Inaugural Marketing Talent Awards 2019 winners revealed

Ho Lee Yen, chief customer and marketing officer of AIA Singapore has been named "CMO of the Year" at the first ever Marketing Talent Awards 2019.

The Marketing Talent Awards was introduced this year to celebrate the people behind some of the best marketing and advertising campaigns in Singapore. Categories were designed to recognise individuals and teams across the industry, as well as the agencies and brands making outstanding efforts to develop an inspiring working environment.

Ho was recognised by the judges as an “excellent all round leader”. They were impressed by her ability to mix art, science and technology to develop marketing innovations that centre on people, in order to drive repeat business, customer loyalty and profits. Ho is the powerhouse behind many of AIA’s first-in-market innovations such as the award-winning ‘AIA Vitality’ programme; a first-of-its-kind rewards partnership with Singtel; and the development of AIA’s ‘iResource: The App to Rule Them All’ – a pre-sales toolkit for agents that also delivers high-touch experiences to customers. One judge commented, “I really got a strong sense of a deep strategic mind and creativity in abundance.” Patrick Teow, chief executive officer of AIA has said, “She has managed to transform our organisation to be much more focused on customer centricity, delivering remarkable business results year after year.”

Other notable winners include GERMS, whose Marie Dela Rosa walked away with two Rising Star awards, one for ‘Rising Star of the Year (Creative Agency)’ and the second for ‘Rising Star of the Year (Social Media / Digital Agency)’; James Chua claimed the ‘Creative Agency Head of the Year’; and GERMS took bronze in the ‘Best Place to Work’ category. Income and NTU Singapore also had a great night, both walking away with two trophies under their belts. Income’s marketing team won the ‘Brand Marketing Team of the Year’ and its digital marketing team secured the win for the ‘Social Media Person / Team of the Year’ title. NTU Singapore’s Lester Kok claimed the ‘Rising Star of the Year (In-house PR)’ award while Dr Vivien Chiong took ‘In-house PR Head of the Year’.

Another big title up for grabs was ‘Best Place to Work’; this was awarded to R/GA Singapore having outlined a key focus on physical and mental wellbeing for the team. R/GA is proud of a healthy diversity across its workforce, which is mirrored in its leadership with 54% female and 14 different nationalities represented. As well as offering comprehensive insurance, fully flexible / remote working, overtime and a recently introduced Marriage Leave Policy, it also boasts of a global mentoring programme, an R/GA University, internal awards and downtime in working hours with bi-weekly massages offered by blind masseuses. They’ve recently redesigned their working space to offer better ergonomics, agility and enhance the internal community; but the judges were particularly impressed with their sincerity, explaining that “it is telling in how their staff are treated”. One judge commented, “I like their focus on “we’ve got each other’s backs” – it showed tremendous spirit of teamwork.”

In its inaugural year, the awards were held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore on 4 October 2019. The event saw over 240 marketing professionals, agencies, brands and senior, industry expert judges present from across Singapore.

Marketing magazine would like to extend a huge thank you to our judges for giving up their valuable time to thoroughly review and score every single entry. We’d also like to thank our official partners, Crystal Wines and Graphiss Media for their contributions.

Congratulations to all of our finalists and outstanding winners – we look forward to seeing what you’ve got in 2020!

We will be running individual features on our Rising Star and Legend winners over the coming weeks so keep an eye out for more information on them very soon, but for now, let’s take a look at all of the winners for 2019:

Rising Star Categories

Rising Star of the Year (Brand)
Ler Ka Leng, Manulife Singapore

Rising Star of the Year (Creative Agency)
Marie Dela Rosa, GERMS

Rising Star of the Year (Independent Agency)
Prayaank Gupta, PRecious Communications

Rising Star of the Year (In-house PR)
Lester Kok, NTU Singapore

Rising Star of the Year (Media Agency)
Janelle Vila, PHD Singapore

Rising Star of the Year (PR Agency)
Scott Lai, Edelman Singapore

Rising Star of the Year (Social Media / Digital Agency)
Marie Dela Rosa, GERMS

People / Team Categories

Agency Account Manager of the Year
Terrence Quah, Happy Marketer

Brand Marketing Team of the Year
Income Marketing Team, Income

Creative Agency Team of the Year
TMRW

Creative Strategist of the Year
Benjamin Chong, George P. Johnson

Digital Person / Team of the Year
GovTech Digital Media Team, Government Technology Agency, Singapore

Most Innovative Marketer of the Year
Brenda Maderazo, Health Promotion Board

Programmatic Person / Team of the Year
PHD Programmatic Team, PHD Singapore

Social Media Person / Team of the Year
Digital Marketing Team, Income 

Legend Categories

CMO of the Year
Ho Lee Yen, AIA Singapore

Creative Agency Head of the Year
James Chua, GERMS

Independent Agency Head of the Year
Lars Voedisch, PRecious Communications

In-house PR Head of the Year
Dr Vivien Chiong, NTU Singapore

PR Agency Head of the Year
John Kerr, Edelman Singapore

Social Media / Digital Agency Head of the Year
Daryl Ho, Edelman Digital

Company Categories

Agency Excellence in Learning & Development
Gold: IPG Mediabrands Singapore
Silver: George P. Johnson
Bronze: PRecious Communications

Agency Health & Wellbeing Initiative of the Year
Gold: George P. Johnson Singapore, “Passionately Human” Wellness, Benefits, Celebrations, Team Outings, Ideate and Camp GPJ Programmes
Silver: IPG Mediabrands Singapore, Livewell at IPG Mediabrands Singapore
Bronze: Happy Marketer, HealthMaxChallenge

Best Place to Work
Gold: R/GA Singapore
Silver: amc asia!
Bronze: GERMS