Michelle Yoong has been brought on board as business unit head to lead the Hotlink account, with the contract starting February 1. Yoong has worked at Naga DDB, Grey Global Group, McCann Erickson, and Leo Burnett on international and local Malaysian brands, including Nokia, Johnson & Johnson, Tourism Malaysia, SmithKline Beecham, Coca-Cola and Petronas.
Planner Joanna Ng was due to join the agency at press time, to support Arindam Chatterjee and Intan Aryati, respectively strategic planning director and account director for the Maxis business. Ng was previously with M&C Saatchi Malaysia as an account director on the Formula 1 account.
Ronald Ng, who was appointed last June as executive creative director, has also been strengthening the creative department with a range of new hires. Seven new members have joined the team, including Kelvin Leong as senior art director, Im Cheah and Kit Hor as art directors, Kevin Le as senior copywriter, Adam Miranda and Sharin Shazlina as copywriters and Eric Hor as head of design.
"There's a great buzz in the office, a kind of good chaos with a mix of new blood and the existing BBDO staff," said Ng.
"BBDO is very creatively driven regionally and the push in the Malaysian office is also very hard. It's an exciting time."
According to Ng, the creative department has been split into two, with one half handling the Maxis account, headed up by creative director Mohamad Shah.
The other half is being developed to handle all other accounts, including KFC, Pepsi, Maybank, 8TV, FedEx, Yakult and Mini, which will be led by Ng.
"The creative aspect of this brand and business is seen to be very important by the client," said Jennifer Chan, chief executive officer, BBDO Malaysia.
"We now have a powerful and potent combination of people, supported by a team totalling 28 people in account management, creative and planning."
The Maxis account was divided between BBDO and Ogilvy & Mather after a protracted account review to streamline the business was held in July 2004, with the decision finally announced late last year. BBDO now oversees corporate, festive and Hotlink, while Ogilvy handles post-paid, loyalty and special projects. MindShare took over the media brief from OMD.
The account, which was previously split between Euro RSCG, BBDO and Ogilvy, is estimated to be worth up to RM 80 million (US$21million). According to ACNielsen, Maxis' adspend reached almost RM 150,000 in 2004 compared to RM 80,000 the previous year.
