CMO Awards Champions Tour Day 2 – Mediabrands honours 5 Gold Winners

The second day of the Champions Tour for Malaysian CMO Awards 2021 was a fantastic celebration of the achievements of five Gold winning marketers at the IPG Mediabrands office. The ceremony, organised by Mediabrands with strict maintenance of SOP’s, took place on February 25th, 2022.

The marvellous event was led by welcome remarks from Prof. Harmandar Singh aka Ham, Founder and CEO of MARKETING Magazine; Bala Pomaleh, CEO of Mediabrands Malaysia; Audrey Chong, CEO of Universal McCann; and Stanley Clement, MD of Reprise Digital.

Gold winners Nadine Paul (now in Fave Group), Linda Hassan (Domino’s Pizza), Abdul Sani Abdul Murad (RHB), Rafe Daniel Chwee (CIMB), and Shirley New (Taylor’s University) received their awards and certificates from Bala Pomaleh along with a token of appreciation.

Audrey Chong praised the winners saying, “The agency-client relationship is one that is mutually symbiotic; our successes are very much dependent on one another. CMOs are at the helm of every marketing and creative decision, and their foresight, dedication, and bravery to go beyond the norm, pushing the agency in the right direction for greatness. We often don’t take the time to recognise and celebrate the CMOs and industry success enough, so these awards are an excellent avenue for us to give recognition where it’s due. Kudos to all the winners, may your success serve as greater inspiration for the next generation in the industry.”

Stanley Clement gave his words of encouragement to the organisers and said, “It was indeed an honour to host and recognise these champions of the industry at our office. Having the opportunity for one-on-one conversations, it is clear we are all on the same journey to create new and better work at each turn we take. These CMOs are the ones who are the dreamers, the challengers, the innovators, and we, the disruptors, the adventurers, the fighters looking for change. The true magic happens when we have the chance to work together and break those boundaries of new ideas. That’s when we’re truly winning together. Here’s to the CMO awards for encouraging and recognizing this magic.”

Darren Yuen, the CEO of Initiative, who wasn’t able to attend the event, sent his felicitations to the winners saying, “The journey of running alone is never as fulfilling as those we run together. In our business, the collaborative partnerships we forge with the best CMOs is what is truly rewarding. There is something uniquely inspiring about this tag-team we are in, as we learn, grow, and feed off each other. It was a great honour to recognise these icons of Malaysian marketing. These are the true believers of marketing evolution who will carry us to greater success in the future.”

Winner of the Gold award for Best Marketer in B2B Marketing Nadine Paul, who has recently moved from Boost Malaysia to Fave Group, commented, “I’m grateful and humbled to be recognized amongst some of the most inspiring minds in the industry. This win is a team effort and a true testament to the amazing support system of peers, leaders/mentors I’ve had in Boost. Special shout out goes to my leaders; Gary Foo and Eric Chong who always believed in me and pushed me to be the best version of myself.”

Linda Hassan, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Domino’s Pizza (Malaysia & Singapore), won the Gold award for Best Marketer in Omni-Channel Marketing. Linda expressed her delight saying, “2021 has been a challenging year for all marketers. Coping with the evolving marketplace, the changing customer preferences and exceeding customers’ expectation are only few of the key focuses marketers had to juggle with. At Domino’s, I am fortunate enough to have great team in marketing who are constantly innovating and are highly committed to brave challenges in a world where the only constant is change. Our primary objective of reimagining customer experience allow us to consistently focus on a customer-first mindset hence a handful of innovative solutions around services, products and communications were born amidst the pandemic.”

“With all the challenges at hand, I just can’t express how honoured I am to win GOLD in this prestigious CMO Awards 2021. Huge thanks to Professor Ham, the team from MARKETING magazine and the Mediabrands Team for hosting such a lovely and intimate event in a very friendly setting to commemorate our winning. Hearing Prof Ham speak so highly about each one of the winners shows how he personally values each of our work beyond just the award submissions. Nothing beats the words of encouragement received from one of the greatest marketing GURUs in the industry. I also personally want to thank the esteemed judges for their dedication in selecting the 2021 winners.” Linda added.

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, Group Chief Marketing Officer of RHB Banking Group, said, “I wish to thank MARKETING Magazine and Mediabrands for hosting the ceremony in such a cozy setting and presenting the awards to the winners. While we were not able to gather all the winners at the same time due to adherence to the health safety SOP measures during this pandemic period, the value of the award presentation was not at all marginalized. We were able to interact with one another at a personal level, celebrating with the like-minded marketing leaders on the impact they’ve brought to the community with great distinction.”

Winner of the Gold award for Best Marketer in Millenial Marketing Rafe Daniel Chwee, Marketing Manager at CIMB, shared his joy saying, “The Malaysian CMO Awards literally rolled out the red carpet for the winners, it was an overwhelming show of recognition and appreciation for the work we put in. Capturing the millennial mindset has always been our goal at CIMB, so when we ran the interim numbers for this campaign, we knew that we had a monster in our hands. This award further validates our achievements as a team. It was a challenging year with even more challenging goals to achieve but together as a team we pull through.”

Shirley New, Director of Marketing at Taylor’s University, commented, “The event was intimate and a great way to build connections with the rest of the winners in times like this. The SOP at arrival is also very assuring so that we can network with confidence.”

Bala Pomaleh, the CEO of Mediabrands Malaysia, shared his insights saying, “The CMO Awards holds great importance for the industry as it shows the progressiveness, dynamism and growth of the industry. We were thrilled to host the winners who have demonstrated great merit in their respective fields, some of whom are returning champions from previous editions.”

“As a trekkie at heart, I would like to quote the great Captain Jean-Luc Picard who said, “There is a way out of every box, a solution to every puzzle; it’s just a matter of finding it”, so too in marketing innovation and creativity must we always strive for new solutions to create bigger impact. These winners have demonstrated this in abundance, which will only help to spur our industry to greater heights,” Bala added.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Malaysian CMO Awards 2021 Champions Tour, which ends on March 17, 2022.

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