Keong, Seong, Raymond and Nepal.

BY THE HAMMER- Dentsu Utama has hired Raymond Ng as creative director to replace Chow Kok Keong who is on a long break.

Raymond comes from FCB KL where he handled clients like CIMB Bank, Telekom Malaysia, Mondelez, Sarawak Energy, Chevrolet, Beiersdorf and PIDM.

Ng Heok Seong leaves Dentsu Singapore as ECD to become Chief Creative Officer at McCann KL. At Dentsu Singapore, Seong handled Canon, Toyota, Uniqlo, Singapore Navy, Land Transport Authority, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Great Eastern Assurance and Dulux.

On April 25 last year, the Nepal earthquake which eventually killed over 9,000 people and injured more than 23,000, struck with a magnitude of 7.8.

Five days later, MERCY Malaysia was already on the ground setting up its field hospital in Sankhu, on the outskirts of Kathmandu city, tending to the injured in the villages and those coming in from the mountains.

A week later, I was tasked by MERCY Malaysia to lead a media deployment mission to ground zero.

Now let me tell you a story you’ll never read anywhere else…

Upon arrival in Kathmandu and setting up our media command centre in the city, and after experiencing the major aftershock of May 12, I realised it was a disaster beyond belief.

I immediately gave a call to Ted Lim, Regional Chief Creative Officer of Dentsu Aegis Network APAC who was in Singapore then.

I told him we needed urgent messaging, a call for help, on fund raising for MERCY Malaysia’s mission to the affected zones.

Ted did not blink.

In 20 minutes, he put me in touch with Chow Kok Keong at Dentsu Utama, a soft-spoken man who I honestly did not know very well.

They call him KK.

What happened next was something I will never be able to pull off ever.

Kok Keong marshalled his creative forces, developed and produced a TVC with help from industry friends across the region and in a week we were up on regional TV stations with our messaging. MERCY Malaysia’s push for funds saw a spike.

Even though I never got to say thank you in person to everyone who made this happen, I told myself this morning I will write about it.

To Chow Kok Keong, I salute you!

View TVC here:

Enter the prestigious APPIES Malaysia Marketing Awards today!

Known as the ‘TED for Marketing’, campaign entries are presented by their brand marketers or campaign creators in an interactive format comprising of a 4-minute creative reel summarising the overall marketing campaign, followed by a 6-minute oral presentation highlighting significant aspects of the campaign, and finally a Q&A with the audience.

Entrant campaigns must have run between 1 January 2015 and 29 February 2016 in any of these categories:

1. Consumer Durables

2. Consumer Services

3. Food and Beverage

4. Non-food FMCG

5. Business Services

6. Government, Cultural, Social and Environmental campaigns.

Top brands including P&G, Mondelez International, Coca-Cola, Google, IKEA, IBM,
Unilever, Amazon, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts and Asia Pacific Breweries have
all won at the APPIES over the years. Will your Brand or Agency be next?

Download details and your Entry Kit here:

Closing Date: 31 March, 2016