Digital happenings this week from Yahoo, The Economist, Tribal DDB and more

Tribal DDB is understood to have appointed Patrick Rona as the new president of Asia, taking the place of Amanda King who steps down from the post in March 2012. Rona has more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing and joined the agency from Ogilvyone in February 2010 where he worked as global digital partner running the Unilever digital marketing account.

The Digital Media Awards 2011 jury list was revealed with 60 judges from the client and agency side with Mat Zucker, chief creative officer of OgilvyOne Worldwide, as chair. As chairman, Zucker will mediate and step in for judges when there are potential conflicts of interest during the jury process.

The AsiaD conference, which explores the influencers and innovations shaping the digital revolution and will be held in October in Hong Kong, has added eight speakers to its line-up. New speakers include Kazuo Hirai of Sony Corporation; Bradley Horowitz of Google+; Andy Lees of Microsoft; Peter Chernin of The Chernin Group; John Roese of Huawei; Brian Chesky of Airbnb; Sukhinder Singh Cassidy of Joyus; and Dave Goldberg of SurveyMonkey.

MPG Media Contacts won DBS Cards' social media business after a pitch. The agency adds the social media duties to its DBS Cards portfolio in addition to the media planning and buying it already handles, along with the digital media duties assigned to Media Contacts.

Louis Vuitton and Chanel emerged as the most talked about luxury brands in Chinese online forums and microblogs (Weibo) respectively, according to GroupM research and online tracking company CIC. On Weibo, Chanel received close to 600,000 mentions between January and May, while Burberry was the most engaging luxury brand, generating 43,000 re-tweets and 5,320 comments over the same period.

Vocanic Malaysia appointed Karen Koay as country head and will report to Ian McKee, CEO of Vocanic. In her new role, Koay will be responsible for the delivery of digital strategies and projects to clients and further develop the agency's business and operations of the local office.

The Economist appointed Stephanie Bouvard as digital sales manager for its Asia-Pacific team. She joins the publishing company after a stint with Starcom Singapore as the regional account lead and head of integrated media strategy for Samsung.

Yahoo has forged a regional content partnership with PropertyGuru to deliver property-related content to users across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. PropertyGuru will deliver market intelligence, real estate news, mortgage guides on Yahoo to help users in the four markets with their property decisions. 

Enovate released a study showing that a majority of young Chinese are choosing mobile devices over computers and looking for a better connection between the online and offline worlds. The 2011 Digital Lifestyles Report also found that youth did not want to be tied to their computers and urged marketers to focus on bridging the online and offline worlds, rather than concentrating too much on digital.

Mosaic MediaHouse plans to operate 27 QR Boards at shopping mall 313@somerset located in restrooms, lift lobbies and standing areas this month. The screen will broadcast sustainability messages to the mall’s increasingly environmentally-aware youth, in line with its commitment to sustainability.

AdLux, an independent search marketing network, announced record growth in advertising for the second quarter of 2011. It had great success particularly in Asia, driving quality website traffic and conversions for advertisers. 

Isobar was appointed the digital agency of record for Kellogg’s in the Asia-Pacfic region. This marks the first time that Kellogg’s has consolidated its digital account with one agency in Asia-Pacific as it previously has worked with different agencies per market.

WE Digital was selected for a social media project for Danish food brand Kjeldsens Butter Cookies in China. The agency has set up a Weibo account to build up its client’s fan base in order to launch more Weibo-focused social media campaigns. 

Iconmobile Asia managing director Kartik Ram left the firm for personal reasons, just one week after his appointment was announced.

Digital online marketing company Aquarius Asia opened a new office in Shanghai, its third one after Hong Kong and Munich. The office will be headed by its chairman Marc Finsterlin, and its purpose is to enable clients to access the fastest growing consumer market in the world.

Content distribution company Dubsat opened the doors to its Perth office and appointed Sue Johnson as senior account manager for Western Australia. Dubsat was founded in 2000 as Australia’s first digital delivery method for TV commercials.

Fully-integrated digital agency Netbooster Asia appointed Dino Ocampo as its new ECD, taking the place of Dino Cabrera who moved to Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide Manila. He joins the agency from Ogilvyone where he worked as creative director.