There’s no mincing words about it. Every time someone asks me “what is your passion?”, my answer would be, “Marketing”.
To which, the response would be “Come on, that’s your profession, that’s not a passion.”
But it is. It just has always been. Here’s a little story of how that came to be.
Let’s zip back in time to the days of shoulder pads, lycra and hairspray. This was an era where men with hair longer and more lush than mine were hungry like a wolf and gave love a bad name while others just thrilled us and made doves cry.
Amidst all that arose the one and only Queen of Marketing. I was a mere 10-year-old when I chanced upon an article in Time magazine (yes, I was reading Time at that age) about some upstart singer with a penchant for flashing her belly button while gyrating like Minnie Mouse in a strip club.
Anyway, I suppose I’ve always had the rebel in me, the desire to get out of any prescriptive mould so this Madonna person appeared mighty interesting to me. Plus, I liked her songs.
So when I read about how Time magazine billed her as “the Queen of Marketing”, I simply had to know what this Marketing thing was all about.
And that influenced every decision I made for the next few decades, from what to study to where to work.
I might have started my working life as a journalist with Singapore’s main daily, The Straits Times, but I very quickly found my rhythm as a Marketer, on which I’ve built my career for the past 20 years.
I’ve led brand and marketing campaigns for companies such as Microsoft, MTV, Singtel and Worldcom, but if there’s one story I’d like to share with you, it would be about Sparky – the branding campaign I did for the telco, StarHub, which stole every Singaporean’s heart and to-date, is recognized by many as being StarHub’s most successful campaign.
In the past few years, I have been focusing on writing more. As a Writer, I have contributed to various publications such as Silverkris, Her World, Home Concepts and Wine & Dine. As an Editor, I managed the publication of Frontline magazine and I also ensured perfectly clean copy for the digital version of Silverkris.
And as a food critic, I have been on the panel for both Tatler and Wine & Dine’s yearly restaurant guides, and now, I blog about my culinary and wanderlust adventures on The Diva Eats Prata.
Most recently, I was heading the Digital Content team for a luxury lifestyle company that was looking to build their mobile app.
These days, I’m often asked if I am a marketer or a writer. The short answer is – I am both. And so, I created The Buzz Network, an agency that focuses on both marketing and content creation, because I have always believed that good content is at the heart of good marketing.
What’s the similarity between marketing and content – the audience. It should always be about who the audience is, where they are at, what they want to hear, what they need to hear.
And whether I am executing as a marketer or a content creator, that belief is at the forefront of everything I do.
There’s nothing I like more than being presented with a branding or marketing challenge and working out creative and convincing campaigns to meet my clients’ goals. Reach out and see how you can build your brand and drive your acquisition and retention goals.
”Innovation comes with courage. Courage comes with conviction. Conviction comes with foresight. All of which comes from just one person who's known to innovate, with conviction and foresight – Yasmeen.
Xavier WongFormer Creative at Batey Advertising, who worked with me on StarHub's campaigns, notably the Sparky campaign