Meats and the product philosophy you have?

Shiok Meats was launched in August 2018 in Singapore by Dr. Sandhya Sriram and Dr. Ka Yi Ling. They both have PhDs in stem cell biology and come from scientific backgrounds. Sandhya is also a seasoned entrepreneur. They firmly believe a sustainable solution was required to feed the ever-increasing population without creating additional pressure on the otherwise declining ocean health. They started in a lab with two founders, and today the company has an agile team of 35+ scientists, researchers, food technologists, and business professionals working on a path-breaking technology and building a manufacturing plant of its own.

If you take a shrimp, deshell, devein it, and remove the organs, you are left with muscle and fat cells. This is the part Shiok Meats cultivate, and the same goes for crab, lobster, and red meat. From a taste point of view, the taste is the same with seafood and crustaceans. The flavour comes from the cells themselves and also the liquid nutrients that we feed the cells for them to grow. It is a combination of the two, exactly what happens in nature. The stem cell comes from the animal initially, and we trick these cells into believing they are still inside the animal’s body. We feed them what the animal would give them. These stem cells are grown in large stainless steel tanks, known as bioreactors. Think of a big tank, where trillions of cells are floating around in a liquid medium (liquid nutrients), much like a brewery. By the end of four to six weeks, the cells have increased so much that we perform a step called differentiation, which triggers these stem cells to form the organ they are supposed to form – muscle and fat – the final product. Our final product looks, tastes, and cooks like meat. Our products are all minced, and we are working on a structure (whole shrimp, for example) for the near future.

We are building a system wherein we work with many different animal-free growth factors, food-grade media, and plant-based alternatives that have the potential to yield at scale and lower price points. Some of these are being developed in-house, while we are leveraging strategic partnerships with media development companies for some others. We are also looking at the apparent by-products and upcycling cell media for flavouring mixes and essences. Overall, we are ramping up the construction of our pilot production facility in Singapore to speed up large-scale manufacturing and launch in at least one premium restaurant in 2023.
We want Shiok Meats to be the world leader in cultivated seafood and meat technology. If that means expanding the suite of product offerings to other kinds of meat, poultry, seafood, and other by-products, we are going for it.

What role do you play as Marketing Director? Is there a part of your role you enjoy most?

Currently, I am focusing on the higher marketing funnels, from branding and creating awareness to building a community of mindful consumers. We aim to encourage and influence a mindset shift toward consuming sustainably-grown crustaceans and meats. I am incredibly psyched about building a team of marketers who shares our passion for sustainable living.

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your own strategies? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since the start of 2020? How have you overcome them?

Shiok Meats was founded to mitigate the challenges of feeding a growing population ethically and sustainably. COVID-19 only reiterated the fact that we are on the right track. The food supply chain has faced severe disruption. Our patent-pending food technology will only create a favourable condition for self-sufficiency at a national level benefitting the people. If anything, COVID-19 has accelerated and brought attention to what we are doing locally, regionally, and globally.

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on your industry?

There was a greater reliance on digital news and platforms during the lockdown period. We are part of the growing and evolving digital ecosystem. There is no turning back, given the history of how people have accepted digital as the new norm. What is new today will be antiquated tomorrow. The start of lasting impact began a long time ago if we look at the adoption rate of the internet or the proliferation of the use of the new social media channels.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

As marketers, we must stay tuned and sync with the changes and evolution of communication channels, including digital transformation. The brand strategies, story-telling, and content must align with changing human developments, needs, and desires. Marketing messaging must be relatable. Marketers’ ability to accurately nail down all the touchpoints affects go-to-market strategies.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers?

Stay humble, stay curious. Make “Being an Expert Marketer” a lifelong aspiration.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Brenda, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Shiok Meats?

It is an honour to share what we do with you and your readers. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn!

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Marketing in 360° may sound like the obvious choice, but it’s not always the simplest strategy. With the variety and diversity of digital and traditional channels that we now have access to, it’s a small wonder that digital marketers don’t go mad. Quite the contrary, we seem to thrive on the ability to understand, learn and track different platforms and channels to the benefit of our brands and our target audiences.

Joining us for this issue of the Marketing Expert Series is Veronica Sin, a woman who embraces the challenges of brand marketing a fintech company with a 360° approach to reaching audiences in the wake of the pandemic. Sharing her insights into the combining of brand marketing and public relations, Veronica paints a clear picture of what it takes to be dedicated and successful 360° marketing strategies.


Hi, Veronica, welcome to the Marketing Expert Series! Thank you for joining us. Let’s kick off with some history: tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now?

Hi Olwen! Thanks for having me. I never thought I would end up in Branding or Marketing. In fact, I started my career with a heart to engineer social good through public relations (PR).

My fascination with PR began during college break when I chanced upon WWII documentaries on Hitler. I remember being awed by how the Nazi high command could influence Germany to believe in outrageous propaganda simply through strategic PR campaigns, such that I thought to myself, “If Hitler could use PR to inspire a nation towards hostility, I could use the same (PR) to inspire equally powerful good and change a nation.”

It was an idyllic idea, but I had a concrete plan:

  1. Spend 2-3 years in a PR agency
  2. Take the skills learned to a nonprofit or cause-driven organization and influence social good from there

Sticking to this plan, I started my career with 2 award-winning PR agencies, helping clients like BMW Group and Facebook build their brands through press engagements. Although I enjoyed managing crisis communications and pitching strategic stories to the media, work-life balance was a concern in the agency world.

After 3 years, I joined Projek57 – a social enterprise devoted to building unity in Malaysia through racial harmony projects and unity-themed retail. This was my first brush with marketing: As it was a small team of 5, my role evolved constantly. Although they hired me to manage the Press Launch for the Unity Ribbon, I was soon managing social media, influencer campaigns, retail marketing and even corporate sponsorship marketing. 6 months in, Projek57 gave me a choice: Stay as Inventory Manager or move on, because they do not need a Marketing Communications Lead at that time.

Changes in HR needs like these are quite common in social enterprises and startups where funding and resources may be limited, but I didn’t know that back then. I left with a bitter thought, “I am done with this non-profit or cause-driven plan”.

I began applying to anything but non-profit organizations and landed a role as Senior Brand Communications Executive in iMoney. They were looking for someone with social media marketing experience, and my time with Projek57 – though short – gave me a foot in the door.

3 years and a lot of learning on the job later, here I am in iMoney – still learning the ropes of branding and marketing, but blessed with a team which empowers me to validate campaign ideas and concepts.

You’re the outgoing Group Brand & Marketing Manager at iMoney. Please tell us what iMoney is all about and the role you play there.

iMoney is a personal finance platform which helps people get more out of their money by:

  1. Comparing and applying for the right financial products through our Aggregator
  2. Learning money management via jargon-free articles and initiatives
  3. Planning your finances with insightful tools like our income tax calculator

As Group Brand & Marketing Manager, I manage 3 portfolios: Brand Communications, PR and Social Media. The role also entails proposing and executing strategic marketing campaigns which encompass the 3 portfolios whenever opportunities arise.

To execute these campaigns, I will usually come up with a campaign plan and set up a briefing session with experts from the various teams – ranging from SEO to Performance Marketing and Email Marketing, to get their feedback on how to maximize results and meet campaign objectives by leveraging on everyone’s capabilities.

Marketing financial technology isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. What sort of strategies do you find most useful for marketing iMoney? How do you stand out from your competition?

The difference between sales and marketing is that while the former focuses on selling, the latter focuses on building relationships. Once a relationship between a brand and a target audience is strong enough, the sale will automatically follow.

Of course, building a relationship between a brand and a target audience is not as simple as dating in real life, simply because a brand is not a person and hence needs to be personified through effective marketing strategies – before you can even push the brand or product to be “loved” or “preferred” over its competitors.

While iMoney earns through the application of financial products, content marketing, and partnerships, the brand is ultimately about personal finance – a highly personal topic, as money is central to every life goal. If you can address your audience’s pain and passion points, your marketing initiatives will likely positively impact your brand and ultimately, your business.

This is my usual game plan when building a marketing campaign:

  1. I usually start with our brand purpose: Why did iMoney exist in the first place? What sort of impact does iMoney want to make in our target audience’s life?
  2. Next, identify opportunities within our brand purpose: What’s happening within the personal finance space? What’s bothering our target audience (e.g. single young working adults earning below RM5,000/month)? For example, is price inflation on many people’s minds? Or is it income tax season where everyone is figuring out how to maximize their tax returns?
  3. Key message: Based on the brand purpose and market opportunities, Build a topic which matters to your target audience, be it educating people about scams or discussing investment strategies for newlyweds.
  4. Channels and tactics: Where does your target audience usually hang out? How do they prefer to engage in a conversation? Is it through Facebook Live or email subscription? Do they prefer listening to a certified financial advisor or learning from success stories?

Have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your own strategies as Head of Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since the start of 2020? How have you overcome them?

Definitely. The 2 biggest marketing lessons I learned from the pandemic are:

  1. Learn from other brands
  2. Be flexible and dare to test out new ideas
  3. You are as good as your team

One of the biggest challenges is content creation during the start of the pandemic, specifically video productions since physical shooting is no longer allowed. Take our 2020 Raya campaign video for example: Instead of the usual physical film production, we’ve had to produce a video by weaving together clips of iMoney staff at home and fitting it into a script.

Funnily, the idea came when my colleague shared videos by Apple and Google who were making these DIY videos, basically just a collage of stock footage fitted to a script and a soundtrack – since the whole world was on lockdown. I remember discussing with my colleague if we could also pull this off, and achieve the same impact that these giant brands achieved.

Themed “i Bersama u” (or “I am with you”), we built a script which heavily relies on the script and soundtrack to tell the story. Next, we assigned several iMoney staff to shoot video clips of themselves at home. These clips will then be woven together to form a video.

While this sounds easy, it took a lot of briefing and coordination with colleagues who were assigned to be featured in the video. To amplify the sombre sentiment of MCO and at the same time instil optimism, our Design Team also had to get creative with the right soundtrack and video treatment, given the limitations to shooting footage and directing on set.

At the end of the day, our #iBersamaU Raya campaign helped us overtake our competitors in the share of voice (SOV), a key metric in brand performance, at a small budget. Our social media pages also saw higher-than-average growth immediately after the campaign. Taking from this success, we have since produced a few more similar DIY videos with decent results.

At the end of the day, I learnt that perhaps the most important thing to succeed, in spite of the pandemic, is having a team who sits down and works towards the objectives outlined – and the graciousness of your superiors to let you test new ideas.

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on iMoney and the industry in general?

  1. Social media is likely to remain a primary touchpoint:
    Although we are slowly easing back to pre-pandemic life, the past 2 years have globally cultivated a collective social-media-first consciousness where social media is not just seen as a space for business updates but concurrently a customer service front, community space, and experiential relationship between brand and consumer. For example, followers of Burger King’s Facebook page are not just expecting updates of the latest promo but also the brand’s responses to trending topics. The more relevant and personal you can be with your followers, the more likely you can build brand trust and top-of-mind (TOM) recall. Consequently, the more likely you are to convert a follower into a potential customer.I think the pandemic has also made brands realize the potential of social media to amplify any marketing initiative – be it a digital campaign or a physical one.
  2. Collaborations not just to survive, but thrive:
    Digital-led efforts are about maximizing the dollar spent. If you execute a campaign by yourself, how many people can you reach as compared to collaborating with a strategic partner with a different sphere of influence? One thing iMoney – and I am sure many other brands – learnt is that “together we are stronger”. Be it through affiliate partnerships, webinar collaborations, or sponsorship campaigns, you achieve more when you leverage each other’s reach, brand associations, and engagements – provided that the collaboration is a strategic one.
  3. 360° digital-first campaign.
    One thing the iMoney marketing team learned during the pandemic was the necessity of working together across different teams. Before the pandemic, many of our marketing initiatives were planned by a single team – only involving other teams to support.But once the pandemic hit, we realized the importance of involving every team in the planning stage itself to leverage each other’s expertise in order to amplify the impact. Perhaps it’s also that added realization that “all we’ve got is one another to achieve this” – the pandemic does have that effect on our team at least. For example, our recent #TaxTalk campaign – a Facebook Live discussion on how to maximize your income tax returns – encompasses Email marketing, Learning Centre articles from our Editorial Team, engagement posts from the Social Media Team, and even the Affiliate Marketing Team and SEO Team who advised us on the forms of content to prioritize during this season.The stellar results of such a cross-team campaign are a testament to the importance of such holistic campaigns, and definitely, a motivator for us to continue such collaborative efforts in the future.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

Definitely. Personally, I see our marketing strategy going more towards a 360° approach – where any initiative will be conceived with a view of maximizing the impact by involving all relevant teams from the planning phase itself. Naturally, the primary objectives and key message will be set by one person – who will then consult experts from every team on how we can collectively amplify the campaign results.

Again, this is based on the discovery that no marketing channel exists in a silo – especially in the digital world where the effective touchpoint is two devices at most per person – a laptop and a mobile phone. The more coordinated your campaign efforts, the more amplified your impact will be.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers?

Marketing may seem all glitz and glam from the outside – with the flashy film productions, influencer campaigns, and Facebook Live giveaways – but what translates the glitz and glam into meaningful impact are:

  1. Excellence: If you are planning a Facebook Live webinar, it goes beyond engaging the right speaker and promoting your event. Do you keep a timeline and event checklist? Do you brief your guest speakers and provide them with scripts? Do your research and prepare for all anticipated questions that may arise during your Live event? Have you assigned people to manage the comment section? In short, have you given your best to ensure that the event is airtight? It will make a difference to the outcome of your initiative. Having said that, it is ok to make mistakes as that is where you will be learning many of your lessons.
  2. Critical and strategic thinking: Marketers are essentially strategic communicators. We need to anticipate how our target audience can interpret a piece of content. It is never just ” simple or fun ” even for something that seems simple or fun like preparing a meme or social media series, it is never just “simple or fun”. What is the key message you are trying to convey? What is the marketing outcome you want to achieve? Are there possibilities this could be misinterpreted, and if so, what is your rough contingency plan?
  3. Attention to detail: The brand is built in the details. One of the hardest things to enforce among junior marketers – myself included when I first started my career – is keeping the format. If your Facebook banners all have different alignment and font sizes, how unprofessional will that reflect on your brand? If your campaign report has different font colours, what does that say about you as a communicator? Can I trust you with 14 Facebook ad banners in the next credit card giveaway campaign if you can’t handle font sizes for an internal report?
  4. Being organized: Marketers are underrated master organizers who often need to work with people from vastly diverse backgrounds to make “marketing magic” happen. To execute a holistic campaign that spans 5 different channels and at times even stakeholders from different teams and organizations, you need to be chronically organized – equipped with a timeline and campaign checklist whilst keeping an eye on the budget and deliverables. At the same time, you must ensure that people from different backgrounds understand your marketing campaign brief.

If you want to excel as a marketer, start honing your organizational and people skills. At times, you may even need to describe the same thing in 3 different ways – one for the tech people, another for the non-profit partner, and yet another one for the SEO team.

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The Marketing Expert Series features marketing and communications experts from across every industry. Every month, 2Stallions will showcase the stories and expertise of marketing experts from around the world, join us as we explore how marketers navigate the challenges of the regions and industries they work in. If you’d like to be featured in the next issue of the Marketing Expert Series. Please reach out to us via email.

If you are interested in building your own company’s digital advertising, get in touch with us today, and find out how you can optimize your digital marketing strategies.

When you put determination, tech-savvy and the motivation to expand your knowledge together, you get a great digital marketer. As we’ve discovered over the many issues of the Marketing Expert Series, digital marketers find their way to their careers from all walks of life, arriving in the world of marketing from varied backgrounds and educational streams. 

Crispian Leong is a digital marketer who symbolises us all in this aspect: motivated, and determined with a background in computer science. Not content with the path his degree had launched him into, he made a change and landed in a marketing career that has lasted the years. Now, as the Head of Marketing Singapore for Pet Lovers Centre, Crispian shares his story and his hard-won knowledge about how to make the best of any digital opportunity.


Hi, Crispian, welcome to the Marketing Expert Series! Thank you for joining us. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

I guess you can say I stumbled upon marketing as a career. I can honestly say I wasn’t one of those lucky people who knew from the get-go what they wanted to be when they grew up. 

My education routes were either planned by my parents, teachers or the system. Even the course that I ended up graduating from – Computer Science – wasn’t my first choice. I actually wanted to study journalism, but none of the local universities offered back in 1996 and studying overseas was out of the question as I didn’t want to burden my parents financially. 

So. Computer Science. I didn’t know anything about it, nor did I expect to get anything useful out of it either. I just thought that since I’m a fairly logical person with a good grasp of science and mathematics, it would be a course I could most easily obtain a degree in.

Only during my final year project with IBM, did I realise being a programmer or a system administrator wasn’t something I wanted as a career. I preferred a job where I could talk and collaborate with people and develop… things. 

The job market in 1996 was quite good for graduates in Singapore. Companies were expanding or being set up and there weren’t enough graduates to fill the manpower crunch. I was spoiled for choice when I was sending out resumes, and there were plenty of job openings in sales and marketing. 

Eventually, I joined a firm that distributed computer hardware and software. I remembered the pay being quite decent at that time, and I was sold when the HR Manager said, “You’ll definitely get to meet lots of people and go for incentive trips paid for by vendors like Hewlett Packard and Microsoft!” It sounded fun, and it was!

I remembered thinking, “Well, if this doesn’t work out I can still fall back on my IT degree”. But somehow, marketing stuck. One year became two. Two became four. Then I joined SingTel and spent 10 years there, and the next thing I realized, it had become a career.

You’re the Head of Marketing at Pet Lovers Centre Singapore. Can you tell us a little about what it is that Pet Lovers Centre does exactly?

Pet Lovers Centre (PLC) is the largest pet care retail chain in South East Asia with a presence in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. It was founded in 1973 and the brand offers the widest and freshest range of products you can ever find for your pets.

On top of that, PLC offers a wide range of services from pet grooming to pet boarding and even pet pharmacies. 

As the Head of Marketing, I oversee all aspects of marketing across the region – including digital, retail, PR and e-Commerce, and I have teams in Singapore and Malaysia that help me.

The pet care industry is massive. What sort of strategies do you find most useful for spreading the word about Pet Lovers Centre? How do you stand out from your competition?

The thing about PLC is that we are the largest and most well-known pet retail brand chain in South East Asia, so a lot of strategies that we employ are defensive. What do I mean by that? In Singapore and Malaysia where we are the eminent brand in the industry, we don’t need to splash obscene amounts on outdoor or mall advertising. 

Our prolific retail footprint is our OOH brand advertisement. Our main advertising dollars are spent on digital and social media. Even then, we only spend enough to ensure our brand and products are positioned right at the top of searches, that our shopper ads have the largest impression share amongst our competitors, and we do enough work with the KOLs to ensure our share of voice is optimal. 

This gives us more time and resources to do the type of marketing which, in my opinion, is most important – strengthening the brand within the pet owners’ community. And we do that through CSR activities and collaborations with animal welfare groups, organizing meaningful and educational events to inform people on responsible pet ownership, and so forth.

Have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your own strategies as Regional Head of Marketing? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since the start of 2020? How have you overcome them?

I joined PLC in May 2021, in the midst of the pandemic. Consumer behaviour by then had certainly shifted. We saw an almost two-old increase in online sales. All I ever did when I joined was to review and fine-tune the SEO, SEM and social media go-to-market processes, tighten the narratives and visual consistency, strengthen the performance marketing tracking, and voila! We saw conversion rates jump three-fold between May 2021 and October 2021. As of last month, our conversion rates were at an all-time high despite the relaxing of COVID restrictions in Singapore and Malaysia.

Most times, you don’t actually need massive life-altering paradigms to make positive uplifts to the business. 

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on Pet Lovers Centre and your industry in general?

Well, more people appreciate the joys of digital shopping. They’re also more confident in shopping online now. This is good because PLC is well-positioned to meet the demands and challenges of this shift in consumer behaviour, having an e-commerce platform and marketing communications firmly entrenched in the digital space even before the pandemic happened.

And this trend is not going to revert anytime soon. So the important question is – what’s next right?

Well, the key challenge I am gleefully tackling right now is how to strengthen the Pet Lovers Centre brand affinity. People know our brand, but how do we make them love us and stay with us longer? That involves quite a few exciting initiatives involving omnichannel marketing strategies, further enhancing our app and launching a new price communication platform. All very exciting and which I am currently knee-deep in.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

For sure this impact has permanently changed how my team and I work. I mean, I had to reorganize my team and put the less digitally-savvy teammates on courses to upskill themselves to speak the digital lingo. 

When I first joined, I’m not afraid to say that I realised I had shortcomings in certain areas such as SEO and Google Analytics myself, and for the first few months, after work, I watched tons of YouTube and LinkedIn videos to sharpen my SEO and GA skills just to be able to have productive and meaningful conversations with my digital marketing managers.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers? 

Always place your customers at the core of what you do. Always ask yourself – how does this narrative help our customers? Can we improve this process to delight our customers further? Will our customers’ lives improve from this feature or product?

It’s been a pleasure to learn more about your work and your experiences, Crispian, thank you for sharing these insights with us. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Pet Lovers Centre?

I’m reachable at my LinkedIn profile

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The Marketing Expert Series features marketing and communications experts from across every industry. Every month, 2Stallions will showcase the stories and expertise of marketing experts from around the world, join us as we explore how marketers navigate the challenges of the regions and industries they work in. If you’d like to be featured in a next issue of the Marketing Expert Series. Please reach out to us via email.

If you are interested in building your own company’s digital advertising, get in touch with us today, and find out how you can optimize your digital marketing strategies.

As the world slowly crosses into a post-pandemic norm, it has become more important to understand how brands adapt and change to meet evolving expectations and considerations. Digital marketing is about having an adaptable mindset, letting you take in information, foresee trends and act accordingly – brand marketing is no exception here. In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, experienced brand consultant and digital expert, Tania Tai, takes it one step further. 

Encouraging us to ‘outsee, outthink and outdo’, Tania shares her life and career experiences. She offers insights into the world of brand consulting, and what it takes to make a strong, lasting impression on consumers and team members alike.


Hi, Tania, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with your background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

My pleasure Olwen. I have always believed in the shaping influence of life experiences. Honestly, it’s quite amazing how seemingly unexpected connections come together as mini-experiments for us to tinker, learn and grow in new domains. All we need to do is stay true to ourselves yet have an open mind to explore and muster up enough courage to pivot when the time is ripe. As such, was my journey of self-discovery until I found my calling in brand consulting.

The early years in divergent fields of financial audit and hospitality taught me valuable lifelong lessons. If you take systems-based thinking from auditing and fuse it with the precious human moments from hoteling, violà! You will have a winning combination to drive success in branding, marketing and communications.

I will always be grateful to Su (founder of Su Yeang Design, subsequently Holmes & Marchant) who provided the first stepping-stone when I contemplated my career pivot and nurtured my growth trajectory in the pioneering years of branding in Singapore. Fast track 20 years down the road, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside visionary leaders across categories to co-create brands that are worthy of remark. This is the worthy work that I do. And I’m still as passionate about until today – helping brands find their purpose, design better futures and become that special force of positive impact in the world.

Marketing, as we know, comes in many different shapes and sizes and can be rather demanding. How do you believe that marketing leaders can help their brands – and their teams – grow in today’s world?

Thriving in these exceptional times requires a very different mindset. Brand owners need to plan ahead, ride the wave of hopeful rebounds and help society regenerate. Just like how Pantone launched a more vibrant colour palette to mark a brighter 2022, I’d like to share some useful habits to help marketing teams grow their brands and ride this optimistic wave back to normalcy:

Outsee: Consider the brand ecosystem and deep-dive to align beliefs. The power of branding lies in how meaningfully your brand connects to beliefs, be it leadership, customers or employees. When customer experiences are well aligned with culture (i.e. employee experiences), and brought to life by brand experiences based on the bedrock of shared values to improve the world, you will discover the magic formula for sustainable branding. The ultimate goal is to build brand love by forging deep emotional connections based on empathy and compelling storytelling.

Take for example the rebranding of Progresif, a telco in Brunei. Beyond the impressive numbers of new customers onboarded, the zero to hero story of its successful rebranding was because we created a brand that stood for all things progressive from the retail experience to the curation of an emergent tribe of influencers. Little by little, a new Progresif movement was born, fueled by a growing tribe of Progresifs who believed in leading where others feared to tread. And it was this progressive tribe of loyal customers that helped the brand weather Covid’s perfect storm.

Outthink: There is nothing more inspiring when beautiful minds come together at ideation sessions during workshops. Whenever you’re in need of a creative jolt to solve the toughest of challenges, always remember that imagination is our strongest currency. Ideation is a non-linear process, so be prepared to reframe challenges and reimagine your world from a different lens.

From experience, let me share a lateral thinking technique that has been particularly effective – “Embrace Constraints”. During the envisioning workshop for Penang Butterfly Farm, one of the breakout team activities was to come up with a new brand name for the well-loved tourist attraction. We needed to hunt for a name that better reflected their refreshed positioning to be the voice of nature – an edutainment destination of the future that celebrates the unsung heroes of nature (i.e. insects and butterflies). Under the constraints of a whole slew of taboo words, such as “butterfly”, “nature” and “park”, ideation ventured into the unexpected. A turf that is far from the norm. Eventually, it was an exploration in a science-inspired realm that “Entopia” came about, coined from “Entomology” and “Utopia”.

Outdo: In the go-to-market race to the next normal, the world has reset at a different level. The pandemic has mainstreamed conversations on sustainability, digital futures and a hybrid way of life. Whether your brand is ready for the metaverse or not, brands now have more room to play across platforms virtually and/or physically. With the blurring of boundaries between online and offline and access to rich data-driven insights, welcome to the era of omnichannel marketing on steroids!

This is the time for brands to shine in moments that matter by sharing content that enriches the lives of their customers. Brands that win the battle, will be those that are prepared to back what they promise with heartwarming brand acts. So that more people can not only see and hear what the brand is about but also feel the brand love.

Take the case of Lexus when they launched the Lexus ES Self-Charging Hybrid “Feel Your Best” campaign last year, emotional AI was used to offer viewers a more personalised experience through facial recognition. Imagine adapting content real-time in immersive cinematic sequences. Imagine the thrill of an ad that responds to your emotions just as the car responds to the driver’s behaviour and needs. Wow!

You’re the outgoing Managing Director at DIA Brand Consultants. Can you tell us a bit about the work you did there? How does it compare to other career experiences?

DIA made its way to Malaysia when I settled here 15 years ago. At that time, branding was still in its nascent stage. It was exciting to build the business and share the invisible aspects of branding that people often miss or overlook. Through the years, I’m thrilled to have helped businesses at different life stages unlock their full brand potential and empowered brand teams to realise their path to purpose.

A career in brand consulting is like no other. It’s fascinating because you get to work with a lot of different clients from divergent industries, which gives you the chance to immerse and understand each category better. Perks of the trade: when you consult on FMCG projects, you become a smarter consumer too because you will understand the category and the competitive landscape most intimately. And so, you will know how to make the best choices that suit your needs.

How did the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affect your own strategies at DIA? What challenges and/or developments did you have to adapt to since the start of 2020? 

The benefit of a diversified portfolio strategy is that your business becomes more resilient in times like these.

From a project perspective, new opportunities emerged in the health and wellbeing space, which led to projects such as DuPont’s digital immunity cookbook and Top’s Anti-virus laundry detergent packaging revamp. When you brand, you brand for the long haul so that you can hit the ground running faster when the good times return. That’s why brand training and design thinking workshops carried on unabated during these pandemic times. Although workshops did take a very different form, 100% virtual and more interactive, thanks to Miro.

From a workplace perspective, we had to quickly adapt to working from home. Suddenly, the home transformed from a downtime nest to an uptime hub. A whole new set of challenges around work-life integration jump-started the future of work. Looking on the brighter side of life, the team had to learn faster, become more disciplined and self-aware, and master the art of setting boundaries. Regular check-ins, fun projects, wellbeing gifting and virtual parties kept the team together while apart. True to the wisdom of Stoic philosopher Seneca, on how adversity sparks greatness.

What sort of lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on the various industries in which you’ve worked over the years?

The pandemic has left a mark on every industry, and the world has changed. Once we have tasted the convenience and benefits of digital life, it is hard to go back. The stage is now set for more exciting times of digital integration and data mining post-pandemic. As people are by nature highly social, which is why I believe that hybrid experiences will be the future of everything, from the way we live, learn, work and play. Right here, right now. This is the moment for all of us to respond with a deeper sense of awareness as a community to reshape the world that we should make.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you will go about your work in the future – whatever work that may be? 

Yes, the impact is here to stay for a long time to come. The best way forward is for everyone to embrace the future of work as soon as possible and use this opportunity to reinvent. Given the current reality of burnout, anxiety and mental health concerns, we will need to find new ways to collaborate better remotely or in-person going forward.

To manage a hybrid way of work, it’s healthy to be more transparent and lock-in downtime too. By scheduling non-meeting times, especially heads-down time (when we need alone-time for deep thinking) or me-time (for self-improvement and growth to stoke our passion). It’s good to make time and schedule these often-neglected moments so that we can always be at our best.

Leadership and mentoring have never been more important during uncertain times, especially for women. What role do you believe women with successful careers, like yourself, can play in the lives of women today?

Leadership and mentoring have evolved in these uncertain times too. Irrespective of new joiners or experienced professionals, many interesting situations present themselves as meaningful coaching-learning moments. Women, like men, play multiple roles at home or at work. The key is in finding the right happy balance.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has painfully highlighted the disproportionate impact on women in Southeast Asia. A sad fact according to the recent research by the Asian Development Bank at the end of 2021. There is much work to be done to reverse this, be it through peer professional networks or mentoring startup communities, or even reaching out to those not typically under the radar, such as Women of Will for single mums or Ideas Academy to educate displaced teens.

What would you say to aspiring marketers just starting with their careers?

If you love a world in perpetual beta, thrive on discovering something new everyday or get a high from solving thorny problems… Brand consulting is the best career to start off with. Here you will have the best arena to hone your full-stacked marketing and creative thinking skills amidst a smorgasbord of industries. It is indeed a career less ordinary, where taste, style, wit and intelligence come together wonderfully. It is the best platform for you to discover yourself and how to navigate your future.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Tania, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you?

I’m taking some time off the grid at the moment, so LinkedIn would be the best way to reach out.

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The world is a very strange place. As we drift towards a post-pandemic normal, we are finding ways to grow from the lessons we learned during the last two and half years. Many of the adaptations we’ve had to make have been out of sheer necessity, for the survival of society and our economies, and many of those adaptations will have lasting considerations for the future.

One of the adaptations we’ve made is the increase in our use of digital tools for self-improvement and advancement – especially when it comes to job hunting. Leading the charge, platforms like JobStreet by SEEK ran special initiatives to bring people together and provide much-needed help when it was needed.

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series Julie Wang, Head of Marketing Singapore for JobStreet by Seek, shares her insights and experiences in her role during the pandemic.


Hi, Julie, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s begin with a little history: can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now? 

I’m currently the Head of Marketing at JobStreet by SEEK, Asia’s leading online job portal. I started my career in advertising sales and was at my peak when I decided to do a career switch after 5 years, to pursue my passion in marketing. It was a painful decision at that point in time, not only to have a 50% pay cut but to also start from the bottom of the ladder. I did feel that this risk paid off, being able to gain exposure at the giant FMCGs companies of the world like Nestle, Unilever and Danone for both local and regional markets. I even manage to put my classically trained FMCG marketing skills to good use by starting a tea training school.

In 2019, after 10 years in FMCG, I decide to take stab at the world of e-commerce/tech marketing and joined Lazada as I believe that this is the future. It was a very interesting period where e-commerce growth exploded due to Covid. I recalled having to deal with late-night crisis management of panic & bulk buying on our grocery channel, RedMart after the government raise its DORSCON level to Orange. It was also a period that saw an unprecedented adoption of e-commerce even among the most traditional brands. Consumer buying behaviour was also erratic and dynamic. That further built my agility to make the most out of the changes and capitalize on new opportunities.

Having made several career changes by then, I decided to take the offer at JobStreet by SEEK as a way to share my career experiences and help job seekers improve their lives through better careers, while at the same time, continue to hone my skills in tech marketing.

Tell us a little about the work that JobStreet does and the role you play there.

SEEK’s purpose is to help people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and help organizations succeed.  We are committed to making a difference to our community as well as to our company. Our strategy is to match more candidates to opportunities than anyone else through using our marketplace scale to build a radically more efficient and effective employment marketplace.

As Head of Marketing for Singapore, I’m responsible for moving the company forward not only to be a more digital, data driven, and innovative organization but also to achieve in-market operational excellence for local activations through my team of 10 that cuts across brand building, performance marketing, content, PR, SEO & social.

In March 2022, we held Asia’s biggest virtual career fair that connected thousands of job seekers to tech and digital job opportunities across various career stages to fill employment gaps as the economy gradually recovers.

Is there a part about your role that you enjoy most?

I love how this role enables me to empower job seekers to find work that is rewarding, and they can be passionate about, and by finding companies motivated and able employees.

Late last year, we launched the #LetsGetToWork movement to encourage job seekers to stand up and stand out, to take that bold step and pursue the job that they love. In last month’s virtual career fair, we also launched the Women in Tech series to encourage gender diversity in the tech sector. I feel proud and fulfilled to lead such initiatives to contribute back to society,

How have the developments of the COVID-19 Pandemic affected your own strategies at JobStreet? What challenges and/or developments have you had to adapt to since the start of 2020? How did you overcome these challenges?

The COVID-19 crisis had deeply scored the world’s workforce, with entire industries forced to temporarily shut down, stalling or cutting off the jobs these industries supported. As the pandemic unfolded over the rest of 2020 and to mid-2021, total employment in Singapore continued to fall.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, employees are also getting more frustrated at work, fuelling the Great Resignation wave and hence, giving raise to vacancies especially in growth sectors like tech and healthcare.

At JobStreet, we started the #LetsGetToWork movement and Asia’s Biggest Virtual Career Fair to empower job seekers to pursue the job that they want, to upskill and reskill in the face of rapid digitalization while helping hirers to better find qualified candidates through our hiring tools and career fairs. At the same time, continue to advocate to hirers for healthier work cultures, gender diversity and building a multi-generational workforce to better cope with the changing needs of employees.

Marketing, as we know, comes in many different shapes and sizes and can be rather demanding. How do you believe that marketing leaders can help their brands – and their teams – grow in today’s world?

  • Know your consumer, audit and rewire your marketing programme when needed
    It is critical to know what your consumers are thinking, how are they feeling and what are their beliefs. Be in tune with changing needs of consumers (we definitely see more of this with the pandemic) and even anticipate ahead with data analytics. Focus on what is working, fix what is broken, and cut what is not working anymore.
  • Drive authentic engagement with a clear and meaningful brand purpose
    Consumers today are being bombarded by too many messages every day. Hence, they are also getting savvier and choosing which brands to engage in. Therefore, a clear and meaningful brand purpose that resonates deeply with your target consumers can help to motivate and engage them authentically. Knowing this will allow brands raise from the clutter and stand out.
  • Invest in Innovation
    With digitalization, the marketing landscape is evolving more rapidly than ever. What is relevant today might be obsolete tomorrow. Hence, if you don’t try new things or invest in innovation, your brand’s ability to grow will be limited. Consider setting aside a part of your resources to experiment outside the box.
  • Develop talent and capabilities for the future
    A strong team can be the competitive advantage that takes the organization to new heights. Engage your people and address their concerns early. Be invested in their career development and build their skills for the future.
  • Lead authentically with empathy and humility
    The pandemic led to many employees changing priorities, with many shifting towards jobs that are more fulfilling and meaningful to them, as well as a positive work culture. It is therefore, more important than ever before to focus on building authentic connections and trust with your team. Make the extra effort to understand their situations and what they are going through, in order to offer support and help. Recognize their contributions and keep them motivated with positive reinforcements, so that they can remain dedicated and joyful about their work, their leader and the company they work for.

Any advice for aspiring, young marketers?

In today’s VUCA world, agility is key and change is the only constant. What seems like the right thing to do today, might become irrelevant tomorrow. So be prepared to constantly unlearn and relearn. The more you know, the more you don’t know. Never stop learning.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Julie, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you and the work you do at Jobstreet?

They can connect with me via LinkedIn.

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The Marketing Expert Series features marketing and communications experts from across every industry. Every month, 2Stallions will showcase the stories and expertise of marketing experts from around the world, join us as we explore how marketers navigate the challenges of the regions and industries they work in. If you’d like to be featured in a next issue of the Marketing Expert Series. Please reach out to us via email.

If you are interested in building your own company’s digital advertising, get in touch with us today, and find out how you can optimize your digital marketing strategies.

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