According to global professional services recruiter Morgan McKinley, despite the economic slowdown in China, 2015 was a good year for sales and marketing professionals, especially digital marketers and e-commerce sales professionals.
Last year was one of mixed fortunes for professionals in Singapore, where choosing the right specialisation was important within most disciplines in its latest Salary Guide. Going forward, Morgan McKinley predicts that overall salaries of sales and marketing professionals will increase in 2016. Jobseekers with specialised skill sets in content marketing, analytics, customer insight, social media, performance marketing and e-commerce will command the largest increases.
Andrew Evans, COO Morgan McKinley South Asia said:“Jobseekers at early or mid-career level are strongly advised to think more in terms of career progression. We can confidently say that some specialist areas such as regulatory and compliance, and new skill sets such as digital marketing will remain good career choices for the foreseeable future. "
The market is also set to will shift further in favour of Singapore nationals as companies comply with the Ministry of Manpower’s Fair Consideration Framework - although it still remains an attractive destination for jobseekers with exceptional skill sets, especially at senior levels within multinational companies.
MEC has promoted Antony Yiu to head of digital for North Asia, and naming Siddharth Surana as head of digital for South and South East Asia.
The two will work on digital development across MEC’s clients in Asia Pacific and will also be responsible for both new business and MEC’s market development. They both report to Raj Gupta, chief strategy officer at MEC APAC.
Gupta commented: “This has meant an increasing focus on bringing more senior digital talent into MEC in the region.
"I believe that with Siddharth and Antony heading up this important area, we’ll be able to accelerate our current success and create even better results for our clients in the region in the future.”
You said: “MEC has a strong digital offer in the region, and I look forward to working with Siddharth to further cement our position here and keep our clients ahead of the digital and data transformation that continues to transform their businesses.”
Surana added: “Asia Pacific is an amazing market, a real growth engine for the global economy, and I’m excited about helping MEC thrive in the region.”
Gyro, a global ideas shop, has appointed Rayne Chow as president of its Singapore office.
Chow will look to elevate the agency’s growing stature in Asia. Chow joins the formidable team of executive creative director Manuel Camino, managing director Joanne Goh and head of strategy Abel Sim.
Prior to joining gyro, Chow held executive leadership roles at the top agencies in Asia, including managing director of Y&R Beijing, general manager of Publicis Beijing and management supervisor of BBDO & Proximity Hong Kong.
At Publicis, she was instrumental in winning Mercedes-Benz, BIC Lighters and Lucky Lotto. At BBDO & Proximity, she helped win Sony VAIO, Bank of China, Visa Commercial and Marco Polo Hotels Group.
Christoph Becker, CEO and CCO of gyro, said: “gyro Singapore is at a pivotal moment in its history. Chow’s leadership will propel gyro’s mission to create humanly relevant ideas to new heights in one of the most dynamic markets in the world. I know she will truly ignite something in Singapore and beyond.”
“In only a short period of time, gyro Singapore has quickly become a center of creative excellence in the region,” said Chow. “I am inspired by what they’ve done and I look forward to continuing this exciting journey alongside some of the most talented people in Singapore. Combine them with gyro’s powerful global UNO team, and we are poised to create some iconic, humanly relevant work for our valued client partners.”
MP & Silva, a leading international media rights company that owns, manages and distributes television and media has been appointed the global marketing rights partner of Garena.
Garena is Southeast Asia’s largest Internet and mobile platform company. The appointment will see MP & Silva work closely with Garena to secure brand partnerships, maximizing commercial opportunities in the Asia Pacific for three major electronic sports (eSports) properties.
The agreement is significant for MP & Silva as its first foray into the eSports scene. With a global audience reach of 256 million, eSports is an increasingly lucrative and booming industry with global revenues expecting to reach US$463 million in 2016 via advertising, sponsorship, media rights, merchandise & tickets and additional game publisher investment.
MP & Silva’s CEO, Marco Auletta said: “This announcement is a great milestone for MP & Silva and an emphatic deal for our growing sponsorship business, and I’m heartened by Garena’s confidence in our team to deliver results to continue growing the value of their properties. It is also a significant first step for us into eSports while underlining our leadership and vision in breaking into a new industry with such enormous potential.”
Garena’s Vice President of Group Game Operations, Jason Ng: “We are delighted to partner MP & Silva to help realise the full potential of eSports in the region.”
Rene Valencia, MP & Silva’s Global Head of Sponsorship: “We have been tracking the profile of eSports for some time, and from our market analysis we can see that the current eSports sponsorship revenues have not been realised to their full potential. Given the reach and scale of
eSports in Asia, and its ability to access the difficult-to-reach demographic of tech-savvy millennials
with above average disposable income, we believe we can help realise the commercial potential of Garena’s properties.”
OMG Thailand names head of fuse
He will be responsible for leading Fuse within OMD and PHD as well as strengthening the product through local initiatives. Read more here.
Havas appoints director of marcomms
The move follows the consolidation of marketing communications function in other key markets in Asia Pacific such as Australia, China, India and the Philippines. Read more here.
SPHMBO re-launches 313@somerset facade
SPHMBO, the Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising arm of Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH), has re-launched its 313@somerset facade advertising space with a brand new digital LED screen. Read more here.
Moove widens reach with jewel buses
After the success of its Jewel Taxis, Moove Media has now extended the same concept on SBS Transit single deck buses. Read more here.
King Content grows Asia office
"These new hires have more than doubled the size of our Asia offices in less than a year," said Peter Bakker, commercial director, Asia, King Content. Read more here.
Eleven Sports Network names Asia MD International media group Eleven Sports Network has hired Joyee Biswas as managing director for its Asia operations. Read more here.
OOH company JCDecaux will be revitalising Jewel Gateway advertising site at ION Orchard, with a back-lit lightbox amplifying visibility from all directions. Read more here.
Grey Group has acquired a majority stake in Vinyl-I Co, a creative digital agency based in Seoul, South Korea. Established in 2000, Vinyl-I Co has evolved from a web and UX design agency to a full service digital advertising agency. Read more here.
CSM names group MD Goldschmidt will join CSM in March 2016 from her role as chief commercial and marketing officer at the Rugby Football Union. Read more here.
Vserv names new VP of sales
Prior to joining Vserv, he led the retail, QSR and real estate verticals for Google India. Read more here.
Netball Singapore grabs attention outdoor
Mission Foods Nations Cup is an international netball competition that will be happening at the OCBC Arena, Singapore Sports Hub. Read more here.
Discovery rebrands Eurosport
Under Discovery, Eurosport has enjoyed a game-changing year with a landmark Olympic Games rights deal across Europe. Read more here.
NTUC FairPrice group CEO steps down
During his tenure, Tan focused NTUC FairPrice on its social mission of moderating the cost of living for daily essentials. Read more here.
Hootsuire hires SVP of global sales
Elliott will lead all aspects of Hootsuite’s global enterprise sales strategy and execution to fuel the company’s continued revenue and international growth. Read more here.
Jon Loke heads to Publicis Singapore
Jon Loke and Troy Lim are making a move to join Publicis Singapore as executive creative directors. Meanwhile Ajay Thrivikraman, chief creative officer for SEA, has been elevated to global client chief creative officer for APAC. Read more here.
SGK makes key appointments
Brad Wills, responsible for spearheading the APAC region and more recently leading both APAC and Europe, will relocate from Singapore. Read more here.
iClick appoints GM
Based in Singapore, Teoh focuses on the business expansion strategy of iClick in Southeast Asia. Read more here.
Twitter unveils redesigned Flight School
In addition to custom “Flight Paths,” Twitter will be launching advanced courses and content to increase participants’ Twitter product knowledge. Read more here.
Local restaurant ropes in KRDS Singapore
According to the agency, at the end of the two campaigns, the restaurant's Facebook page saw a 1,350% growth in fan base with over 30% organic followers added on the page. Read more here.
Foodpanda launches integrated marketing campaign
In its latest marketing push to increase the number of Foodpanda mobile application downloads, Foodpanda has launched its first TVC and a customer activation programme. Read more here.
ReFUEL4 adds Instagram to the mix
ReFUEL4, a crowdsource ad development platform that works on a pay-for-performance model, has added Instagram services to its offerings. Read more here.
GroupM launches apprenticeship programme
GroupM Singapore has launched its first apprenticeship programme, aimed at helping undergraduates understand the local and regional media landscape. Read more here.
Gillette aims to enter Singapore Book of Records
Gillette, the leader in global shave care, is aiming set a new record in the Singapore Book of Records for ‘Fastest e-commerce redemption and delivery of 200 products’ in the closest time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. Read more here.
Robinsons launches larger-than-life credit card
Robinsons Group has launched a 3D flagship on a bus shelter’s rooftop outside The Heeren. This is to promote Robinsons Group OCBC card’s which now provides rebates at 15 retail brands over 80 stores. Read more here.
CIMB Bank sponsors The Color Run For the third year running, The Color Run is back in Singapore with CIMB Bank as its presenting sponsor. The run will take place over the weekend of 22 and 23 August 2015 – the same month that the nation celebrates its 50th birthday. Read more here.
POAD Singapore to manage Tang Plaza’s OOH space
POAD Singapore and Tang Plaza are teaming up to offer outdoor advertising platforms at the iconic shopping destination on Orchard Road. Read more here.
AdNear hires GM for its Europe ops
AdNear, a mobile data intelligence platform in Japan & Asia Pacific, is expanding into Europe with the appointment of Ken Parnham, as the GM of its Europe operations. Read more here.
BlisMedia hires another Amobee founder
Ad tech company BlisMedia has appointed Ben Tatton-Brown as chief strategy and marketing officer. Read more here.
We Are Social appoints new Australia MD Global agency We Are Social has appointed advertising and media veteran Suzie Shaw to the role of managing director, Australia.Read more here.
This part of the world is undergoing extraordinary growth in the use of mobile devices. Emerging markets are seeing rapid take-up, helped by lower cost handsets. India, for example, added 13 million users in the third quarter of 2015 alone [i]. In established markets mobile providers are busy building 4G LTE networks that offer faster, more reliable data speeds. It will account for 80 percent of total mobile subscriptions in Singapore by 2018, 40 percent in the Philippines and close to a third in Malaysia and Thailand.
All in all, it points to a growing base of smartphone users, predicted by Ericsson to exceed 800 million subscribers across South East Asia and Oceania by 2021.
We’re also seeing users consuming more data than ever before. Half of all mobile broadband users in APAC have plans that exceed 2GB per month. As in other parts of the world these data allowances will continue to increase, freeing up users to spend more screen time on their mobile devices.
The only choice
There’s another significant trend. Mobile is outstripping fixed line subscriptions. In many cases subscribers are going straight to mobile broadband, having never had a fixed connection. Japan, for example, has four and a half times more mobile users than fixed line subscribers. In Australia, where fixed line penetration has been particularly high, the ACMA – the media and telecommunications regulator – found that last year 21 percent of adult Australians only accessed the internet on mobile devices[ii]. In many markets in APAC the ratio of mobile-only broadband users will be much higher.
So there’s an audience of millions that never switches on a PC or Mac. They can only be reached on their mobile devices. eMarketer [iii] is forecasting mobile ad spend in China will double to US$14 billion this year – 20 percent of the world total. That’s a huge slice of the market and watch as mobile progressively takes a bigger slice of the advertising pie in all countries in the region. For the ad industry it means you are dead in the water without a mobile strategy.
How do we react?
This rapid change creates a great opportunity for our industry, but there’s also every chance of getting it wrong. How we react this year is critical.
Key to this is tackling the scourge of ad blocking. PageFair’s 2015 Ad Blocking Report[iv] estimates that there are 198 million active ad blocker users in the world. It grew 41 percent last year and cost publishers nearly US$22 billion.
It sounds like a scary outcome. People are increasingly using mobiles, but they are also blocking ads. The worst outcome is that we have more mobile users but no way of reaching them.
Thankfully, there’s a solution. Tim Armstrong, AOL’s CEO, hit the nail on the head in a trade summit in the US last October[v]. He said, “Ad blocking is happening because people aren’t innovating on ad formats”. In other words, too many are taking creative devised for other formats and applying it to mobile.
That’s a bad approach because mobiles are personal devices – we see misplaced advertising as an intrusion in our lives. As an industry we have to be smarter about how we develop approaches suited to the medium, ensuring the creative is targeted at the right people and that delivery is optimised for screen format and consumer preferences.
Tim Armstrong made another key point last year. He said, “The consumer is 26 miles ahead”. It’s true. We’re an industry fighting to keep up. It’s why AOL acquired Millennial Media late last year – they are the world’s leading mobile marketplace, adding to the bag of tools that we make available to advertisers and publishers, including trading platforms, creative tools and data,
All these mechanisms need to be used together to keep up and be in sync with our audience. Otherwise people will continue to block and that could mean game over.
So, my prediction for 2016: it will be a lot like 2015, only much faster. The race is on to grasp the mobile opportunity but understand what will keep the audience tuned-in. And it’s going to happen quickly. Can you keep up?
The writer is AOL’s Asia managing director Alex Khan.
Ogilvy & Mather Sydney has hired Scott Lambert as group creative director.
Lambert joins the agency from Innocean Worldwide Australia, where he has spent the past five years producing world-class campaigns for Hyundai and Kia. Prior to joining Innocean as its inaugural CD, Lambert was the Creative Director of FCB Melbourne for nine years. He also spent nine years in Singapore honing his skills at both DDB and Batey Ads.
Ogilvy Sydney’s ECD Derek Green said of the hire: “We’ve been very considered in our approach to finding the right people that will complement and strengthen our creative team, and reinforce our position as a world-class outfit. Scott is one of those people that I believe will do just that."
Lambert will operate across all Ogilvy Sydney accounts, with a particular focus on working with KFC Creative Director Shaun Branagan as they take the ‘Life Should Always be Finger Lickin’ Good’ platform to the next level.
Ogilvy Sydney is part of Ogilvy Australia and STW, Australasia’s leading marketing content and communications group.
Omnicom Media Group Thailand has appointed Chokchai Na Ranong as head of fuse – its branded content, sponsorship and ideation unit that works with clients within the network and its brands, OMD and PHD.
In his new role, Na Ranong will be responsible for leading Fuse within OMD and PHD as well as strengthening the product through local initiatives.
Na Ranong joins Omnicom Media Group from GMM gGammy where he was the MD for branding of music label called Frontage. With a career spanning over 14+ years across marketing, branding, media, PR and events, Chokchai has worked on the client side with Toyota Thailand as well as with agencies. Chokchai is also well versed in the music, fashion and entertainment industry including celebrity management.
Sunee Paripunna, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Thailand said, “Thailand has a huge appetite for content across all forms, a driving factor behind its ever growing advertising and media industry. Client are seeking meaningful and entertaining content to tell their brand story. In this environment Na Ranongs appointment is timely and important as it will embed our Fuse offering within our brands, OMD and PHD as well as enhance our product leading to a stronger and integrated set of services for our clients.”
Anathea Ruys, head of Fuse, Omnicom Media Group, APAC, added: “Na Ranong is a wonderful addition to the Omnicom Media Group content community we are building across the APAC region. With his leadership, clients can be assured of content led activation and campaigns that tell brilliant and effective stories that connect deeply with consumers.”
Na Ranong reports to Sunee Paripunna and his position is effective immediately.
Gautam Dutt, former digital lead at Havas Media, has launched his own start-up called 'Oplifi'. Oplifi's founding members include co-founder Santosh Erra, who is also director and co-founder of digital agency Day Seven and Anup Kumar, partner, based in India.
Derived from a portmantheau of the words "open", "liquid" and "fit", the name Oplifi seeks to convey the accessibility and flexibility of the open platform. It aims to provide a platform for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to directly interact and track their online media campaigns.
"We want to open the field to existing models and provide SMEs with the accessibility that was once only available at network media agencies," founder and CEO, Dutt said.
With Oplifi's interface, businesses will be able to access various data management platforms and execute their media plan in a cost-efficient manner. Through programmatic technology, brands will be able to service campaigns remotely.
Dutt has 15 years of experience in the advertising and marketing industry across Asia Pacific. With work experience in both traditional and digital media, he has a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing digital media.
His last role was with Havas Media as the head of digital services for Singapore and Malaysia.
Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro), Malaysia’s leading integrated consumer media entertainment group, has secured the Premier League (EPL) broadcast rights in Malaysia for the next three seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.
Henry Tan, Chief Operating Officer of Astro said, “Astro has strengthened its position as the home of sports and the unrivalled choice for sports fans by winning the rights to all Premier League matches for the seasons from 2016-17 to 2018-19.”
Richard Scudamore, Executive Chairman of Premier League said, “We are very pleased that Astro has again chosen to invest in our broadcasting rights in Malaysia. The popularity of the Premier League continues to grow in Malaysia and Astro’s high quality production of our competition is a key reason for that. We look forward to continuing to work with Astro to make the best Premier League content available to our fans across the country.”
Open source solutions company Red Hat has appointed Hon-Loong Kok as the country manager of Malaysia.
In his new position, Kok will play a strategic role leading the team in Malaysia to find ways to drive sustainable growth, as well as establish stronger relationships with Malaysian enterprise customers and partners.
Kok brings more than two decades of experience in the ICT sector, having held key management roles at Andersen Consulting, Intel, Microsoft, EMC and most recently, Jardine OneSolution. Over his professional career, Kok has accumulated significant experience leading teams in achieving organizational objectives and implementing corresponding sales strategies.
Having started its Malaysia operations in 2006, Red Hat officially announced the opening of Red Hat Malaysia Sdn Bhd in Kuala Lumpur in July 2015 to further strengthen the company’s presence in the country.
Damien Wong, senior director and general manager, ASEAN, Red Hat said:
“Red Hat recognises the potential of the Asia Pacific region, and Malaysia is an important country for us. I expect HL’s understanding and experience in the Malaysian market, as well as his strategic business mindset, will be beneficial for the team. Under his leadership, I believe that Red Hat can scale to new heights in Malaysia.”
Rupa Rajamani (pictured), head of digital performance marketing and technology strategy, group brand & marketing, Standard Chartered Bank, has left the company.
She has joined Fonterra as general manager of consumer brand engagement in January, according to LinkedIn.
At Standard Chartered Bank, she held the global position of overseeing digital performance marketing and digital capability across paid, owned and earned media for all countries.
Rajamani has over 13 years’ experience in digital marketing in the banking sector. She first joined the bank in September 2012 as head, owned and earned media, digital, group brand and marketing where she served for two years before taking on the global role.
Before that, she managed product optimisation and performance at LendingTree . In February 2007, she was vice president, B2B marketing and digital channel usage at HSBC in Mumbai, India.
Prior to that, she handled the digital platform and managed product and performance marketing at Citibank in Chennai.
Fonterra could not comment on the development at the time of writing.
Lenovo has appointed Kenneth Low as its marketing lead for Southeast Asia.
Low, who is based in Malaysia, is tasked with driving Lenovo's brand growth across PC, mobile and enterprise business in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam. His scope includes driving social media and digital engagement, demand generation campaigns, PR and retail.
Prior to this, Low was Lenovo's marketing manager in Malaysia for three years, responsible for planning and delivering marketing strategies and aligning marketing to the overall business objectives and goals of the company. He was also tasked to drive operational marketing efficiency and worked closely with segment leads, channels and product teams in region.
Low has also worked in marketing and PR roles in HP and has held numerous agency roles in NagaDDB, Ogilvy & Mather Malaysia and Momentum McCann Malaysia.
He reports to Nick Reynolds, Asia Pacific CMO.
He takes on the role last held by Rivy Soh who was the head of marketing (SEA) at Lenovo for two years. Soh had been with the company for over four years.
Prior to head of marketing, she was marketing manager, consumer (ASEAN) for the brand. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also spearheaded numerous co-marketing partnerships aimed at increasing brand awareness and consideration. Under Soh’s leadership the company established the quarterly release of regional digital/social campaigns to aid countries with content generation and fan engagement. This helped Lenovo’s social media fan base grow from 130K to over two million.
Soh also worked in other marketing roles for Fraser & Neave Limited, F&N Coca Cola Singapore and Johnson & Johnson Singapore. Marketing has reached out to her for a comment on her next move.
Tencent Online Media Group ("OMG") has appointed PubMatic, the marketing automation software company, to identify and optimise global advertising revenue for the company's ad inventory outside China.
PubMatic will join a select group of marketing firms to help monetise Tencent OMG's online advertising inventory across its multiple platforms including QQ.com, v.QQ.com and Tencent video app outside of China.
In addition, the overseas mobile inventory of Tencent OMG will be added to the agency's mobile inventory to widen the reach for its roster of global advertisers.
"We are delighted to be working with Tencent OMG. This agreement validates PubMatic's significant investments in developing a best-in-class, end-to-end mobile solution that combines ad serving, yield management, work flow automation and real-time analytics." said Rajeev Goel, co-founder and CEO of PubMatic.
The global mobile advertising market currently stands at $72 billion, and is projected to grow to nearly $200 billion by 2019, according to eMarketer.
The Chinese internet giant has been actively working agencies over the past few month as part of a big monetisation strategy. In December, it announced it had partnered with both Group M and Dentsu Aegis on data-led partnerships to create smarter ad solutions for brands.
blueprint, the accelerator programme backed by Swire Properties, has announced a new batch of tech startups to join its programme.
The 10 successful tech startups and their B2B solutions span ranging from social shopping network, e-commerce analytic tool, to sourcing platform for the heavy industry and online library for architects and interior designers.
"The new batch of startups delivers solutions that are innovative in concept and help fill the gaps in the market. We are pleased to offer support leveraging our existing business resources for the gain of our startups, which also allows us to stay close to innovation and promote developments that could provide us with a competitive advantage in the future,” said Swire Properties’ director of offices, Don Taylor.
blueprint can be seen in the connections between startups and Swire Properties, who have adopted business solutions delivered by graduates of the programme. “We’ve seen everything from inspection management software introduced onto Swire Properties’ construction sites to a smart mirror display which will soon capture the imagination of diners at one of our restaurants,” added Taylor.
Each startup will enjoy six months of free workspace, mentorship support, connections to capital and market testing opportunities to elevate their business. Meanwhile, blueprint does not request equity in return for its assistance in a bid to distinguish itself from other incubator programmes in the region.
Those startups moved their businesses into blueprint's tech hub in Taikoo Place in late January.
A glimpse at the 10 new startups:
29th Century - Demystifying e-Commerce data by humanising insights
Archiparti - Home renovation, accelerated by technology
Blockdox - Enhancing building management with real-time data from IoT sensors and predictive AI
Clozetto - A women-centric social shopping network for Asia
Green City Solutions - A Germany-based biotech and IoT startup revitalising urban environments with smart plant units designed to absorb air pollution
Latticespace - An instant enterprise Intranet providing social network features to enable richer collaboration and communication
Steel Available - A smart sourcing platform for the heavy industry, matching buyers with the right manufacturers and available inventories
Swatchcloud - An online visual material library for architects and interior designers
Tingpark - Revolutionising car-parking facilities to improve efficiency and attract physical traffic
Trusu - Tools to digitise and simplify ongoing B2B buyer-supplier relationships
“It’s not new year if it’s not new”(唔新 又點算新年) – Levi’s CNY tag line this year is a somewhat strong and decisive message that delivers in a delightful and engaging way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWt0B_mRMk
The denim brand kicks off the CNY initiative, done by FCB, with an online video starring local actor Shawn Yue (余文樂) presenting six most commonly used CNY greetings in motions, such as rolling bowling to interpret wealth rolling (財源滾滾), and swinging high to illustrate smooth sailing (一帆風順).
The video is followed by a more engaging spin-off in collaboration with production house HELLO-AIR, with a digital generator called “Motion CNY Blessing” (動・揮春) on which players can create animated fai chun by uploading a short clip to match with selected CNY greetings.
Spanning digital, social media, in-mall marketing and magazine collaboration, the campaign will run until mid February and the game will last until 14 February.
Credit
Client: Levi’s Hong Kong
Creative: FCB and HELLO-AIR
Media: OMD Hong Kong
Lufthansa German Airlines has teamed up with WE China for a Chinese New Year digital campaign which allows consumers to create customised e-greeting cards on the airline’s official WeChat account.
Consumers can choose from two standard default versions or change the background of any of the six customisable templates to add their own background photos and words.
By redesigning the traditional look of Chinese paper cutting and leveraging a lively monkey in different poses, the campaign creative is untraditional, fun, and premium in design, which allows the consumer’s greeting card to stand out from others.
“WE created this campaign based on an unmet need. Consumers have to send many different Spring Festival greetings to family and friends, but it takes too much time and skill to make the greetings look impressive. People realise that the lazy way is to copy other people’s greetings and paste to resend, but they feel it’s insincere. We understand that it’s easier for people to take photos than write creative copy, so we leverage this in our campaign idea.” said WE marketing group’s managing director Kenny Wong.
“Lufthansa wants to help Chinese consumers celebrate this very special occasion and we know that China is the most mobile savvy market. So, we offer a high quality and simple to use tool for consumers to send a large variety of creative greetings with just a few simple taps on their mobile device.” Michael Knapp, Lufthansa’s senior manager of marketing and product said.
An online video that was meant to satirically address the housing problem in Hong Kong maybe a perfect demo to mock the stereotyped patterns of property ads in Hong Kong.
The 30-second online video, created by production house Paper Scissors Stone, is a fake commercial promoting a fake new real estate interestingly named “Idiot Ville” (巧．岸居).
It flows deceptively like most of the luxury real estate ads in Hong Kong that show almost nothing about the apartment interior, but sumptuous lobbies, glittering jewellery and exaggerated ocean views.
Eva Chow, account executive at Paper Scissors Stone, told Marketing the parody commercial is meant to humorously respond to the land issues addressed by the Hong Kong government.
“We believe the Hong Kong land issues remain unsolved due, in a big part, to the rapid growth of luxury real estate encouraged by the government in recent years.”
The clip is from the firm’s latest pop-up project shown to visitors at its Fo Tan studio during the “Fotanian Open Studios” event, displaying a fake demonstration (是彈單位) unit based on a concept of “homeless”.
Not only does the work make a sarcastic comment on the housing problem, it also reflects a sad fact there’s a never-changing mechanistic model in local real estate commercials that have lasted for a decade, literally.
Metro Town 都會駅 (2005)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GLe9XSscE
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Established last year by a team of three partners, Paper Scissors Stone has no experience in creating property ads for clients.
A lot of research has been done to make the fake ad appear as real as possible, said Paper Scissors Stone graphic designer Shan Chow, who adds it’s not hard to find a template or pattern in local property ads to follow.
The property and real estate industry spent HK$162.4 million in advertising last year as of October 2015, a 3% drop compared with the same period a year ago.
In 2016, the Chinese New Year (also called the Lunar New Year) falls on Monday, February 8 and ushers in the year of the Fire Monkey, said to bring strength and determination.
In order to advertise to travellers interested in planning a trip over the Lunar New Year, you’re going to need a similar strength and determination in your marketing plans—along with a pinch of big data. To that end, we here at Sojern analysed more than a billion traveller intent data points and pulled out the five things marketers need to know about Chinese New Year travellers, as well as ways to turn those data points into lessons learned for next year:
Understand your travellers’ intentions
A key to running any sophisticated digital travel campaign is understanding the intentions of your travellers - specifically where and when they want to travel, how they will travel, and what they would like to do after arriving at a destination.
Once you understand this, it’s crucial to use it. Understanding how travel intent differs by market is important, and for Chinese New Year it’s even more so as differences in traveller behaviour is accentuated during this period.
Further, if you can’t identify the tensions of your audience, you’re pretty much running blind because you run the risk of talking to a large number of people about travel services and products that aren’t relevant to them. With travellers intentions guiding when you talk to them and about what, you can ensure you’re providing relevant and valuable advertising.
For example, through travel intent data, we can identify that the top destination for Hong Kong travellers over Chinese New Year is Singapore.
While this knowledge alone is particularly powerful, what is even more so is then selecting to talk only to those Hong Kong travellers who are showing interest, if your product revolves around Singapore. If you have a product that is relevant to Taiwan or Japan, then you can reach out and advertise to those who are showing interest there, rather than to Singapore.
Timing is everything: Uncover when travel intent begins
Talk to your prospective travellers when they start looking for your product is key. In our Q3 2015 Global Insights Report, we examined traveller intent for the Lunar New Year.
Looking at the main countries observing the holiday combined, 7% of bookings and 17% of research were already made by October 2015. Further, Taiwan has been well ahead of travel planning with 12% of flights booked and 40% of research completed by the same time.
Data such as this reveals the importance of knowing and speaking to travellers in each origin market differently, and at different times. For instance, targeting Taiwanese travellers at the same time with the same information as others in the region will always be too late for one group and too soon for the other.
Know the top destinations
The top destinations for travellers from countries that observe the Lunar New Year are Japan, Thailand, and China. We also analysed the top destinations for seven Asia Pacific countries and found everyone’s prefered New Year spot.
But, what conclusions can be drawn from this data and how can it transform your marketing campaign? For one, in general, around Lunar New Year, travellers from Asia Pacific prefer regional destinations. Combine this data with specific regional information for deeper insights—for instance, a lot of Singaporeans travel to Malaysia immediately after the first day of the New Year to visit extended family.
Knowing that visiting family around the region drives travel behaviour forms an important insight to drive an effective campaign.
Determine the duration of stay
Travellers are looking to really extend their Lunar New Year trips.
For example, on February 5 almost 80% of travellers are looking to plan a 4-10 day trip. Quick, 0-1 day trips, aren’t quite as popular at the same time, falling below 10% of queries.The extended duration is probably connected to the fact that the holiday falls on a Monday and, therefore, travellers are looking to take an extended weekend.
Knowing that travellers are looking for longer trips, means creating marketing campaigns that do the same. It also means that these bookings should be of higher value and an opportunity to take advantage of. Finally, it’s important to start looking ahead and plan accordingly—2017’s Lunar New Year falls on a Saturday. The timing of longer trips will differ from what we see this year. like we’re seeing this year, might not be the next trend, so neither would marketing campaigns supporting them.
Not all trips are created equal: Understand why people are traveling
Pulling all of this data and local knowledge together can produce some interesting and useful insights, such as why people are traveling.For example: These aren’t business travellers. Since most countries that observe the Lunar New Year have public holidays celebrating it, most people looking for travel over this weekend are not doing so for business purposes.
Campaigns, deals, and other marketing materials should not, then, have the business traveller as the target during this time period.
Many travel to see their families. As mentioned, the Lunar New Year is a family holiday, and given the history of Asia-Pacific, people are likely to have family all over. Using this information to produce campaigns targeted to specific regions and with unique family-oriented angles can be highly effective.
Some people are just trying to get away. While there are many for whom the Lunar New Year is a big family holiday, for others it’s not and is rather an opportunity to get away on a vacation thanks to the long weekend.
Travellers, then, will be looking to avoid big, loud celebrations (like those in Hong Kong), preferring the tranquility of Japan, for instance. Consider campaigns that inspire quiet wanderlust for the non-celebrators.
Smart marketers not only know their markets, but also treat them as unique and distinct groups, collecting whatever data they can—from email lists, and Facebook groups to programmatic travel platforms. Most importantly is the collection of travel intent data.
But, working with media partners to access the data is only the first step of the process. That data needs to serve as a catalyst for action, otherwise you’ll be constantly plagued with the question, “So what?”
So, get ready for the productivity that’s supposed to come with the year of the Rooster in 2017. This means not only collecting the necessary travel intent data to create effective campaigns, but transforming it into smart, targeted campaigns where you’re always talking to the right travellers, at the right time, with the right message.
The article is written by Stewart Hunter, director for Sojern Asia Pacific.
It’s the start of the long Chinese New Year weekend and excitement is already in the air. In the run up to the festival, brands need to find out what the trending topics are and join in the online conversation.
Apart from being a time of celebration with family and friends, it is also a time where brands leverage shifting consumer consumption patterns to speak to their local target audience. Outbrain, has found that while food is commonly regarded as a cultural bond amongst Singaporeans, content on local initiatives and happenings have gained more traction this Lunar New Year.
This is of particular interest, challenging the conjecture that Singaporeans are most heavily-engaged with food-related content.
Take a look at which areas Singaporeans are most interested in:
When measured by platform, Outbrain’s data showed peak content consumption on mobile compared to desktop and tablet devices – by a two-fold surpass.
This effect mirrors global data, which found that mobile internet usage has skyrocketed over the past years to assume the position as the most used digital platform.
Interesting, relevant stories are a critical element of any content marketing strategy, but an equally vital component lies in marketers’ understanding of what, when, and how consumers receive and consume content.
Hence brands must familiarise themselves with these content consumption trends or fail to keep their brand at the top of Singaporeans’ minds.
