Singapore’s telco market bore a curious resemblance to a Country Western dance hall at the beginning of the year, with the leading brands swapping agency partners in an incestuous flurry. SingTel split with Y&R to link arms with BBDO. Then MobileOne ditched TBWA to join with Y&R one month later.
Only one of Singapore’s big three telcos has kept faith with its existing partner after a review this year: StarHub, which stuck with Zenith after a careful, hush-hush appraisal of its media activities.
To know the company’s head of marketing Iris Wee, the result wasn’t much of a surprise. Known for taking a measured approach to what she does, Wee is not the sort of marketing director who makes sweeping changes for the sake of making headlines.
Still fairly new to the role, Wee was promoted to head of marketing earlier this year, and there is little to suggest that she obsesses about filling the shoes of her highly regarded predecessor, Tham Loke Kheng, who left StarHub to join Taiwan Broadband in January.
Wee is quiet (shy, even), likeable and unassuming - not traits you’d expect to find in someone with the job of taking on some big obstacles in the weeks to come.
The beginning of the biggest of the lot is 13 June as ‘number portability’ hits Singapore. Mobile subscribers can now switch operators without having to change their phone number. This is expected to trigger a swathe of customer defections to operators with the best deals, and some heavy marketing as operators scramble to keep and attract customers.
Meanwhile, StarHub is contending with competition (at last) in the pay-TV sector as SingTel starts to eat into its decade-long market lead with mio TV, a service not yet a year old and already 44,000 subscribers-strong (StarHub has 508,000 out of a potential 1.1 million Singaporean households).
Longer term, StarHub is banking on its ‘Hubbing’ strategy to persuade its customers to use its bundled broadband internet, fixed-line, pay-TV and mobile services.
Up against SingTel, Southeast Asia’s largest telco and Singapore’s largest advertiser, Wee has her work cut out to convert more Singaporeans into ‘hubbers’.
True to her character, though, she won’t be making any radical changes this year, despite a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive market.
I want to evolve the brand, but not to change it for change’s sake, she says. Research of the youth market we did five years ago still rings true. Youngsters see us as innovative, yet approachable, human and fun. StarHub is the person they want to party with, SingTel is the one they want to marry.
This is a status quo Wee is reasonably happy with. StarHub’s focus is on profitable growth, not market share, so there is no rush to catch SingTel. M1 is less of a worry, she believes, since Singapore’s number three telco has, according to research, lost its way with youth.
Nevertheless, Wee admits that StarHub’s marketing department has plenty of evolving to do. The recent media review she describes as a sobering experience that exposed weaknesses on her side as well as the agency side.
As the pitch progressed, I realised that what I was looking for in a media agency wasn’t on the score-sheet. Getting the best deals, or understanding new media trends - they’re hygiene factors.
We’ve got to a point where we do not only need someone who can draw up a media plan. We need consultants who can look carefully at our business as a whole and give us better ways to engage with our customers. We need people who can create platforms on which we can showcase our services and consumer can try them out - ‘try-vertising’, I believe it is called.
Wee didn’t think she’d get this by firing Zenith, and is gently dismissive of her rivals’ line-dancing antics. It takes time to adjust to a new partner. The change can be tiring and very painful. Now is not a good time to be under construction.
Besides, Zenith and DDB, StarHub’s creative agency, have helped make Wee a regular on the podium at effectiveness awards shows, so why change a winning formula? Key to this success has been David Tang, DDB’s CEO. He draws the following conclusion about his client: Iris is no revolutionary. She will carefully consider her moves. The question is whether she will be daring enough to seize the opportunities that will make the brand even more effective.
Iris Wee’s CV
2008 Head, marketing, StarHub
2006 Vice-president, marketing, StarHub
2003 Director, marketing, StarHub
1999 Director, marketing, Singapore Cable Vision
