PR Academy

6th PR Academy Annual Conference 2006
"Markets and Brands: Positioning for the 21st Century "
23 - 24 May 07

Our distinguished speakers with Our Guest-of-Honor, Mr. Tharman Shamugaratnam, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Finance.

Minister Tharman set the tone for the two-day conference with his opening address which among many issues, highlighted Brand Singapore and its quintessential qualities.

Mr. Ho Kwon Ping, Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd stimulated an interesting debate with his contrarian view of marketing, branding and his thoughts on how he sees the latest buzzwords.

Mr. Benjamin Tan , Deputy CEO at the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), revealed the secrets of how ITE transformed itself into a world class institution of cutting edge learning to meet the needs of the new IT and technical world.

MD of TeamAsia, Mr. Michael Hamlin, provides rare insights, with great video examples, of the brand strategies of some of Asia’s fastest growing brands.

Advertising – often seen by many as a financial guzzler – found its voice and claimed its rightful place in brand building and marketing through Mr. Palani Pillai, CEO of Crush Advertising Pte Ltd’s passionate presentation and vivid video examples.

Mr. Michael Koh, CEO of National Heritage Board, mesmerized the delegates with his witty informative nuggets of how NHB keeps heritage alive and retains the audience interest and loyalty through an integrated development of brand identitites and brand culture for its various museums.

Build communities of followers for your brand on the Net? Mr. Callum Laing, founder and CEO of MobyElite , shared how this could be done to increase customer value.

Mr Micahael Hamlin, Ms Sulosana Karthigasu, MD (PR Academy), Mr Niam Chiang Meng, (PS, MCYS), Minister Tharman, and Ms Koh Lin-Net (DS, Infocom, MICA).

A section of the audience on the first day of the conference sit engrossed, distilling the information that was pouring in throughout the day.

Keynote Speaker for the 2nd day of the Conference, Asia’s top marketing guru, Mr. Hermawan Kartajaya, CEO of Mark Plus and President of World Marketing Association, convinced delegates, with his passionate presentation and case examples that marketing can, and should be principle-based.

Ian Mckee, CEO and strategist for Vocanic, shared his perspectives on how viral marketing can be used to improve a company’s strategies and influences with stakeholders.

Dr. Josephine Previte, University of Queensland, expounding the many opportunities and challengers for social marketing through effective usage of the Internet.

Dr. K Vijaya, Director of Corporate Marketing & Communications Division of the Health Promotion Boards, lets the audience in on how the board manages recent health issues that Singaporeans face., through its marketing, branding and education programmes.

Ms. Shauan Roolvink, Founder and MD of Brandhub, shared tips on how effective branding can create value, drive sustainable growth and improve margins.

Dato. Tony Fernandes, founder and CEO of AirAsia, kept the audience transfixed and often tickling their funny bone with how he made Air Asia a household name, and the secret behind the company’s tagline, “Now Everyone Can Fly”.

One for the album - Mr. Fernandes and Mr. Laing with Ms Sulosana, MD PR Academy.

MD/PRAcademy with Tony Fernandes, Palani Pillai, Patrick Daniel and Callum Laing.

Conference delegates sharing a laugh with Dato Tony Fernandes.

As Chair of the Panel Discussion, Mr. Patrick Daniel, Editor-In-Chief of The Straits Times, was a master at drawing from our panelists little nuggets of information that could have been easily missed.His inimitable provocative comments ,designed to elicit great debate, contributed to a lively debate and helped to draw out many facets of marketing and branding and advertising and their inter-connected roles.

Our audience listening intently to Mr. Ian Mckee.

Ms. Sulosana with Mr. Jimmy Tay, CEO of Hill & Knowlton, Singapore.