Eugene Cheong allies with Blak Labs to launch his own agency e
The multi-award-winning Singaporean creative director Eugene Cheong is launching his own agency, simply named e.
After spending most of his career at Ogilvy Asia, and rising to Regional Chief Creative Officer, Cheong says he sees more strategic opportunities in the smaller, nimbler agency model.
His new agency will ally with creative independent, Blak Labs, which will provide creative, tech, media and production firepower.
“In the last 18 months, I’ve worked with the likes of Gut Brazil and Blak Labs and it’s plain as day that smaller, creative-led agencies move 10 times faster and make work 10 times fresher than big networks,” explains Cheong.
“Our first client, for example, came to us out of sheer desperation. Their large retainer agency took three weeks and multiple attempts to produce a banner campaign. We got it out in a day and a half.”
“Advertising folks are world champion talkers, but they are somewhat lacking in the Dept. of Doing,” Cheong observes. “That’s why, I love my buddies at Blak Labs. They’re not talkers, they’re doers. They are creative painkillers. That’s also why clients love them and keep telling their friends about them.”
e is already working on projects for Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, Singapore National Eye Centre, Natura Malaysia plus several other blue-chip clients.
Under Cheong’s leadership, Ogilvy Asia Pacific was crowned ‘Creative Network of the Year’ in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 by Campaign Brief Asia. In 2018, he capped his tenure as CCO by winning the Cannes Lion Regional Network of the Year.
“Eugene is one of the founding fathers of advertising in Singapore. He has more creativity in his pinky than most creative departments combined. Blak Labs’ alliance with e is win-win for both agencies,” adds Charlie Blower, Managing Partner of Blak Labs.
Cheong has big ambitions for little e. “We want to be the brand famous for making brands famous. We want to do work that weakens the knee, boggles the mind and sells a shedload of stuff,” Cheong remarks.
“The peeps at Blak Labs will help me transmute the great ideas and grand plans in my head and my gut into films, posts, websites, billboards, banners, strategies and world-class content. It’s good to have good friends.”
To learn more about e, visit etheagency.com or feel free to write eugene@etheagency.com or call +65 9755 8292.
(Pictured L to R) Nick Tan, Elsa Peck, Justin Lim, Koh Hwee Peng, Eugene Cheong and Charlie Blower.
14 Comments
Mr Cheong often said that the only way to ensure creative quality was for agencies to place their logo on all ads they do, not just the occasional good ones.
Wise words.
Can’t wait to see what ads their ‘e’ logo will appear in.
Good luck!
They look like they’re going to drop a sick album!
How all the ex-Network agency types suddenly find fault in the system that served them so well for so long, and often made them very rich. It’s like they all repeat the same soundbites when launching their small, nimble, there’s a better way, we just want to make stuff, start-up agency.
Couldn’t agree more. Redact their history instead of just owning up
It always start of that way. A David versus Goliath vendetta, small against big agencies being nimble and all that….. The day when someone silly enough to come in to acquire these “indie” agencies….. they change tune by saying it’s better for the client with a broader outreach…. sigh.
Love how they are rocking this “I’ve got no direction in life and I’m a disgruntled Creative” look. So cool.
And don’t forget to scowl and wear black…
Well done Eugene.
Those Blak Labs guys have done well.
Good luck to all of you.
Eugene and Andy Greenaway were a great combination and had great success in the late 90s.
Eugene and Andy Greenaway were a great combination and had great success till late 2010. Then CFOs took over the industry.
I believe he is correct in stating he is indeed responsible for the state Ogilvy Singapore is in today. However, chewing off the very hand that fed you for so many years is a little vindictive. In his words, he helped build Ogilvy for over three decades, okay. Now the same agency and its ancient processes now reek of sloth and greed. Too much to bear? Perhaps. But makes a lot of us think, has this man been systematically unfair to us stupid Ogilvy clients for three decades? Regardless, if I am to understand this correctly, I can now get studio services from black labs making html banners in three days. But nice of his ex-staffers to enthusiastically support the old lad. They all look very pleased about it (See picture above.).
You have to marvel at the doublespeak. When Ogilvy was sending some of these people
to Cannes for their annual trips, the agency could do no wrong. Now that it’s back to
the grindstone, dealing with real briefs, suddenly doing a banner is the noblest job in the
world.
This is just an example of freelancers working out of an office.
When I left my big corner office in 1998 to start a small, creatively led agency, I said exactly the same thing as Eugene. You know, the guys who own the agency will also do the work. And then we grew big and Omnicom bought us out and I ended up in a corner office in a big agency open plan office. Trouble is, when you’ve been with a big behemoth like ogilvy for so long, it does kinda sound phony when you come out and bite the hand that fed you for so many decades…what happened to “unique” Eugene? You sound just like every other big agency guy who started a new agency with nothing other than “small is better”, which in itself, is small thinking. But, hey man, good luck.
Now is the time to see whether a paper general used to commanding creative battalions can eke out victories as a nimble creative commando.
We wait news of your future business and creatives wins.
May there be many.