Lee joins as director, MindShare Interaction, and Yeow as the unit’s associate director. Both will report to Mindshare Singapore chief executive officer Jeffrey Seah, who is six months into the role after joining from Starcom last year (Media, 9 November 2006).
“Ben and Lee Yew are multi-specialists who are not afraid of change. My plan is for them to inject digital thinking into everyone in the agency,” said Seah. “By the end of the year, I want 50 communications specialists who are capable of recommending digital to our clients.”
Lee began his career at Starcom in offline media planning and buying, while Yeow has a technology background with time spent at DoubleClick, Beyond Interactive and MindShare.
The MindShare Interaction team, which has grown from four to nine people since Seah’s arrival, will be split to manage conflicting business. Lee will handle clients including Samsung and DBS, while Yeow will oversee a portfolio housing Motorola and HSBC.
The agency’s latest digital initiative is a deal with SingTel to allow clients to advertise via a mobile email service. MobileM@il will be offered free to SingTel’s 1.7 million post-paid subscribers.
By downloading software on to their phones, users will be able to receive emails from their SingNet, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail accounts.
Ads in the form of text links will run at the bottom of the email while full screen graphical ads will be displayed briefly with every third email received. These ads allow users to click to call, browse, download or mail.
Additional reporting by Li Yann Long
