Susay crafts friendly Yahoo pitch

Yahoo dominates its category in Southeast Asia, but who knew? Despite a decade-long presence in Singapore, it is only within the last year that the online giant has really roared, with the recent 'Spot the monkeys' branding campaign and the launch of localised Yahoo front pages across Southeast Asia.

Much of that may be due to the recent arrival of Dennis Susay as head of marketing, Yahoo Southeast Asia. Susay joined last October, bringing with him 13 years of experience in communications: as principal consultant at PR agency Porter Novelli, marketing director at both Nike Southeast Asia and Baxter Healthcare, and sales manager at Johnson & Johnson.

Susay says he is aware of Yahoo's perception in the market as being slower than its competitors. The delays, he explains, were due to the time needed to develop on-ground relationships to create relevant, localised content.

While Yahoo's Singapore office has turned into something of a regional hub over the past year, it has had its share of issues too. Susay's predecesser Yvonne Tey departed in early 2005, and the Southeast Asia operation brought in Reza Benham from Intel to head the sub-region. The portal also ditched agency partner Euro RSCG, and integrated its conventional ad and search sales teams to bring clients greater efficiencies.

The effects of these changes are starting to be felt now. The office has doubled in headcount over the past year, with the long-awaited, localised front pages finalised last month. The team also recently launched Yahoo Go, a tie-up with Nokia, which enables certain Nokia phones to access the entire Yahoo suite.

Susay sees his own diverse background as an advantage in his present role, particularly in his ability to straddle the worlds of marketing and PR. "Actually I'm not technology savvy at all," he admits, "which sort of helps me keep it real and friendly. After all, we're a friendly bunch."

Susay has moved across sales, product management, public relations and marketing positions over the last 13-plus years — skills he sees as essential for an integrated marketing professional. "With my expertise in both PR and marketing, I tend to have an umbrella positioning perspective, no matter what the brand objective. Having worked in the US, China and across Southeast Asia has also helped build international brand perspective."

Relevance is key, according to Susay. After all, consumers know if their brands are really delivering on what's promised. "With all these initiatives, we want users to see us as a 'home away from home' — a place to hang out and 'meet people', learn new things, and just chill."

Shifting consumer brand awareness is one thing, but what about income? "All the category leaders are already on board with Yahoo, like SIA, adidas, Mercedes-Benz. So now we're finding their number two and number three competitors looking to us too."

According to Yahoo's proprietary statistics, the company commands a 65 per cent reach in Southeast Asia, or 37 million users, making up 10 per cent of Yahoo's global reach. But despite this, the team still faces obstacles in convincing media planners and advertisers. Susay and his team will soon launch formal initiatives to educate planners and creatives.

"We have strong bonds with some of the major media agencies. They realise Yahoo's reach, but don't necessarily know how to sell it to their clients," he says. "We're packaging an online media planning toolkit which teaches media planners how to sell online advertising. We've also linked up with ClearChannel to sponsor AWARD, a new advertising school in Singapore."