About
The Pop Detective
Linlin Wills
Recently, I held a few in-house positions as VP of Marketing for start-ups such as IMshopping and Lifetrackers, where I spearheaded branding strategy and marketing plans that tied directly to funding, and melded the latest social media technologies with the power of “us connecting” to influence change and the “underground launch” that effects new product adoption. My new media clients also include Glam Media, FunMobility, and Olivia, where I cut new paths for online consumer acquisition and retention with viral campaigns and Web 2.0 social media marketing tactics.
Prior, I co-founded Sky InterMedia, a new media agency that won funding from the Singapore Government, and had previously held senior positions in Arthur Andersen and ADC Telecom. I have spoken publicly on entrepreneurship, and have published articles in INSEAD IQ.
I received an executive MBA from INSEAD, an MS in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona, and a BA from the University of Science & Technology of China.
What I Think
Social Media has proven its hip power in our time – precisely because it provides a new universe that lets individuals hang out, gain power, change reality, and in a way that makes redrawing the hierarchy of reality, building personal brands, and undermining institutions possible….
Marketers waiting in the Social Media sidelines risk being eschewed, ignored, and becoming irrelevant to consumers and the marketplace. And those who have already jumped onto the Social Media bandwagon might have encountered challenges like:
How to orchestrate social media efforts or link them to ROI?
How much is a Twitter message worth? How do consumer social media behaviors evolve? How do we monitor or measure them?
Social Media doesn’t have to be an adversarial, inefficient, utterly fragmented channel for marketers. Marketers and individuals can both strive symbiotically in these channels. However, simply setting up social media profiles in Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, or simply implementing the latest whiz-band social media wares in your website won’t cut it. Paradoxically, marketing has to return to the ancient skills — “It’s not about selling widgets, it’s about selling you the belief in a story about widgets.”
There are brilliant marketers who tell compelling stories in the traditional one-way media which, by peculiarities of our time, nothing seems further from hip than what was hip yesterday: the days of one-way story-telling seems more remote than the Concorde or even skinny ties. The POP Agency uniquely and passionately emphasizes on the art of crafting relevant “conversational marketing” that make your brand stand out the pack.
“Let’s give’em something to talk about.” From Bonnie Raitt’s Song
“Dullness won’t sell you your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance” Bill Bernbach
Today
The POP Agency is a “conversational, and socially-driven” marketing agency, offering tools and methodologies for building “symbiotic brand communities” where enthusiasts feel welcome and are delighted to channel their creativity in various symbiotic exchanges with the brand. The POP Agency delivers knowledge and expertise for implementing customer acquisition online and on-mobile, which involves brand enthusiasts or “brand ambassadors”, persuading general consumers to subscribe to the same point of view as theirs with both knowledge and emotion.
The promise of The POP Agency is to make your campaign, brand, business, or product POP out of the pack, so that people will talk about it. We develop purposeful, original, pithy campaign themes and architect conversations that make brand stories and selling appealing to your targeted grass root individuals. We have developed a step-by-step system that removes the mystery from this “art and science of intrigue”, and helps clients win buy-in from their target constituencies for products, brands, campaigns, and causes.
The science of marketing is also advancing and measurement systems are evolving. We offer analytical marketing strategy, process, and media-mix modeling, enabling you to optimize your marketing effectiveness. Our perspective is that marketing success is is a match of about 50% science and 50% social creativity in the most perfect rapport. The POP Agency holds itself responsible for improved accountability and is KPI and NPV literate.
Yesterday
We have been honing my social media and community skills since November 2002 when I co-founded Sky InterMedia, a technology-savvy creative agency specializing in “conversational marketing” strategy and solutions. Sky InterMedia was funded by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) in May 2003.
With a demonstrated edge as a flexible collaborator with clients, providing more and better data, and framing recommendations against clients’ corporate goals and strategies with clear metrics of success, Sky InterMedia attracted name-brand clients such as ESPN Star, MTV Asia, AXN, the Singapore Navy, EMI, Tiger Beer, and KIZZ-ME Beverage. Sky InterMedia achieved marketing ROI results for clients by inventing ideas out of thin air, poking holes in those ideas in order to separate the truly great from the merely new, discovering true and actionable consumer insights, executing the never-been-done, and cutting a new path for clients – not just simply meeting clients needs.
