K3 Singapore expands with the appointment of Nicholas Leong as creative partner

K3, the boutique agency Singapore founded by veteran adman Goh Wee Kim, has appointed Nicholas Leong as Creative Partner. The copy-based creative joins K3 with effect from 1 March, after departing Dentsu Singapore, where he served as Creative Director.

While having won many creative awards over the course of his 20-year long career, Leong (pictured left) has earned a reputation for creativity that sells hard. During his two tenures at Dentsu, he was responsible for numerous sales spiking campaigns for Canon, Toyota and Kao, many of which were seen throughout South East Asia. At M&C Saatchi, where he honed his copywriting craft working on the agency’s blue-chip accounts BMW and British Airways, he created ‘Be Somewhere Else Today’ for Zuji, a landmark campaign that helped transformed the then unknown travel portal into a household name.

In addition to creative roles, Leong has held management positions. As the Head of Business who pitched, won and negotiated the $700,000 Resorts World Sentosa business for local agency Group 8, Leong worked directly with clients in every aspect of operation, a responsibility he is highly familiar with having started his career in account management over two decades ago.

“Nicholas is a heavyweight all-rounder. He’s a big hitter without the big ego. And that’s the kind of talent that differentiates us,” remarked Wee Kim. “At K3 we want to give clients the kind of strategic and business experience they normally get from big agencies–all these plus an agency that can move and react faster. An agency that favours a collaborative approach, whose only priority is to do what is best for the clients. The past 8 months has seen a lot of growth and support from K3’s newly acquired clientele. We want to continue to deliver the strategic thinking and creative work that we promised from day one. Bringing Nicholas on-board truly underscores our commitment to deliver just that. As we grow, we will continue bringing on-board talents that support this core value.”

At K3, Leong will work closely with Wee Kim to spearhead strategic and conceptual output and manage client-agency interactions, from advertising to digital engagement.

Commenting on his new role at K3, Leong said, “Wee Kim and I have a lot of in common. We both came from big agencies, and we have an intimate understanding of the problems that prevent agencies from doing their best for their clients. With K3 we have an amazing opportunity to get things right. We want to run an agency with good business ethics, and we want to be known for providing real, tangible value to our clients.”