Memories of the Advertising Business

SP Toh, founder of SP&V Advertising, who opened his first office in the Mandarin Hotel in 1975. He remembers his acceptance as a Trainee Account Executive (AE) with Cathay Advertising Limited heralded his entry into the advertising industry.

Earl Carter who now lived in New York, contributed this article title “Advertising in Singapore: It’s not what I thought.”

Jayne Kwek is currently the CEO of Moove Media, the advertising arm and part of the Comfort Delgo Group. Advertising is in her blood – her mother was a pioneer in bus advertising and her brother heads a successful ad agency group.

Born in a peranakan family, Laura Tan saw the poverty and suffering of World War 2 which made her decide to better herself by proving that nothing is impossible. She is a pioneer in bus advertising and worked her way to be a founder of 3 Aces Advertising in Singapore in the early 70s.

Three decades of Singapore advertising wrapped up in five paragraphs by one of the pioneer women practitioners, Linda Lock

Shakib (Gerry) Gunn joined C.F. Young Publicity in 1955 and stayed with the same shop for 13 years. Youngs was one of the first half dozen ad agencies in Singapore. Its successor is now Leo Burnett. Shakib retired, still continuing to do “creative stuff”, fly kites and give his support to the Vegetarian Society of Singapore. He died in 2009.

John Archer is the Regional Creative Director of Bates/141 Indochina, based in Singapore. From 1978 to 1983, he was the Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather, Singapore. He passed away on 14th October 2010 in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).

Bill Gartshore is the owner of one of the few independent local advertising agencies, Gartshore & Associates. which is located in Beach Road. He was formerly an account director at Batey Advertising and partner in Gartshore, Kerr & Lim.

Eddie Chan is a former CEO of Meridien Advertising, AdMan and MDA/Mojo, past President of 4As and former ‘Advertising Man of the Year’.

Mike Ellery is sadly no longer with us. He died soon after retiring to England. In earlier days, he was a well-known broadcaster and his voice was still heard on the radio from time to time right up to comparatively recent times. He ran CueVision, a video production house for many years.