When Geoff Tan lastly closed his chapter at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) final yr, he ended 34 years of reminiscences with the broadcasting firm. Throughout his time there, he helmed quite a lot of portfolios, from head of content material advertising and marketing and MD, luxurious and customized publishing to VP of advert gross sales and advert director. Tan instructed MARKETING-INTERACTIVE beforehand that he had an absolute blast and loved each minute of his time at SPH. Just a few months later, Tan joined B2B property administration platform Really Singapore as its chief concepts officer, taking with him a long time value of expertise in advertising and marketing, advertising and advert gross sales.
While Tan may need spent a major quantity of his profession in media, it was not the primary trade he began out in. In truth, he was first an advert man, coming into the world of advertising as an account govt with Meridian Advertising. In the most recent podcast episode of Life After Advertising, Tan stated his entry into the adland was an unintentional one. Find out what the blissful accident was and his ideas on his time at SPH.
Listen to the total episode right here.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Why did you select to affix Really Singapore?
Tan: I left SPH after a 34-year tenure throughout a number of portfolios. July final yr was a time of reflection as to be what I could possibly be doing post-SPH. In that interval of some months, I used to be approached by three firms to contemplate taking over a relationship with them. But I felt that two out of the three have been eager to take from me when it comes to both the experiences that I’ve gone by way of or the companions that I’m acquainted with when it got here to enterprise improvement and opening up new enterprise relationships for them.
There was just one firm – Really Singapore – that provided me a proposition the place I might mainly give and likewise take, in a means. Give as in primarily based on my experiences, and take and be taught from Really Singapore the truth that it was additionally within the space that I used to be not as acquainted with, reminiscent of AI and sensible tech. I felt this was an space that I may benefit from when it comes to learnings after my profession within the media publishing enterprise.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Why did you select to enter the true property trade as an alternative of, say, the ride-hailing or eCommerce trade for instance?
Tan: I’ve all the time been the champion of the adage: “Don’t simply assume out of the field, burn the damned field”. For the very cause being, if you happen to assume out of the field and the field remains to be in view and also you hit some roadblocks, reminiscent of administration selections and cumbersome infrastructures, you may look behind and assume that if this factor isn’t going by way of, after a couple of of this knockbacks, I can quietly climb again into the field and simply exist in SPH, and nonetheless receives a commission for what you do with out ever reinventing something new ever once more.
So my technique of sharing this with my workers and enthusing myself with this adage is the truth that if I undertake the mentality of taking that danger and burning that field and leaving that behind me, with out the safety blanket to climb again into, then even when we hit the roadblock and issues do not go nicely, you simply should search for new alternatives and never return to the outdated algorithm.
When I used to be approached with this proposition, firstly I knew it was selling property expertise and I knew this was the way in which it was structured, however I by no means thought that this might all the time stay as it’s. Because startups are all the time augmenting themselves, and there is not any stopping them in seeing alternatives in different areas or discovering some insights down the street someplace and pivoting to these insights ought to these insights be capable of fine-tune the way in which the product is being propositioned.
I learnt that in my stint at SPH once I was mentoring the startup firms within the SPH’s Plug and Play accelerator programme, which we labored with the builders at Silicon Valley and the authorities right here in Singapore. When I used to be mentoring, I had quite a lot of alternatives to have the ability to sit with the start-up entrepreneurs themselves over at One-North, having the ability to see how they iterate and alter their propositions both by way of analysis or other forms of insights they obtained from the bottom.
I’ve taken that in my learnings as nicely into this new firm, and I additionally know that the propositions of this new firm won’t ever all the time be the identical. We are iterations every day when it comes to tweaking the components that we apply, to have the ability to service the requirement from the market.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: You stated you joined advertising by chance. What was the blissful accident that landed you within the advert world?
Tan: When I graduated, my first need was to affix a market analysis firm. At that cut-off date, I actually wished to get into qualitative and quantitative analysis. I had utilized to an organization known as Survey Research Singapore, and once I obtained in my first interview with it, the very first thing the corporate requested me was whether or not I might do qualitative interviews in Chinese. And as a result of I had been away for the longest time, my Mandarin was not the perfect, I used to be not given the chance as a result of that individual function that they’d obtainable was extra a qualitative researcher. I used to be speculated to have carried out focus teams in Mandarin, and since I misplaced out, the subsequent finest place I might discover was an account govt place in Meridian Advertising, which was the place I began my profession.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Will you ever return to advertising?
Tan: I do not assume I’m ever out of advertising. At Really Singapore, we now have digital screens located at condominium tasks throughout Singapore. We’ve mainly tied up a partnership between Xaxis and GroupM to champion the price of these screens. COVID-19 has accelerated the visitors throughout viewability of those screens as a result of persons are working extra from their properties moderately than from the places of work, that the condos with these digital screens are capable of additionally take within the advertising propositions which are alongside the display.
Advertising has all the time been in my blood and I do not assume it’s going to ever go away.
Currently, even on this proposition the place it is extra software-based, I’m nonetheless trying into how connectivity with prospects of selection might be enhanced. and really quickly, after we introduce our app that helps condominium residents e-book their amenities and talk amongst themselves, that individual cell display will change into one other alternative of media; and in some unspecified time in the future in time advertising. At the tip of the day, I feel, an advert man is all the time an advert man at coronary heart.
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