Beleaguered Dentsu Aegis Network says it has started 2020 positively in Singapore

After a tumultuous 2019, Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) believes things are looking up for its Singapore agency in 2020 as it forges ahead with its new global business model around the three key pillars of creative, media and CRM.

It claims the new model has paid dividends with new wins and client retentions, including StarHub and Income.

It has promoted Prerna Mehrotra to lead its media business in Singapore to take over from Audrey Kuah, current executive team member and executive director of media group for APAC, who will be leaving the network at the end of March 2020.

Kuah has only been in her role for less than a year, having taken on the executive director role on top of her current responsibilities as managing director of the network’s Global Data Innovation Centre in March 2019.

“As our recent CMO Survey shows, marketers believe that investing in big ideas and creativity is more important than ever before, however, they want to see creativity aligning with consistent experiences across the customer journey,” said Prakash Kamdar, the chief executive of DAN Singapore.

“As clients’ needs continue to evolve in the digital economy, we see it as a strategic imperative to provide them with a unified experience of our capabilities, and connect more dots, to help them meet their business goals.”

The end of 2019 saw DAN’s parent, Dentsu Inc. restructuring its underperforming business in its seven global markets of Australia, China, Singapore (including regional headquarters), UK (including global headquarters), France, Germany and Brazil.

The restructurings will see the Japanese ad giant, the parent of beleaguered London-based Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), cut approximately 11% cut of its total headcount in each of the seven markets, which represents about 3% of Dentsu’s global headcount.

There was also an upheaval in DAN’s personnel throughout 2019 after announcing in January it was restructuring its Singapore operations, which saw it lay off around 2% of its workforce. It then made another round of redundancies in July.

The likes Sunil Yadav, the former president for APAC at Amplifi, Kristian Barnes, former chief client officer, and Sean O’Brien, media chairman at DAN and former chief executive of Posterscope and MKTG, all departed after the restructure.

Phil Teeman, the former chief executive of DAN Singapore and South East Asia, Rob Hughes, the former DAN North Asia chief executive, and DAN China chief executive Susana Tsui also all left the agency in quick succession.

DAN executive chairman for the UK and Ireland, Nick Waters, who moved back to the UK after leaving Singapore before the restructuring, left after a decade at the agency.

source: https://www.thedrum.com/