MAM
The One Club appoints Tay Guan Hin as APAC regional director
Mumbai: The One Club for Creativity has announced that Tay Guan Hin, a long-time creative leader in Asia Pacific, has joined the global nonprofit organisation in the newly created position of APAC regional director for awards, programs, and partnerships.
The addition of Guan Hin to this new role represents a major commitment by The One Club to significantly grow its presence and level of industry support in APAC. He will be responsible for elevating all of the club’s awards, programming, partnerships, and membership in the region, primarily focusing on growing the ONE Asia Creative Awards and supporting a thriving regional creative community.
He will also enhance the organisation’s visibility by establishing strategic partnerships with agencies, brands, production companies, creative associations, schools, and media in APAC, and developing regional events and educational programs.
Guan Hin joins The One Club from BBDO Singapore, where he was creative chairman and a BBDO Asia Creative Council member. In addition to founding TGH Collective, a successful independent creative boutique agency, his experience includes serving in regional and global agencies such as Wunderman Thompson, Grey, Leo Burnett, and Saatchi & Saatchi for blue chip clients like Visa, Unilever, Audi, HSBC, Nestle, Shell, Abbott Nutrition, and Johnson & Johnson.
He has also authored the best-selling Penguin book “COLLIDE”, presented at TEDx conferences, served as president of Asia Professional Speakers, and currently sits on The One Club’s international board of directors.
“The appointment of Guan is pivotal in expanding our presence and support in APAC”, said The One Club CEO Kevin Swanepoel. “We’ve had a strong relationship with him for many years: he’s a board member, served on our awards juries, hosted Portfolio Night in Singapore, and was featured in our popular ‘A Creative Perspective’ video series. Guan is a recognised creative leader in the region who is ideally suited for this opportunity, and we’re excited to have him on the team.”
“Having spent years in global network agencies, I’ve seen firsthand the incredible talent we have across the Asia Pacific region,” said Hin. “I look forward to bringing our creative community even closer, building on the strong foundation we’ve established, and exploring new ways to inspire, connect, and innovate together through meaningful partnerships and programs.”
In addition to working on ONE Asia, he will also promote The One Club’s leading global awards: The One Show, ADC Annual Awards, Type Directors Club TDC competition and scholarships, TDC Ascenders, Young Ones Student Awards, Young Guns, Next Creative Leaders, and ONE Screen Short Film Festival.
Ongoing club programming with growth potential in APAC includes Portfolio Night, and initiatives from the club’s creative development department, such as ONE School, ONE Creator Lab, Executive Creative Summit, Creative Leaders Retreat, Brand-Side creative conference for in-house agency teams, and others.
Guan Hin will be based in Singapore, work directly with The One Club-APAC team in Shanghai, and report to Swanepoel in New York.
MAM
Madison World to launch AI platform M BrAIn for media planning
Agency group invests about $1 million as it shifts to AI driven growth planning.
MUMBAI: If media planning once ran on spreadsheets and gut instinct, the next chapter may run on algorithms and curiosity. Madison World is preparing to roll out the first version of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Madison M BrAIn in early April, as the independent agency group accelerates its transition toward AI driven planning and product led media services.
The platform, expected to involve an investment of around $1 million, is designed to reshape how the agency approaches strategy by combining internal knowledge, external data sources and advanced AI models into a single intelligence ecosystem.
According to Madison Media, OOH and Hiveminds partner and group CEO Ajit Varghese the initiative forms part of a larger structural rethink within the organisation. “Traditionally agencies built frameworks around media planning and allocation. We are redesigning that structure into what we call a Growth Planning System (GPS),” Varghese said.
The shift reflects a growing belief that effective media strategy must begin earlier in the decision making process. Instead of jumping directly to channel allocation, planners must first decode the market itself identifying consumer barriers, purchase triggers and the core challenges facing a brand.
Once those insights are mapped, agencies can build clearer growth agendas for clients and design media strategies that connect more closely with business outcomes.
To support that approach, Madison has built Madison M BrAIn as what it describes as a human AI cognitive ecosystem. Acting as a central intelligence hub, the platform aggregates proprietary insights alongside external data sources and large language models, enabling planners to access deeper market intelligence before building campaign strategies.
Varghese said one of the core objectives is to democratise knowledge across the organisation. “In the past, this level of understanding was largely available to senior leaders or experienced strategists. With Madison M BrAIn, even a junior planner should be able to access the same intelligence and approach clients with a far more informed perspective,” he said.
The agency has already implemented the new planning philosophy internally and completed three months of testing for the AI platform, with early trials showing encouraging results in terms of learning capability and system performance.
While the first version relied on global large language models, Madison is now developing its own proprietary Small Language Model (SLM) to serve as the core of the M BrAIn ecosystem.
“The SLM will be able to read global LLMs, but the LLMs cannot read the SLM,” Varghese explained. “That ensures all the intelligence we build remains within the Madison ecosystem and strengthens our proprietary knowledge base.”
The first version of Madison M BrAIn is expected to go live in early April, with a more refined version targeted by the end of June. Over time, the platform will integrate additional external data streams and APIs including consumer insight platforms, social listening tools and client datasets.
These integrations are expected to enhance the system’s learning capability and enable it to generate increasingly sophisticated strategic recommendations.
Although the platform is currently being deployed for internal use, Madison sees potential for it to evolve into a licensable product in the future.
“At the moment, our focus is to stabilise and strengthen M BrAIn internally. But over time there is potential for this to become a product that could be licensed externally,” Varghese said.
The AI platform is also part of a wider technology transformation underway at the agency group. Alongside M BrAIn, Madison is building a broader digital infrastructure called the Catalyst operating system, which aims to integrate operational processes, data and product platforms into a unified ecosystem.
This broader technology stack could require an additional $1 million to $1.5 million investment over time, though spending will be phased and reviewed regularly.
“We are evaluating progress every three months and prioritising the most critical capabilities first,” Varghese said.
Madison expects the full AI and operating ecosystem to be fully functional within 12 to 18 months, positioning the agency to combine human strategy with machine intelligence as the advertising industry enters its next data driven phase.
