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TESTangrams, APAC’s largest regional effectiveness and strategy awards, has announced 167 shortlisted entries for 2018.

All entries were carefully analyzed and scored by the panel of industry leaders from the region and beyond. The following number of entries have been shortlisted in each awards section:

Effectiveness 50

Media Strategy 42

Digital Strategy 42

Data & Analytics 20

e-Commerce 13

Total: 167

In addition to the new campaigns entered this year, Tangrams also received established campaigns which were awarded Gold and Grand Prix at Spikes last year:
The Billion Point Giveaway and The Hearing Test in Disguise (CHE Proximity) and DB Beer Bottle Sand (PHD New Zealand) are examples of campaigns which have shown continued effectiveness and have been shortlisted in multiple categories in Tangrams 2018.

A number of independent agencies have also been successfully shortlisted, “Let’s make viral products instead” by The Womb, India has been shortlisted in 4 different categories – a commendable achievement for an independent agency.

Tangrams Effectiveness @ Spikes will happen during the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity from 26 to 28 September 2018. The Spikes Delegate pass gives the holder complete access to the two-day Tangrams Effectiveness program and 7 other Spikes Asia creative communications programs.

Delegates can expect to be inspired by the latest in creativity, technology, effectiveness and entertainment, over 3 days, showcasing 8 programs across 4 stages; all stages run simultaneously with over 100 speakers. Delegates also gain access to the Tangrams Awards ceremony and Spikes Asia Awards where the best work in Asia Pacific are celebrated on the largest creative stage in the region.

The full Tangrams Effectiveness shortlist is available for view on the website.

Early bird delegate passes are now on sale at www.spikes.asia.


MargaretKeyZeno Group has appointed Margaret Key to the new position of CEO, Zeno Asia Pacific, effective today.

In the newly-created CEO post, Key will join Zeno’s Global Leadership Team and oversee a growing staff of 135 professionals in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia as well as the network of Zeno+ partners across the region. Key brings extensive industry leadership experience throughout North and South Asia, most recently as CEO, Asia-Pacific for Burson-Marsteller.

Most recently, Key served as CEO, Asia Pacific at Burson-Marsteller, where she managed a diverse portfolio across 17 offices in eight countries. Previously, she served as MD for Edelman in Korea and Japan, and before that, held communications positions with Hyundai and Hilton in Seoul, Korea. Among her major client relationships, Key has counseled and led pan-Asia communications for Huawei, Ford Motor, Delta, Bayer and LG. She will be based in Seoul, Korea, her longtime home, with her husband and family.

Zeno’s client portfolio in APAC features world class brands such as Lenovo, Wuling Motors, Netflix, Intel, Prudential, Johnson & Johnson and Temasek. Zeno in APAC offers a range of modern communications and earned media capabilities across consumer, technology and health sectors, with deep expertise in digital and analytics.


Patricio CumminsOoyala, a leading provider of software and services that optimize the production, distribution and monetization of media, has appointed Patricio Cummins as the Vice President for Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region.

Prior to this appointment, Cummins was Ooyala’s Regional Vice President for Latin America, where he led the team to acquire customers like Sky Mexico and TVN Panama. He takes over the APJ region from Steve Davis and will be responsible for charting growth in the region and addressing media customers’ needs of delivering content to market faster and more cost-efficiently. Steve Davis has since been appointed as the Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for Ooyala’s global sales and marketing operations.

With more than 20 years of experience in the broadcast, media and communications industry, in both business and professional services roles, Cummins seems to be well positioned to take the region to a new level.


Kaltura announced the acquisition of the interactive personalized video start-up Rapt Media for an undisclosed amount.

Rapt Media’s interactive branching video technology is ideal for personalized marketing, customer education, recruitment, learning and educational video experiences. Viewers are guided through different video paths depending on their behavior or selection at each level, which supports Kaltura's mission to power any video experience and workflow.

The acquisition follows a successful partnership and integration in 2017 among companies and solidifies Kaltura’s role as the leading global provider of interactive video capabilities.

Rapt Media’s impressive roster of customers - including Mercedes, EMC Dell, Alight Solutions, and eBay- will now become Kaltura customers and get access to Kaltura’s wide range of video solutions. As Kaltura expands the breadth of its solutions for learning and development as well as customer education and marketing, Rapt Media’s branching video tools are a natural addition to the company’s existing range of video engagement capabilities, including its Interactive Video Quizzes, Editing Tools, In-Video Calls-to-Action, and more.


horangiHorangi Cyber Security just signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BEAM to help the start-up community gain a deeper understanding of cyber security and protect their businesses as they grow.

Horangi supports mid-sized businesses with a ready team of the world’s best cyber security experts to discover and interpret threats to the business, offering advice that is applicable and relevant to the businesses’ objectives.

BEAM (short for Bridging Entrepreneurs and Movers) is a global community and online platform for entrepreneurs to forge valuable connections and partnerships, as well as tap into a myriad of resources and opportunities for business. Headquartered in Malaysia, BEAM’s goals are to connect and unite existing and aspiring entrepreneurs; to foster strong collaborations and partnerships among founders, stakeholders, and media, besides creating a fun, inspiring and insightful environment for businesses to thrive.

Clearly, the impact of cyber-attacks in recent months have resulted in a paradigm shift. Organizations are moving towards a more holistic view of cyber security, making it a business priority that resonates across all core business processes to be able to scale quickly and safely.

“As companies become more digitized, they need to be able to identify the threats that can be a direct risk to their business”, Paul Hadjy, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Horangi Cyber Security emphasized, affirming to work with BEAM on a series of events that will help the startup community become more aware of these threats.


ramonMobvista, Asia's leading ad tech company, announced the appointment of Ramon Zhu as its VP of AI and Machine Learning.

Ramon is one of China’s leading experts in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. He will lead the development of new algorithms and play an integral role as Mobvista continues to grow its global footprint.

Ramon has built an impressive reputation over the past 10 years within China's fast-growing internet industry. He was the co-founder of GoSo.cn, known as "The People's Search Engine", which launched in 2010 following the withdrawal of Google from the Chinese market. Later, Ramon joined online giant Alibaba where he helped to create the personalized recommendation systems underpinning mobile apps such as Taobao (580 million users) and Tmall (over 500 million monthly users). He also won the award of 'CEO special award of Alibaba' as the leader of the 'transaction link of Taobao' project and earned 'Outstanding Algorithm of Alibaba Group' prize.

Ramon holds a PhD from The Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICT), and he has published a number of papers at the world's leading academic conferences including the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), SIGIR, and the Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence. He also acts as the PC member and Reviewer in numerous top academic conferences or journals such as Transactions On Information Systems (TOIS), Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR) and the International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM).


Bezant, a decentralized payment and service platform that helps content creators, influencers, and e-commerce merchants reach their target audiences with fast, secure, and reliable payment solutions.

The Bezant platform has been 10 months in the making, with a focus on mobile apps, games, and e-commerce primarily in emerging markets, and now brought together an impressive collection of individuals with deep experience in a number of relevant industries, such as international payments, gaming, mobile content, and cryptocurrencies.

Daesik KimThe team includes Daesik Kim, Co-Founder of Bithumb, one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchanges; and former executives and developers from Kakao, the homegrown Korean internet giant.

Bezant's current goals are three-fold:

  • Empower creators and foster creativity through the blockchain and increasing revenue from digital content with an efficient and scalable billing platform.
  • Enable more consumers, including those without bank accounts, to access and pay for a wider range of digital content - removing the barriers that prevent people from getting the content they want.
  • Drive positive social and economic change by increasing the production and consumption of digital content outside the walled gardens of global tech giants.