Adoi also recently completed the launch of Adoi in Mandarin, in a tie-up with MCIL and/or Sin Chew. The initiative includes the delivery of Adoi in Mandarin in a portal developed by MCIL and also a weekly newsletter targeted at Mandarin speaking audiences.

Visit www.digi.com.my/prepaidsoeasy to get famous!

Ogilvy Malaysia’s entry for Guinness Anchor picks up a Bronze in Kancils under Digital Campaign. The Facebook application developed by Amphibia Digital.

Link >>

The book which will only be sold online, and also during the launch and roadshows is made available for pre-orders. Books bought before 15 Oct, will be personally signed by Citizen Nades.

Within the first couple of days since the launch of the site, the traffic has crossed over 2,000 pageviews, and the traffic to the Online store has also been most encouraging. Already dozens of copies have been sold. Deliveries are expected to take place some time next week.

Visit www.citizen-nades.com for more details.

A variety of web initiatives will be deployed to achieve the goals of the programme, which includes Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, a series of email and online advertising campaigns. Amphibia Digital will be entask to deliver the various campaigns and web initiatives throughout the next 2 months leading up to the event.

"We are proud to be associated with the YES2009 movement, which involves youths across Southeast Asia and Asia", commented Harish Subramaniam, Deputy CEO of Amphibia Digital and Co-Director of Digital Development for YES2009. "The mass deployment of various web tools and social applications will be key to our campaign, and it also underlines our emphasis towards to future i.e. communicating with the youths and the application of these mediums."

YES2009 will feature legendary speakers such as Sir Bob Geldof, Bollywood Icon Amitabh Bachchan, Former Chess World Champion Garry Kasparov, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone, Facebook’s Market Development director Rand Zuckerberg and many more.

Visit the YES2009 site >>

In its early years, it was one of the few Malaysian web solutions companies to develop and retail its own Content Management System (CMS). Amphibia Digital previously known as Digital Commerce (M) Sdn Bhd is now an established interactive company specialising in web development and design. Andrea Mathew speaks to Gary Tay and Harish Subramaniam, CEO and deputy CEO Amphibia Digital.

Amphibia seems to connotate ‘living a double life’. Can you explain the meaning of the name?

“We would still look back and laugh about it, the reason why we chose the ‘frog’ as our logo and mascot for a digital agency. And we each have our own interpretation of it. If you ask me, in Chinese culture we believe, when frogs come to your home, it’s interpreted as ‘good fortune’. Also, frogs are among the few robust creatures that can be found in every continent of the world, they are survivors and most frogs are able to leap 20 times their body length. Something that we see as attributes of the brand,” explains Gary in his typical lengthy-logical style. Harish rationale however is driven by a simple line, “Live long, leap far.” He adds, “The fact we transformed from Digital Commerce Malaysia (DCM) to Amphibia Digital, alphabetically we moved a couple of notches up in the Malaysian Advertising Directory (MAD).”

Whatever the explanation, the goals of the re-branding have met its objective – to stand out from the crowd. “Over the 8 years in business, we have transformed from a web application solutions business model to a digital agency. The transformation took its first step forward with the capture of Harish in mid 2007, who was then heading Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide digital interactive. After a 9-month gestation period, finally I managed to convince Harish to join me. Harish was on board March 2008,” narrates Gary.

The Amphibians
Many refer to both of you as the pillars of Amphibia Digital. Can you give us some background information on your careers in the field of new media?

“I started my career in advertising from local ad agencies in the late 80s to multinationals like Backer Spielvogel Bates (BSB) and Leo Burnett in the early 2000s, spent 12 years in the industry moving on to head the Interactive unit, Leo Burnett Interactive in his final 2 years in Leo Burnett. We were among the first movers in the Internet space,” recalls Gary. “We were already running online campaigns for Sony and Celcom in 1997 and 1998 on Alta Vista Skali, Lycos and Yahoo!”

Harish narrates a longer story of which started in 1997 with Poppe Tyson/Modem Media, “Poppe Tyson was then one of the leading Interactive companies globally which setup in Malaysia. I later joined NeuroWeb where I worked on Maxis, BonusLink, Shell, AIG, and Celcom. It wasn’t until 2000, that Gary and I first met when we teamed up as colleagues in Leo Burnett Interactive. I took over from Gary, and ran the interactive unit for eight years before we teamed up again at DCM (or Amphibia Digital).”

Harish, during his tenure at ARC Worldwide digital interactive, garnered a reputation for growing the business, hiring key talents and winning awards in Kancils, DMAM and Asia Interactive Awards. “I worked on clients such as Malaysia Airlines, Petronas, Philip Morris, Yahoo!, Johnnie Walker and many other local and multinational clients. I was involved in Formula 1 related events developing digital interactive solutions and developed probably the only Formula One and MotoGP 3D motion simulators.”

Regardless, both Gary and Harish were early starters in the Internet space and have both worked on various local and multinational brands along the way.

How would you describe your business?

“In one sentence, I’d say: ‘Internet Grease Monkeys’. Over the years we have delivered hundreds of sites and micro sites, from online business models; strategies to online campaigns. We have worked with MBF Cards, Bonuslink, Samsung Malaysia, YTL Hotels, E&O Hotels, Iris Corporation and today, we work on brands such as Al Rajhi Bank, Aeon Credit Service, Subang Skypark, Qualitas Medical, 4As and Adoimagazine. Most recently, we picked up DiGi’s Happy Prepaid, INTI Education Group, Schick Malaysia, including taking assignments from Ogilvy One, MRM and Bates141. The simple truth is we focus on delivery,” says Gary.

“The key to the internet is to ‘simplicity’, while some brands and marketers even agencies look towards applying flashy complex technologies, the mass market is still fairly elementary. Get back to basics, fulfill your fundamentals. Content is king. Being current is a currency,” advises Harish.

What’s been keeping Amphibia busy for the last 12 months and an what are you plans for the months ahead?

Between the both of them, Gary and Harish take pride in the hard work that has brought them to where they are today. They say, than securing new business and day-to-day work, it has been a hectic 12-months. Re-structuring the business is an on-going exercise outside multiple initiatives that are happening concurrently.

“The transformation of Amphibia Digital into a leading digital agency has been happening in stages. In the past 6-months, we have been working hard on building our horizontals such as building key pillars in account management, creative, content and development. In the coming 6-months, we’re now concentrating on each vertical, strengthening our talent pool, in terms of building skills, knowledge and quality,” says Harish.

Gary picks up where Harish leaves off to describe the events that have brought Amphibia to where they are today. “Besides the principal agency, we re-launched Amphibia Labs as a Digital Media Agency. Online advertising veteran, Janet Chan of Tyraco took on the position of CEO, joined by Thomas Verghese (ex-Planner from Ogilvy and Leo Burnett). The new outfit manages online media buying and planning, including data management and online advertising sales representation. They are the official online ad sales representative for Adoimagazine.com, Marketing magazine, MySimplifieds and the database management service for the MyTV3 database.”

The biggest challenge for Amphibia as explained by Gary and Harish, is to shift the perception of Amphibia Digital from being ‘internet grease monkeys’ to becoming a homegrown digital-agency-force to be reckoned with.

The campaign targeted to help announce the 1 million free minutes given away by Happy Prepaid was conceptualized by the creative team in Amphibia. The chatty Sir Talk-A-Lot, a persona of medieval character Sir Lancelot, ventures in a realm where he sends a message of goodwill and spread happiness in his little realm.

Visit the Happy.com.my/1million site >>

ADOIMAGAZINE.COM also features daily updates on its Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/adoimagazine). The Adoi Blog (blog.adoimagazine.com) has recently been revamped alongside the new ADOIMAGAZINE.COM look.

"As a niche advertising & marketing portal, Adoimagazine.com has readers from over 118 countries, 1,324 cities from around the world. While the majority of the traffic comes from Malaysia and the South East Asia region, Adoimagazine.com is slowly growing its digital footprint.", according to Gary Tay. "Ham and I have a unique collaboration in building the Adoimagazine.com franchise. Its an online business model built on trust and passion for advertising industry. Our appreciation for good work, creativity and innovation makes us a unique business partnership".

ADOIMAGAZINE.COM has over 30,000 monthly unique visitors and over 55,000 monthly pageviews. Which excludes traffic to its 4 other online properties; Adoi Blog, Adoi Indonesia, JOBS@marketing and Adoi’s Online Shop.

"Having worked with other financial services such as MBF Cards, CIMB Private Banking, Aeon Credit Service over the years, we have had the opportunity to work with a diverse group of financial services MNCs and the experience has enabled us to apply our learnings.", commented Harish Subramaniam, Deputy CEO – Amphibia Digital. "It is a privilege for us to work with a brand such as Al Rajhi Bank, where unlike most International banking institutions where their online templates are derived or adapted from their Global templates and guidelines, with Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia the online templates are created here locally, by local talents and experience. And we thank them for this opportunity."

Amphibia Digital has been working with Al Rajhi Bank since its launch here in Malaysia over 2 years ago.

Here’s how some of the participants look like with their choice beards.

Amphibia Digital working jointly with Neomedia, are the first company to bring in these series of Samsung touchscreen panels which allow participants to interact and create and.or craft their own beards.

Participants were allowed to print out their own photo after achieving their choice look.