JWT and Mirum debut The Social Team to bridge gaps

The Social Team will be headed up Ivan Ng and Kimberley Olsen, who joined Mirum in January 2015 to set up a specialist department in order to drive the agency’s social business.

Ng, who has been appointed head of social, will take on a more strategic role while Olsen will focus on business development across the region. The pair will report to Nanda Ivens, Asia Pacific CEO of Mirum, and to Peter Womersley, CEO of JWT Singapore.

Speaking to Campaign Asia-Pacific, Olsen said that the goal of the unit was to act as a “bridge” between the two agencies.

“JWT has a strong heritage in content with in-house production capabilities while Mirum is known for its digital transformation work,” she added. “By combining these specialities into a single unit, we will be able to offer better support to clients.”

The 12-person team comprises a dedicated staff of writers, designers, analysts and strategists drawn from both agencies. It will continue to service existing clients across both agencies, while working in tandem with account teams across both agencies to expand its client roster.

Ng said that the key role to be played by the new unit is to amplify content generated in a landscape increasingly dominated by digital channels.

“This is where we come in,” he said. “To figure out how best to push out content on all channels, which these days are 80 percent digital to amplify campaigns. It’s about how we leverage existing tools and analytics to produce more reactive content and capture the opportunities in social conversations and buzz.”

Olsen added that the unit’s formation is the start of a more aggressive and focused offering aimed at landing new business accounts. Existing clients it is currently servicing include Crabtree & Evelyn, American Tourister, Samsonite, Dulux Paint, CocoLife, Kit Kat and Berocca.

The unit’s new focus lies on building communities that aim “to connect people on a deeper, emotional level to brands”, using both creative content and data to engage and convert these communities into passionate brand advocates.

Olsen pointed out that the biggest challenge for brands today is how to do more with their communities.

“The challenge lies in getting to know their communities better in terms of how they consume content and what their habits are,” she said. “Brands for a long time were just focused on getting fans and likes and may have realised they are not doing anything with these communities they’ve built up.”

Now is on how best to interact with fans on a regular basis, and how to turn these interactions into sustained conversations and turn fans into advocates, she added.

In a statement, Ivens described the move as creating "synergies" for clients. “It made sense, from the client’s point of view, to bring together a ‘best of’ team to deliver the social media strategy and content they need,” he added.

Womersley added that The Social Team had been set up in response to "the increasing clamour from clients" for a specialist team of experts who use data to inform content planning and manage real time engagement communications.  

“Brands are finding it increasingly challenging to cut through the morass of information available in the social world and I am incredibly excited by the unique service this new venture will offer,” added Womersley.