PR and marketing

One of Australia’s leading digital marketing agencies, Next Digital, has successfully acquired South East Asian digital marketing agency, FutureLab Asia.  With an ideas led approach and focus on social media, FutureLab Asia was identified as a natural fit for Next Digital to continue its growth strategy in Asia.

FutureLab Asia’s social media strategy skills will be integrated into Next Digital’s service offering across its three Australian offices and its three Asian offices in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Singapore.  

The acquisition will strengthen Next Digital’s ability to create sophisticated social strategies for its clients in addition to the core digital strategy, creative, web, ecommerce, mobile and digital marketing services it offers.

“Next Digital undertook extensive research into digital marketing businesses in the ASEAN region and found FutureLab Asia to be a great business, with world class talent and services that really complement what we already offer,” says Andrew Burke, Chief Executive Officer for Next Digital.

“This acquisition will enable Next Digital to improve the way we deliver on the social media needs of our clients, and reinforces our focus on becoming a creative leader in Australia and the wider region.”

FutureLab Asia has a comprehensive portfolio of clients including well known brands such as Maxis, Johnson & Johnson, AirAsia and 7-Eleven.

“Their idea processes, creative thinking and ability to execute amazing and award-winning campaigns will add that extra level of firepower to Next Digital,” explains Mr Burke. “Acquiring FutureLab Asia is a key step in our growth strategy and follows our continued strong growth in China.”

The founders of FutureLab Asia, Janet Teo and Vic Sithasanan, will be joining Next Digital, and heading up two separate locations in South East Asia: Janet Teo is CEO of Next Digital Kuala Lumpur and Vic Sithasanan is CEO of Next Digital Singapore.

“We are exceptionally proud to have these two talented and passionate professionals driving the Next Digital business in the ASEAN region,” states Mr Burke.

With over 15 years experience with global brands they will be the driving force behind Next Digital in South East Asia.

“Next Digital is developing a strong network across the region, has great talent across its offices and focuses on developing exceptional work. We are all really excited to be part of this vibrant company and feel a close kinship because we share similar values,” adds Mr Sithasanan.

“Being part of Next Digital brings huge benefits to our current clients as we expand our digital offering in the Asian market, and provides us with the scale to compete with global agencies.”   

Effective today, FutureLab Asia will be rebranded as Next Digital.

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About Next Digital
Next Digital is a leader in creating successful digital strategies for clients throughout the Asia Pacific region.  They combine exceptional marketing thinking, regional understanding and technical firepower to develop and deliver broad digital programs.

Their love for all things digital has been going strong for more than 16 years. That journey has helped them hone their delivery and engagement approach, and has shaped how they innovate and keep in front of a fast changing digital space.

Next Digital is a true full service digital agency with over 170 talented digital specialists working throughout offices in Brisbane, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney. www.nextdigital.com

@www Group Managing Director, Josh Frith said, “We believe ‘above the line’ and ‘below the line’ thinking is out of step with contemporary audiences and marketers need a new approach for increasing engagement with consumers.”

“In the past digital has focused on supporting above the line and below the line. Audiences have made a significant move into social environments and the focus is now on building relationships.”

“@www shifted to reflect this change and we began heavily concentrating on engaging with audiences and aligning brands with this engagement process.”

 “Dubz.tv came about a couple of years ago from our work with media groups in the UK and the need for branded content approaches to incorporate their sponsors from on-air.” 

“The Dubs is simply no longer a traditional web development agency, it hasn’t been for some time – hence why we changed the name; as digital has diversified and stitched deeply into marketing we found far more of our work started with defining strategies rather than just the production approach alone.”

 The Dubs is a long standing indie in the digital industry with offices in Sydney and London. The agency has 15 years experience working with brands, content producers and their audiences such as ING Direct, AMP Capital and Bayer Animal Health in Australia and media groups such as the BBC, ITV and FremantleMedia in the United Kingdom. 

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Sydney Digital agency @www in conjunction with its multiplatform sister agency Dubz.tv has developed a digital strategy to promote the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, taking place at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar in October.

The Doha Tribeca Film Festival is the product of a partnership formed by New York’s Tribeca Film Festival and the Government of Qatar.

Founding partner, Justin Buckwell said the scope was to develop a strategy to promote the festival not only to Qataris’ locally, but to film fans internationally, given the association with the renowned Tribeca Film Festival.

“We conducted extensive research to understand Qataris’ involvement and preferences regarding film, technology and the internet,” said Mr Buckwell.

“From this research we decided on an approach heavily focused on the hi quality video and social media to drive awareness and entice audience participation.”

“Film trailers as well as ongoing factual entertainment and news segments are provided by Al Jazeera’s independent film program, The Fabulous Picture Show.”

“In addition to video, we have included social media channels, including Flickr, Twitter posts and Facebook Connect increasing international audiences and participation.”

“Our strategy aims to not only create a buzz around the film festival for the duration of the event but to entice traffic to the www.dohatribecafilm.com website all year round,” said Mr Buckwell.

@www will be measuring the success of the campaign by the number of visits to the www.dohatribecafilm.com website, video views, downloads, viral referrals and website reviews.

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About @www
@www Digital is a strategic and commercial digital partner to its clients. The agency marries creative with technical to deliver client campaigns grounded to commercial and audience needs. And being a veteran of the industry with 13 years under its belt the agency has delivered more than 3,500 projects for clients across Australia, Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and the United Kingdom. Other @www blue chip accounts include BHP Billiton, ING Direct, AMP Capital, Engin, Seven Network and Brookfield Multiplex.

About dubz.tv
Dubz.tv as part of the @www Digital group draws on over 13 years of experience working internationally in collaboration with broadcasters, content producers and brands to create big ideas that inspire conversation and stories that generate buzz and excitement online.

Dubz.tv is managed and staffed by a creative team skilled in developing new ways of presenting and distributing engaging broadband websites, online video & social media programming.

Dubz.tv is a team of specialist staff in Sydney and London with backgrounds from TV commissioning, network advertising agencies, broadband entertainment, mobile technology, social media and UX Architecture. Clients include BBC, FremantleMedia, Endemol and ITV.