What I’m Doing Now Archive: August 2017

It’s been an action packed couple of months since I got back from a podcast production trip to Sri Lanka in June! Here’s what I’ve been up to:

 

 

Tanya Warnakulasuriya and I have created 9 episodes of our first podcast together, A Life Less Ordinary. The first episode comes out on September 1.

 

 

We hope these conversations inspire, provoke, and educate listeners both in the countries they were produced in and abroad. Season 1 runs from September 1 to October 30, and made in Sri Lanka. We intend to produce Season 2 early next year, and will reveal where soon ?

What started out as a few words on a Post-It Note at a strategy meeting in 2014 with digital agency Bonsey Jaden and client Cetaphil in Singapore turned into The Cetaphil Experience, an experimental campaign where we brought 14 digital influencers from 5 countries to a lush resort in the Philippines for a 4-day skincare retreat. We filmed the retreat, turning the footage into webisodes. With over 1.5 million views across South-East Asia, Cetaphil gave Bonsey Jaden the go-ahead to do another edition the following year.

In 2016, we invited 24 influencers from 6 countries to Bali for the second edition of the Cetaphil Experience. The video content we created was viewed over 4 million times and the digital campaign even secured Bonsey Jaden a PR award in Singapore for best use of influencers.

This year, we’re going for it again! Cetaphil Experience 2017 will take place in early September with 20 influencers from 7 countries! My co-producer Adam and I did a location recce a couple of weeks ago in Khao Lak, Thailand, where the skincare retreat will take place. In just under two weeks, I’ll be back in Thailand with a team of over 25 people from Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, and Hong Kong to produce the best Cetaphil Experience to date. 

It’s easy to let go of projects that take a long time to create with no financial reward when you’ve got bills to pay! I’ve been relentless in committing to the second draft of my book, which is progressing slowly but surely. I write for at least 4 hours a week, and currently close to finishing the first of twenty two chapters. A well-read, articulate and thoughtful friend is acting as my real-time editor, who gets to read each scene as it is completed. We meet regularly to scrutinise every word, and despite the initial ego-bashings, these meetings are invaluable in maintaining momentum in the project.

I met Adam Moorhead, my co-producer on the Cetaphil Experience 2017, on the set of Asia’s Got Talent Season 1 in Malaysia, where he was neck-deep in talent scouting responsibilities for the biggest talent show in the world. We are now creative and business partners, combining his film/tv experience with my marketing experience to create a production house. We intend  to craft commercial projects like Cetaphil Experience as well as documentaries, films, podcasts, and TV shows. More news on the company next month.