Mumbrella Asia reveals judges for 2016 awards

The judging line-up has been revealed for the Mumbrella Asia Awards 2016.

The panel, which is made up of a mixture of brand marketers, media owners, branding experts, recruiters, pitch doctors and consultants, will be led by Pratik Thakar, head of creative content and design excellence, ASEAN and Asia Pacific, Coca-Cola, as jury chairman.

Thakar, formerly a senior strategist on the agency side of the business for the likes of Grey, McCann, Saatchi & Saatchi and Lowe, is three years into his role leading content creation and advertising for the soft drinks brand across the region.

Among his recent work was the popular ‘Share a feeling’ campaign across Southeast Asia, where emoticons were placed on the labels of bottles to encourage young people to express and share their feelings with a Coke.

He leads a panel of 45 judges to assess the region’s bravest, most innovative and credible work, the best companies, and the best people.

The marketers among them include Mie-Leng Wong, the global head of brand for Tiger Beer, which appointed a new agency last week, the CMO of Parkway Pantai Hospitals and APPIES chairman Alvin Neo, the newly appointed head of digital transformation at StarHub, Rod Strother, and Cheryl Goh, the regional head of fast-growing Southeast Asian cab hailing app GrabTaxi.

Two of the region’s biggest digital media owners are on the jury, with Neil Stewart, APAC head of agency for Facebook, and Google agency business leads Aaron Boekestein and Chloe Sasson.

Also joining the panel is Valerie Cheng, one of Singapore’s top creative directors, who is to move from J. Walter Thompson to Facebook.

From the pitch doctors and consultancy side, Richard Bleasdale, the regional head of Roth Observatory, which managed the recent Singapore Tourism Board pitch, the Asia head of TrinityP3 Mark Bowling, Leela Nair, the regional boss of Ebiquity and Greg Paull and Shufen Goh of R3, are also judging this year’s awards.

Anthony J James, who recently left DDB where he was head of innovation to return to a consultancy he runs, is also on the panel.

Recruiters include Charlie Thomas, the head of creative and media recruitment firm The Talent Business, Emma Osborne, head of Aspire Asia, Robert Williams Jnr of Asia Media Search, and Priya Bala from Font.

The full list of judges for the Mumbrella Asia Awards 2016:

• Neil Stewart, Facebook, Head of agency, APAC
• Cheryl Goh, GrabTaxi, Group VP of marketing
• Hari Shankar, Paypal, Head of digital acquisition, APAC
• Hui Keng Ang, Sony Pictures Television Asia, SVP & GM
• Aileen Yuan, Standard Chartered Bank (China) Limited, Regional head of corporate, institutional and commercial banking marketing
• Richard Cotton, Coca-Cola, Content and Creative excellence director
• Mie-Leng Wong, Tiger Beer, Global brand director
• Chloe Sasson, Google, Agency business lead, WPP
• Zeph Stuart, Microsoft, GM Xbox, Asia
• Kimberly Nelson, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Senior director, global marketing, Enterprise Services Asia Pacific & Japan
• Anthony Hearne, Outbrain, Regional director, Southeast Asia, India & new markets
• Gaurav Gupta, Kimberly Clark, Marketing director ASEAN
• Gian de Rose, HSBC, Marketing manager cards and consumer assets
• Edward Pank, Warc, Managing director, Asia Pacific
• Wendy Hogan, migme, COO
• Rod Strother, Starhub, VP of digital transformation
• Alvin Neo Peng Choon, Parkway Pantai Hospitals, Chief marketing officer
• ShuFen Goh, R3, Principal
• Aaron Boekestein, Google, Agency business lead, APAC
• Aniruddha Haldar, TVS Motor Company, Scooters marketing head, custodian corporate brand & media head
• Chris Reed, Black Marketing, Global CEO & founder
• Dave McCaughan, Bibliosexual, Storyteller
• Emma Osborne, Aspire, Managing director, Asia
• Jacqueline Cheong, IHS, Senior director, global technology industry marketing
• Mark Bowling, TrinityP3, Senior consultant
• Richard Curtis, FutureBrand, CEO, Australia, New Zealand & Southeast Asia
• Zayn Khan, Dragon Rouge, CEO Southeast Asia
• Shailendra Katyal, Lenovo,  Director, home and small business, India & South Asia
• Stu Lloyd, Hotheads Innovation Training, Training director & chief hothead
• Vernon Vasu, ReFUEL4, Chief marketing officer
• Greg Paull, R3, Principal & Co-founder
• Mark Ingrouille, Thoughful Media Group, EVP International Operations
• Richard Bleasdale, Roth Observatory International, Regional managing partner, Asia Pacific
• Robert Williams Jnr, Asia Media Search, Principal & director
• Rita Nguyen, Jzoo, Founder & CEO
• Priya Bala, font, Regional director
• Charlie Thomas, The Talent Business, Managing director, Asia
• Ian Tyler, Xpand, Group managing director, digital, technology, media & communications
• Rod Strother, StarHub, VP of digital transformation
• Leela Nair, Ebiquity, Managing director, Southeast Asia
• Roche Vandenberghe, FWD Life Insurance Philippines, Head of brand, digital marketing & corporate communications
• Mark Fong, City Developments Limited,  SVP, head branding & strategic marketing
• Ruth Rowan, Dimension Data, Group executive, marketing
• Lawrence Wang, AIG, Social media & digital director

The deadline to enter is 7 January, with late entries accepted until 14 January.

New categories this year include the Mumbrella Award for Collaboration, PR Idea of the Year, Media Idea of the Year, Social Idea of the Year and Under-30 Achiever of the Year.

The categories are:

• Mumbrella Award for Bravery
• Mumbrella Award for Culture
• Mumbrella Award for Insight
• Mumbrella Award for Innovation
• Mumbrella Award for Data-driven Marketing
• Mumbrella Award for Collaboration
• PR idea of the year
• Media idea of the year
• Social idea of the year
• Pro bono campaign of the year
• Campaign of the year
• Ad of the year
• Content marketing strategy of the year
• Marketing technology company of the year
• Media sales team of the year
• Under-30 achiever of the year
• Agency leader of the year

Southeast Asia

• Creative agency of the year
• Media agency of the year
• Specialist agency of the year
• Emerging agency of the year
• PR agency of the year

South Asia

• Creative agency of the year
• Media agency of the year
• Specialist agency of the year
• Emerging agency of the year
• PR agency of the year

Greater China

• Creative agency of the year
• Media agency of the year
• Specialist agency of the year
• Emerging agency of the year
• PR agency of the year

Click here for more details on how to enter.

The winners are to be announced on 17 March at a soon to be announced venue in Singapore.