MANILA, FEBRUARY 27, 2013 – The Guardian has named meaningful brands advocate Christel Quek as one of its ten digital strategists to watch in 2013. Since joining Havas Media in 2012, the 22-year-old has been at the forefront of championing meaningful engagement in and out of Havas’ offices around the world.
"Being amongst other amazing planners whom I have immense respect for was both mind-blowing and humbling," commented Quek. "It’s a timely reminder that I should continue working at honing my craft, learning as much as I can and more importantly to not be complacent. I find complacency to be extremely dangerous. It limits your mind, stifles your creativity and gives you a false sense of entitlement which I never want to have. For this recognition, I must thank my family for being so incredibly supportive of my work, and of course to Havas for always giving me great opportunities to learn and grow alongside with the best and the brightest in our network."
Looking forward to the next 12 months, Quek is keeping her eye on a couple of interesting trends. One is being able to "distinguish signals from noise in the big data era and marrying the work from data scientists and translating it using great data storytellers".
If in 2012 the focus was on telling a great brand story, Quek says it’s time to shift making meaning "through an integrated experience blueprint". The industry is making the move beyond multi-platform strategy to multi-screen. "Content without adapting it for context will be less effective and efficient in an attention-deficit world where media consumption habits are so fluid."
Quek talks about real-time marketing, a term coined by Regis McKenna in 1995. She notes brand popularity explosion in the recent Super Bowl and Oscars. "However, brands need to understand that there’s a difference between pre-planned content and pushing it out during such large scale events and actually adapting and creative content live (hence the words real-time)." Quek points to brands such as Sharpie, Oreo, Walgreens, VISA and PBA for examples of brands doing well in this area.
adobo Magazine has been a witness to Quek’s digital savvy, when she came to Manila for a visit last year. Check out our exclusive interview, where she advocates meaningful brand engagement.
The Guardian‘s top 10 digital strategists to watch in 2013
1. Nicole Victor, former global head of planning at Huge (London)
2. Niccolo Rigo, strategist at Work Club (London)
3. Branislav Peric, founder and strategy lead at Blast Radius (Paris)
4. Ana Andjelic, digital strategy director at Woods Witt Dealy and Sons (New York)
5. Christel Quek, global social marketing manager at Havas Media (Singapore)
6. Rhys Hillman, digital strategist for GPY&R (Melbourne)
7. Jinal Shah, digital strategy director at JWT New York (New York)
8. Bud Caddell, senior vice president and invention director at Deustch LA (Los Angeles)
9. Mark Pollard, VP, brand strategy at Big Spaceship (New York)
10. Mike Jacobson, integrated strategist at 72andSunny (Los Angeles)
