(Marketingmagazine.com.my) – Matt Bellotti, Chief Content Officer at Mongoose Media, leaves Malaysia this May after nearly 11 years here during which time the media company expanded from nine staff and one magazine (Expatriate Lifestyle) to well over 100 employees across five further flagship brands (Time Out KL, Esquire, Men’s Health, ELLE and Women’s Health) in Malaysia and a Singaporean operation which has won Media Company of the Year at the 2014 and 2015 MPAS Awards.
Matt worked for Mongoose in London for three years prior to his move to Kuala Lumpur.
He leaves for Melbourne with his wife and two children where he assumes the role of Digital Content Director at Triple M radio station.
At a farewell luncheon, Louis Foo, Chairman of the Malaysian Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) remarked: “On behalf of the MPA I would like to thank Matt for his contribution to the association and the Malaysian magazine scene as a whole. He is a great character and his presence will be missed. We wish him all the best in Australia.”
Speaking to Marketing Magazine, the man had this to say:
“In my decade in Malaysia we have enjoyed and endured the challenges of a soft market, rapid changes in customer behaviour, ever more demanding advertisers, and a total upheaval of an industry we all thought we knew, only to find it completely reinvent itself in less time than it’s taken Leicester City to become Premier League title contenders.”
He added: “All over the world, magazine media has shifted and continues to develop at record speed.
“Our business has changed and what used to work is not only now inadequate but it will kill the industry if we continue to only use the old paradigm of print adverts and newsstand copy sales.
“The biggest threat Malaysia faces is thinking we are in a bubble, removed from these global trends. Our audience lives online, following social media and watching videos.
“Therefore our brands have to pro-actively reach them, which in many cases we are doing very effectively.
“The real challenge, however, is in engaging our audiences rather than trying to force-feed them content they can get anywhere else.
“I’m very proud of the work we have done at Mongoose to win awards not just in Malaysia but regionally.
“However, I am even more proud of the successful work the team have done to grow our overall audience into the hundreds of thousands – and in the case of Time Out KL the millions as we recently went past 3.5million monthly page views – rather than the low tens of thousands we used to get when we were “print first”.
Those numbers alone show you how magazine media may be different to years gone by, but it’s certainly not dying. In fact it’s blossoming. Long may that continue!”
APPIES Malaysia 2016 Marketing Conference open for registrations!
‘2-day MBA’ in Marketing, ‘TED of Marketing’, call it what you will, and come what may, we will see you on May 19 & 20 at the Eastin Hotel.
• 36 latest Marketing Case-Studies
• 22 marketing leaders as Judges
• 3 top-notch Keynote Speakers
* 4 Game-Changing Panel Speakers
Says Chief Judge Adam Wee Abdullah, Group CMO of CIMB Banking Group about judging the entries, “Clarity in the Objective statement is fundamental. If this is not clear, the solutions will not be clear as well. It is also important to juxtapose the expected outcome against the Objective statement so you can gauge if the strategies are aligned. It’s a bit like looking through the scope of a sniper’s rifle.”
Date: 19 & 20 May, 2016
Venue: The Grand Ballroom, Eastin Hotel Kuala Lumpur
Time: 8.30am – 6.00pm
To register, go to APPIES REGISTRATION.
Download full brochure here.
Or contact Ruby on 03-7726 2588, [email protected]
APPIES Malaysia 2016 judges:
• Abdul Sani Abdul Murad – Head of Marketing, HSBC Malaysia
• Ben Mahmud – Head of Retail Marketing, Shell Malaysia Trading
• Eric Wong – Marketing Director, IBM Malaysia
• Fiona Liao – Chief Brand Officer, Prudential Assurance Malaysia
• Jasmine Lee – Chief Marketing Officer, U Mobile
• Jauhar Munir Shaikh – FVP, Brand Marketing for F&N Malaysia
• Loh Keh Jiat – CMO, Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd
• Mark Ng – ASEAN Marketing Director, Castrol
• Martin Soong – Marketing Manager, Fonterra Brands Malaysia
• Matthew Ho – Regional Digital Marketing Director, Huawei Technologies Malaysia
• Nirinder Singh Johl – GM of Strategic Communications, Tenaga Nasional Berhad
• Noreen Sabrina – Head of Bra
nd Communications, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)
• Pan Choi Yen – GM of Marketing, WIPRO-UNZA Malaysia
• Philip Whittaker – Group Chief Marketing Officer, Themed Attractions & Resorts
• Rizan Ismail – Head of Brand Management, PETRONAS
• Santharuban T. Sundaram – Group Marketing Manager, Permanis Sandilands
• Stephane Vilquin – Marketing Director, Campbell Soup Southeast Asia
• Syahar Khalid – Digital Engagement Manager, Nestlé Products Malaysia
• Vincent Chong – Marketing Director of Unilever Malaysia
• Zaki Zin – Marketing Director, Wyeth Nutrition Malaysia
• Zalman Aefendy Zainal Abidin – Chief Marketing Officer, Celcom AXIATA
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